Artifacts, Artifictions: Material Narratives in Design

Matter is plastic. It assumes form yet remains mutable, yielding to external forces. Events impact and disrupt its structure. Processes degrade and erode its surfaces. A physicality accumulates, evidence of its lived experience. This paper presents material narratives and discusses how they contribute to design.The paper begins by considering the human object and its materiality, viewing its corporeality through the lens of clinical medicine. It then considers designed objects and the narratives of lived experience they record in their materials. To define and demonstrate the concept of material narratives, the paper relates an enactment in which accumulated histories are recorded in the wooden form of a small wheel. The object passes through a series of owners and is impacted and marked by the ways it is used. Its resulting physicality is evidence of its experience.The paper next considers the intentional inclusion of material narratives in designed objects. It presents a project that introduces organic processes of erosion and deterioration to design production. It considers the narratives that result in the products and how these narratives contribute to the design communication.The paper finally looks at physical making and the utilization of primitive tools and mechanical production methods to introduce material narratives to designed objects. It acknowledges the inevitable inconsistency and fallibility of human making and that human factors–divided attention, unsteadiness of hand and mood, and vagaries of planning and preparation–affect handling of materials. It discusses the destruction inherent in mechanical production and how this impacts materials. To illustrate, it presents two design projects. The first uses the pinhole camera to introduce narratives of accident and chaos to photographs documenting a deteriorating lighthouse. The second uses the letterpress to introduce narratives of accident and chaos to a run of posters commemorating cicada replication. The results of both projects demonstrate a physicality that communicates narratives of impermanence, fragility and imminent loss. Imperfect, they speak to our own materiality, prompting universal recognition and understanding.