Object-Oriented Identity: Cultural Belongings from Our Recent Past is a catalogue-as-investigation that reframes everyday consumer objects as the primary agents shaping — and reshaping — individual and collective identity in a culture of hyper-consumption.
About This Book
What do the objects we own say about who we are — and who we are becoming? Designer and researcher Zsofia Kollar approaches this question not through polemic but through close, curious attention to the material world. Constructed as a personal catalogue, Object-Oriented Identity traces the strange, often unsettling connections between consumer objects, cultural history, and selfhood. Kollar argues that objects are no longer merely tools but extensions of the body and mind — instruments that shape us as much as we shape them. For designers, researchers, and anyone alert to the politics of consumption, this is a rare work that sits at the intersection of material culture, design theory, and social critique. Second revised edition, limited to 1,500 copies.
Key Features
- 216 pages of catalogue-format visual and textual investigation into objects, consumption, and identity
- Texts by Zsofia Kollar; design by Lien Van Leemput for 6m56s
- Published by Art Paper Editions, ISBN 9789464770872
What You'll Discover
- How everyday objects have shifted from tools of use to extensions of selfhood — physical and psychological prosthetics in a product-oriented society
- The odd, often overlooked connections between material objects and historical and cultural meaning, examined through a cross-disciplinary lens
- How consumer identity is constructed — and manipulated — by the objects we choose, accumulate, and discard
- A critical framework for understanding hyper-change and the accelerating pace at which objects transform human behaviour and social norms
About the Author
Zsofia Kollar is a designer and researcher whose practice resists easy categorisation. Her work investigates the relationship between objects and their contexts, blurring the boundary between fiction and lived reality through a cross-disciplinary approach. An inherent strangeness — what she describes as uncanniness — runs through her practice, which exposes the hidden lives of existing materials while speculating on future and fictional behaviours.
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 216
- Dimensions: 15 × 20 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9789464770872
- Publisher: Art Paper Editions
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Designers, cultural theorists, and researchers interested in material culture, consumption studies, and the relationship between objects and identity.