This thesis project by Nicola Waugh is a great precedent for me in the domain of nostalgia + objects:
Embodied Artifacts: Memory, Nostalgia and Mid-Century Objects from Nicola Waugh on Vimeo.
Notes:
- post-war technology was about optimism; about bettering the American experience
- grandma’s kitchen = comfortable space
- imagined memories vs. lived memories
- high-quality products vs. cheap objects that are less permanent and become = waste (Ikea)
- “timelessness”?
- kitch
- hipsters
- everything in life is sped up, working over time, complicated
- buy old stuff as a way of simplifying, a way of putting on the breaks
- reaction against fast/cheap/easy culture
- “we didn’t live through that time so we can romanticize it”
- old objects as a time machine?
- This gets me thinking about:
- What are the actual things from my past and how are the different than the vintage things I’ve collected? Will they become just as valuable/interesting/nostalgic in the future
- We’re chasing 2 utopias simultaneously: one in the past and one in the future