The Ecstasy Of Things

by Seelig, Thomas

• ISBN13: 9783865210852
• ISBN10: 3865210856
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-04-01
• Publisher: Distributed Art Pub Inc

Summary

The twentieth century was--among all else--a century of things. From the handmade object to the mass produced, these things that once served a purpose soon became harbingers of beauty, modernity and innovation. Beyond the material, these objects have stimulated fantasies that convey an image about a time and a place, so that now even an everyday telephone or radio that has long been discontinued can experience a rebirth as a cult object only to be purchased for lofty sums of money at an auction. The Ecstasy of Thingsillustrates how product photography reflects the world of things as captured in varying lights for designers, manufacturers and advertising agencies. Collected here are nearly 500 photographs--many of which were unearthed from company and agency archives worldwide on behalf of the Fotomuseum Winterthur and the Swiss Photography Foundation. This book most impressively demonstrates how the emotional and symbolic content of an object was represented through the changing tastes and aesthetics throughout the twentieth century. At the same time, the collection is a wealth of forms, a colorful compendium of design and a photographic history of the past century as illustrated through our possessions.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. 6
The photographic life of things	p. 10
Form and material	p. 16
On the poetics of things in modernity	p. 42
Sample and sort : on the photographic idea of things in the 19th century	p. 48
Patent inventions	p. 56
Craftsmanship and mass production	p. 66
Convincing rather than persuading on the relationship between object photography and product design	p. 88
"Good form"	p. 96
From window display to shopping mall : the rhetoric of selling	p. 100
Objective photography in Switzerland 1930-1950	p. 118
Packaging : the second skin	p. 126
Perfume and prostheses - the body reified	p. 158
Found objects, staging, effects reflections on object photography	p. 174
Light and speed	p. 180
The wired world - communication and entertainment	p. 186
On the fascination of things	p. 202
Faster! : better! : mobility and freedom	p. 206
Insert	p. 230
Glass camouflage photography, objects and objectivity	p. 262
The making of ...	p. 268
Object photography : status, approach, presentation, image	p. 274
Order in the office : touch-typing and stereotyping	p. 280
Home : furnishing an identity	p. 292
From things to flows	p. 322
Childhood dreams	p. 328
Sports equipment	p. 336
Culture and contingency	p. 346
Symbol and fetish - the thing and I	p. 352
Decay and disintegration	p. 382
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