#5 The Dictatorship of the Consumption

2003

Shopaholic. Not really a disease, but almost. According to the most reliable theory of “compulsive shopping disorder”, i.e. the wild urge to shop, this condition is caused by some kind of mental impairment, emotional decompensation or social-cultural discomfort. This typically female syndrome is affecting men too and it is spreading all over the United States. Europe is also talking about it and yet, don’t we all gladly indulge in common shopping to make up for stress-generating moments or situations without, for that matter, feeling as if we were affected by some disease?
Well, just like with any other kind of reasoning, one c... Read More

Amedei is the courage to pursue a dream. It is a new generation of chocolate producers with the know-how that was passed down from a family who processes confectionery raw materials, with a dream that was inherited from grandmother Amedei, a Tuscany-born woman who was fond of cooking, flavours and taste. “I can resist everything except temptat...

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Does the architect respond to the client or to himself? Every architect necessarily responds to himself. The architecture he expresses is the fruit of his values and sensitivity, the fruit of a personal quest, therefore. In a way, it is the transposition of his way of being. It is not a matter of following fashions or styles. It means translating...

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Is there any correspondence between the pseudo needs of a consumer and a visitor's needs? Visitors do not have pseudo needs but rather unexpressed or repressed needs, if any; on the contrary, consumers almost always have needs that are falsely generated by the external impulses of the economic and social context. To the world of consumption, visi...

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Swarovski, 14,000 employees, revenue 1.67 billion euro, but also 800 events organised every year in Italy alone. Not only an economic organism, but also a conveyor of culture. How does it feel today to be defined as a multinational company? Proud or flattered? Uneasy. In any case, it’s a word that has been outdated by what is now called globa...

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Artemide and Moroso, two companies confirming the contemporary relation between man, design and habitat. Why are consumers attracted by your products, what do they base their purchasing choice on? Carlotta de Bevilacqua Gismondi: Light today is conceived as something that is fundamental to improve and personalise environmental qualities in ever...

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Casole d´Elsa, summer 2001, Surasi Kusolwong organises a stall market. The people know that there, for one thousand liras, the equivalent of half a euro today, they can buy all sorts of things they do not need: a pink plastic colander, a pair of Chinese slippers, stools, nor, later, would he have deemed it worthy to enlarge coffee cups, had he not...

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“My wardrobes are packed, I don’t know where to keep my clothes anymore; and yet, I still feel as if I have nothing to wear.” I’ve happened to hear people saying this sentence or something very similar to it. It can be understood in different ways: “I have a lot and it’s still not enough” or “I don’t have the right clothes to wea...

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Images

  • Marta Tolomelli

    CONSUMPTION DICTATORSHIP. Being able to freely buy anything might seem very democratic; feeling that we are all alike, as if part of the assembly chain of taste and appearance.

  • Lucia Prandi

    CONSUME/RISK? Consumption in the risk society. Commodities change their shapes and contents according to the target. But generating needs within the consumer makes him/her psychologically mouldable like a child.

  • Sebastiano Gazzato

    GO WEST. Commodity is the imaginary line guiding our gaze to that of the objects watching us.

  • Luca Saggioro

    CHAIR+VASE. IKEA Still-life.

  • Luca Saggioro

    DETAIL. Object Jam.

  • Viviana Milan

    ALICE’S SHOES. Travelling through a black hole chasing a centre of light: a passage way from the visible to the invisible.

  • Viviana Milan

    CARROUSEL. Conflicts are the result of unsolved dreams: consumption dictatorship is a target.

  • Alessandro Coco

    HAPPY BIRTHDAY. A close-up look at products and emotions. Rejects of consumption and emotions.

  • Lucia Prandi

    DEL RETTANGOLO. The histrionic power of television: it is the title on the page of the open newspaper. A printed photograph showing the rectangle-screen of a videotape and a girl watching.

  • Viviana Milan

    CIRCUS. Our conservation or our fall depend on a hand-to-hand fight between us and the object. The extreme possibility, cherishing a balance point in the void, as a meeting point between the risk of falling and the possibility of crossing.

  • Marcela Cernadas

    EL COMENSAL. Inspired by Heart of Darkness by J. Conrad Satiate yourself mouth from the ivory goblet Conceal yourself mouth in the lush bloody jungle Cry out your justice mouth in the terrible green half-light Forget my irresistible mouth For it will always want to devour you. Consumption dictatorship legitimises dissipation.

  • Marcela Cernadas

    EL COMENSAL. Inspired by Heart of Darkness by J. Conrad Satiate yourself mouth from the ivory goblet Conceal yourself mouth in the lush bloody jungle Cry out your justice mouth in the terrible green half-light Forget my irresistible mouth For it will always want to devour you. Consumption dictatorship legitimises dissipation.

  • Andrea Mattiello

    MOVED. Being determined? Or determining the reality around us? By satisfying the optimal intersection between the curves of supply and demand, the society of consumption cannot give way to the diversities generated by each individual’s uniqueness.

  • Marcela Cernadas

    EL ABRAZO DE LA SIRENA. Ancient blue strewn with erotic love is the colour of your foamy hair and emerald green are your scales dazzling my myth-consumed eyes You languish me in an embrace that fails to satisfy my Hunger and relentless resumes your song shrill noise of bitten flesh.

  • Luca Saggioro

    PRESS.