From Imitation to Invention
sustainabilityIt's interesting to read some of the history of manufacturing, consumption and industrialisation, and how it relates to modern practices and attitudes to imitation, innovation, product quality and global markets. Manufacturing has always taken inspiration from existing products, often exotic imports which were replicated with varying levels of integrity, gradually adapted with various changes and improvements (whether in the product or the manufacturing process), and ultimately with the development of new, previously unseen products. Nothing was invented in a vacuum then, and nothing is now.
These ideas reminded me of the collection of videos in Everything is a Remix, which recognises the many ways in which the modern arts of music and video production (and everything else) are constantly borrowing, stealing and re-using existing media to create new things, sometimes better (or more successful) than their constituent parts and influences. The modern ideas of intellectual property seem determined to shut some of these expressions of creativity down, but perhaps the most astute creators recognise that a remix is, with the exception perhaps of deprecating parodies (which are in some cases protected by law) a kind of endorsement or promotion— the kind of interactive behaviour that can be leveraged to their own advantage.
One of the Maxine Berg's intriguing observations in looking at the history of industrialisation is of the role that aesthetics has played throughout this process, with many developments being driven by taste rather than function or industrial processes:
Perceived from evolutionary economics, aesthetics becomes a selection criterion, more significant for some commodities than the durability, functionality, simplicity of production, portability, price, or other criteria which might determine selection of other types of goods (Berg p12).
Although this is referring to products developing over 200 years ago, the same can be seen today in companies such as the ubiquitous Apple, which, although favouring practicality and function highly, can also attribute some of their success to their insistence that their products look good, stripping unnecessary stickers and other unsightly distractions, and refining the curves and sheen of their handful of products, both in software and hardware, long before any of their competitors seemed to be paying any attention to such details.
It also highlights the importance of aesthetics in sustainable design. To be successful, sustainability doesn't just need good marketing, it also needs to produce alternatives (where product substitution is needed rather than product retirement) that are beautiful, sexy, and appeal to people's senses. Hessian, brown recycled paper, distressed timber and other rustic styles may have appeal to a certain demographic— and perhaps it can be said that the hipster movement (if you can call it a movement) are taking up some of the charge in this regard— but there will always be some demand for things that are sleek, shiny and otherwise emotionally appealing, even to those who abhor the aesthetics of the rustic and the shabby chic. If those demands, and those human desires, cannot be marketed away with brilliant marketing (a mean task in itself), people will continue to pursue them, and the market will provide them. Whether the market provides sustainable alternatives, either through broad market changes, environmental/social regulation, or competition from aesthetically equal yet sustainable products, I guess is up to us.
This article is a response to Maxine Berg's 'From Imitation to Invention'.
Maxine Berg, "From Imitation to Invention: creating commodities in eighteenth-century Britain", Economic History Review ns, 55,1 (2002), pp. 1-30.