OBJECTS AS DISGUISED DESIRES

Baudrillard in For a Critique of the Political Economy of Sign considers consumption as an investigation of the shifting status of the object concerning the concept of needs. The use-value of the object is irreplaceable as it is related with the object’s functionality. On the other hand, the sign-value of the object as being in relation with prestige and comfort makes the object interchangeable. “The need is never the need for a particular object, but it is the need for difference (the desire for a social meaning)”. Therefore, the illusion what the consumer has is the motor of consumption and the ultimate aim to satisfy the desire is to gain the object. However, as the object is interchangeable with any other object, it is impossible to satisfy such a desire.

According the Girard, desire, as we used to assume, can not be portrayed by a linear line which joins the subject and the object. It is rather a triangle which possesses a third element besides the subject and the object, the mediator. “Unlike from the linear line which indicates “the nature of the object inspiring” or if the inspiration is not enough “the impassioned subject”, the triangle of desire claims that “mediator is there, above that line radiating towards both the subject and the object.” That means the subject desires the object because another body, the mediator, desires it. Therefore, the object is only a means which occupies a space for the subject to approach the mediator and the desire is aimed at the mediator’s being.

The aim of this paper is to analyze designer’s contribution to disguised production of desire under the mask of objects. Therefore, design is not only a process of form-giving but also a production of desires that are embedded inside the designed object.

Keywords: Desire, Mimetic Triangle, Interchangeable.

Baudrillard, J., 1981. For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign. NY: Telos Pres.
Girard, R., 1976. Deceit, Desire and The Novel, (trans. Yvonne Freccero), The Johns Hopkins University Press, London.