Working Paper No. 06/2009
UCL Anthropology
Working Papers Series
Department of
Anthropology
University College London
14 Taviton Street,
London
WC1H 0BW, U.K.
ISSN
1759-6688
Editorial Board: Sara Randall, Martin
Holbraad
Working Paper No. 06/2009
Published online
November 27, 2009
© Copyright rests with the authors
MATERIALS MATTER: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY OF
MATERIALS LIBRARIES
SARAH
WILKES
Dissertation submitted in 2008 for the MA Material and Visual Culture
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ABSTRACT
In this paper I
propose that materials have been historically marginalised within social theory,
art and science. I suggest that, since the nineteenth century, there has been a
renewed interest in the social efficacy and value of materials as a result of
the perception that materials are becoming more functional, autonomous and
person-like, and the belief in their potential to effect social change for
better or worse. I propose that materials libraries can be seen as a symptom of
this concern, a means by which to determine the social value of materials, and a
way to control their development.
I examine and evaluate two competing
methodologies that exist for determining the social value of materials: one
intuitive, experiential and performative, and the other "rational", analytical,
and quantitative (Ashby and Johnson 2002:49). I also investigate the hypothesis
that there are two different kinds of knowledge about materials: that of artists
and scientists. I explore how materials libraries disseminate specialist
knowledge in the face of a perceived divide between the arts and sciences, and
the role of the arts community in controlling what are perceived as the unruly
and asocial technological developments of an isolated materials science
community. I propose that restricting access to materials through patents and
corporate secrecy increases their value, but hinders the transfer of knowledge
about them in an attempt to control increasingly autonomous materials.
