Re-Interpreting Minimalism

Oftentimes, Minimalism is tied to a way of life, whereby the individual opts for a lifestyle that removes the excess. These excesses include objects that are commonly associated with “clustering” one’s household, as well as one’s psyche. Minimalism in its most general form is a “Zen” like way of life, such that the individual lives in the “present” moment. While Minimalism in this ethical sense is generally accepted, Minimalism is also pretty well known in the field of design. One of the champions of the modern minimalist design is Hara Kenya, the designer behind the company MUJI. MUJI is rather odd, as the company sells items ranging from clothing to household appliances, all under the company philosophy of “Mu, Ji”, or “No Brand, Quality goods”. As the name suggests, the goods sold by MUJI are devoid of any graphic design, flashy colors, and labels; such that the items sold by MUJI are purely made for their respective function, devoid of the excesses. Aside from this ideology of minimal products, Kenya describes that MUJI is “Nothing, Yet everything”, as the minimal pragmatic object can be interpreted and adapted in a variety of ways that is suitable to the consumer. Additionally, the philosophy behind MUJI can be clarified a bit more in the following excerpt from Kenya’s book “Designing Design”.

“The essence of fashion is drama, the excitement of happenings and incidents. Fashion Throbs with breathtaking energy, the shock of the new bringing a hole into convention, or of a cutting-edge object breaking up the aesthetics of every day. MUJI does not feed upon this kind of eventfulness. Our aim is to restrain emotion and carefully weave the fruits of human intelligence into products that could be found anywhere: products of exceeding normality that do not belong on either end of any scale. In copywriters, we look for the ability to “kill poetry.” they can’t express MUJI poetically. They can’t over-utilize words that stir up people’s emotions. Text appropriate to MUJI does nothing but give a clear and neutral account of the facts.”

- An Excerpt from Kenya’s book “Designing Design”

While this excerpt clears up the Minimalist design as a broad philosophy and helps explain some of the advertising elements of MUJI, I believe Kenya’s description of Minimalism can be reinterpreted in a pseudo semiotic perspective. Accordingly, I will be reinterpreting Kenya’s excerpt above through Jean Baudrillard’s (a french social theorist’s) early work “The System of Objects”. But before comparing and contrasting a design philosophy with a cultural theory, I will first lay the groundwork of a few concepts that I believe Kenya and Baudrillard share, and that would be Ambivalence, Nondescript, and Reduction

Laying the Ground Work

The Excessive Object: Ambivalence

“The state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone” - Oxford Dictionary

In the first two sentences of the excerpt (colored in red), Kenya provides a very interesting observation of the “excessive” object, which is the “fashionable” object. According to Kenya, Fashion thrives on emotions, in essence, thriving on drama and the am-bivalency that it imposes onto the perceiver. Such that a Christmas sweater fashioned in strong red and green colors, along with a Santa Clause emblem gives rise to subjective and dramatized feelings across individuals. Loosely speaking, the excessiveness of the sweater that gives rise to drama, is the excess of signs that adorn the sweater. The colors Red and Green can be seen as excessive signs that signify the festive ambiance of Christmas, and the emblem of Santa Claus himself is symbolic of Christmas in its entirety. As such, when a consumer perceives the sweater adorned with “excessive” Christmas signs, it ultimately appeals to a select group of individuals that have a favorable view of Christmas, and more importantly Christmas sweaters.

Nothing Yet Everything: the Nondescript

“Lacking distinctive or interesting features or characteristics” - Oxford Dictionary

Contrary to the am-bivalency in fashion, Kenya in the following two sentences (colored in blue) outlines the importance of a minimal and Nondescript object that does not thrive on the am-bivalency of drama. In the case of MUJI, a Nondescript Christmas sweater would purely be a solid-colored sweater that only serves the function of keeping the individual clothed and protected from the cold. In this manner, the Nondescript object is devoid of signs and its signified messages. Consequently, the nondescript and minimal sweater “does not belong on either end of any scale”, as the consumer purchasing the sweater is not psychologically polarized towards a “Loving the sweater” or “Hating the Sweater”.

To Kill Poetry: Reduction

“The action or fact of making a specified thing smaller or less in amount, degree, or size”

- Oxford Dictionary

In emphasizing the minimalist ideology behind the nondescript object, Kenya posits a need to “Kill Poetry” within MUJI writers. By killing poetry, Kenya emphasizes the need to “reduce” the excessive signs and emotionally communicative phrases, style, and other literary devices used in poetic writing. Such that by reducing and killing the excess of signs, only the pure nondescript language in its propositional and linguistic forms remain. And in the case of the Christmas sweater, reduction entails the need to kill the excessive Christmas signs that adorn the sweater. Killing the significations that the Santa clause emblem and Christmas colors poetically communicate to the perceiver.

MUJI X Baudrillard

Baudrillard’s Symbolic Order and The Excessive Object

As established above, the nondescript and minimal object is what MUJI seeks after, whereas the excessive object is one that is ambivalent as it invigorates the individual’s emotions. In a similar analysis of the Excessive Object, Baudrillard provides an interesting account of the semiotically excessive object in his probe of the traditional bourgeois household. In the System of Objects, Baudrillard provides that the traditional bourgeois interior is reflective of the patriarchal structure of its historical period. Suggesting that the furnitures, floor-plan, and objects in the bourgeois era household are all part of an expressive patriarchal “Symbolic Order”. The symbolic order used by Baudrillard here is in reference to Lacanian psycho-analysis, such that the excessive objects in the traditional household semiotically convey the accepted social, cultural, and economic norms. Likewise, the traditional “marriage bed is only available to couples who have symbolically exchanged rings in a marriage ceremony, there is little freedom of choice concerning such ritual, the form is prescribed and the ‘individual’ must follow” (Against Banality, William Pawlett).

The semiotically excessive bed in this case signifies the normative ritual practice of marriage within the traditional order. Consequently, the excessive object in the symbolic order is ambivalent in the regards that there is “little freedom of choice concerning such ritual”, as one cannot elect to interpret the marriage bed in some fashion aside from the hetero norm of marriage, much less view the bed aside from its symbol of marriage.

Similarly, another example of an “symbolically” excessive object in the traditional sphere would be the classic elongated dining table. The seating arrangement of the traditional elongated table is deeply rooted in the patriarchal ritual and power relations, whereby the husbands and wives are separated to either side, and the host and hostess are seated at the ends. Reflecting this expressive freudian phallic order, the objects and furnitures in the traditional bourgeois interior are excessive due to semiotically signifying a heavily ambivalent and steadfast message deeply rooted in the symbolic order. Hence Baudrillard describes the traditional bourgeois interior in the symbolic order as emphasizing “unifunctionality, immovability, imposing presence and hierarchical labelling” (System of Objects).

The Excessive object = Nondescript Obj (+) Signs

Baudrillard’s “Functional Sign System” and the Minimal Object

While the excessive object can be likened to Baudrillard’s bourgeois interior and the symbolic order, the nondescript object on the other hand can be likened to Baudrillard’s analysis of the modern interior. It is worth noting that the modern interior in case of “the System of Objects” is in reference to the modern consumerist culture of the mid to late twentieth century. Whereby the objects in the “modern” interior are mostly objects that can be compared to as the minimalist objects and furnitures of Ikea.

These objects of the modern household are explained to be “Nondescript” of symbolic values and “lived relations” of the old traditional objects. In this manner the Nondescript objects in the sign system is reduced to only its pure function. Where the traditional bed, decorated with culturally reinforced signs symbolic of marriage (Traditional bed frame, sheets, blankets, dark wooden form, etc) are completely removed, leaving the bed in its pure functional form. Thus as Baudrillard states, the function of the object “is no longer obscured by the moral theatricality of the old furniture; it is emancipated now from ritual, from ceremonial, from the entire ideology which used to make our surroundings into an opaque mirror of a reified human structure.” (System of Objects).

Accordingly, the nondescript bed, at this reduced stage, is devoid of signs and susceptive of all the signs that an individual provides. Thus this is the Minimal objective design that MUJI describes, a minimal design that allows the consumer to provide their own significations unto their purely functional object.

The Minimal object = Nondescript Obj

The Minimal Object’s Transcendence from Labels.

In the case of MUJI’s minimal object, it is interesting to note the minimal product’s transcendence from labels. The minimal object being discussed here would be MUJI’s clothing line, and the Labels are in reference to various forms of cultural identity (Race, gender, age, class, ethnicity, etc). Below is an image of MUJI’s unisex clothing, and to the right of it is a stereotyped image of the traditional clothing. From an observational standpoint, the Nondescript clothing is loose fitting and drapes over the figures of the individual, such that the form of the body is disguised underneath the clothing. By having a set of clothes that simply keep the individual clothed with a loose fitting form, the signifiers of an individual’s gender is hidden and nonexistent. As such, the traditional clothing is rooted in the gendered differences between man and woman, and the identity of the individual is reflected unto the traditional dress. Specifically the fact that the two traditional clothes differ from each other greatly, thus dialectically emphasizing a difference between the genders.

Likewise, the traditional clothing in its excessive form is far removed from the purpose of clothing the individual, it not only serves as a differentiation between genders, but also a differentiation of social status and cultural identity. The social status of the excessive image is likely to be of the higher class and is reflected in the ornate designs and colors of the traditional clothing. The cultural identity on the other hand is reflected in the clothing’s western bourgeois style. Contrary to the excessive clothing, the minimal clothing seen in MUJI does not point or signify a specific social class, as the symbolic order is dissolved in contemporary times.

While the status and the gender of the clothing may be dissolved, it is arguable that the identity of the Minimal clothing still remain, the identity being that of a “minimalist”, or a “MUJI” consumer. Accordingly, It is interesting to note that while the Minimalist clothing seeks to remove the identity from being signified, it is still signifying an identity of a minimalist nonetheless. This contradiction, I believe, can be best understood by recognizing the advertised image that MUJI provides the to the public. Such that the identity of the minimal clothing points towards the brand MUJI.

In this similar manner (whereby the company prescribes an identity to the clothing), the same holds true for all companies and individuals in the modern sphere. As the modern age is beyond the old symbolic order. Put differently, there is no overarching and authoritative social order by which all individuals in the modern world obey and identify with (Religion, patriarchy, etc). Rather, identity in the modern times can be freely adjusted by the free will of the individual. But, it is important to note that one’s identity is susceptible to trends and what the system of consumed minimal objects prescribe to us. Thus as we shall see in the latter portion of the essay, I will be examining this claim (observed by Baudrillard) with some modern examples.

The Downsides of Minimalism

The Minimal Object Examined

In the System of Objects, Baudrillard posits that the symbolic object is reflective of “lived human conditions”, and the “modular” sign system of minimal objects is not reflective of human lived relations, as the system of minimal objects are defined by their function in relation to other minimal objects, such that it is far removed from the human psyche. Thus as Baudrillard describes, the minimal (MUJI) object is “liberated in its function”, or liberated from the human’s social order, as it now can operate independent of the human’s lived relationships. This may be an abstract idea, but the point Baudrillard makes is that the traditional object is secondary to the human, as the human is represented and projected in the object. However, the minimal object that is devoid of symbolic meaning or projection, and functions only within a system of minimal objects leaving the object separate from the individual. As a result of the minimal object being liberated, Baudrillard states, “Now, just so long as the object is liberated only in its function, man equally is liberated only as user of that object.” (The System of Objects).

In other words, the minimal object in its function without lived relations now has the ability to “enslave” the individual to be the “user”. Hence as we will later see in the case of MUJI and Apple, these two companies and their commercially minimal products have the power to operate separate from the “human” condition, and these functional minimal objects operate as a system that enslaves the consumer to be an “user” of the minimal object.

The Commercial Minimal Object, MUJI

While the symbolic object is rooted in “Lived relations” with the social order, the minimal object is rooted in its functional status among other minimal objects. Thus Baudrillard labels this “functional” co-dependence among minimal objects as “modular components”, whereby the individual has the freedom to modularly adorn his household with minimal objects that are all part of a “functional” system, replacing the old patriarchal order.

Likewise, it is established that both MUJI and Baudrillard provide a similar account of the minimal object being liberated from the restrictions of the symbolic order, and are also objects that are susceptible to the individual’s signification, there is, however, a major difference between MUJI and Baudrillard. The difference would be their interpretation of how the minimal product is further prescribed meaning.

MUJI on one hand leaves the minimal object open to the individual, but Baudrillard posits that the freedom to the consumer provided by these minimal objects is “formal, not actual” (Against Banality, William Pawlett). Meaning that the consumer’s ability to prescribe meaning to the minimal object may be free from a symbolic/social order, but that freedom is only provided under a “system of objects”. A system of objects being that each individual nondescript object is “serially produced”, such that the consumer purchases a set of minimal objects under the prescribed signified meaning and function - a meaning provided by the company that sold the Minimal Objects.

In the case of MUJI (the picture above), the minimal objects may be nondescript, but the functional value of each individual equipment are also pre-packaged for the consumer. Each individual cleaning device is removed to further nondescript functions. A flooring mop is (ironically) further reduced to a “Cleaning System Aluminum Pole” (MUJI Product) and a “Cleaning System Flooring Mop” (MUJI Product), pre-packaging a system of assigned semiotic meaning and functional usage to the consumer. Pre-packaged as in that the individual when purchasing a single floor mop from MUJI, will opt to complete his/her household of “minimal products” with a complete system/set of MUJI cleaning products and gadgets. In this manner, the system of signs produced by MUJI is essentially a coercive form of advertising as the consumer of the minimal product will be “enslaved” to be the user of more modular MUJI products. Hence, MUJI may offer the individual to be “formally free” from social norms and values (by removing all the signs from their products) and the freedom to ascribe their own significations, but it comes at the cost of being not “actually free” from the system of signs and objects created by MUJI.

The Commercial Minimal Object, Apple

In this “sign value system”, another example of a system of minimal objects can be seen with the tech giant apple. When the iPhone 7 dropped way back in September of 2016, the product shocked many apple users, as the new iPhone 7 has completely removed the headphone jack. However, a couple of months later, the first generation of the wireless apple AirPods were dropped. In this manner, the newer iPhones no longer supported wired earbuds, unless an adapter - whose minimal function is to adapt the headphone jack to the lightning port - is purchased. By removing the headphone jack, apple paved way for a newer functioning wireless earbud, and is a perfect scenario of what Baudrillard described as the “Obsolescence of function.” where “In this situation an existing product becomes outmoded when a product is introduced that performs the function better.” (System of Objects).

Aside from the seemingly “forced” way of introducing the wireless earbud for the apple user to constantly consumer, apple at the same time (with the drop of the 1st generation AirPods) effectively launched a trend of the True Wireless Stereo category. The TWS was the trending stereo and audio product of the newer decade, and many companies followed suit as well, effectively phasing in the newer product to be serialized, and phasing out the old wired headphones. In this manner, the system of minimal objects, and the sign system effectively manipulated the individual to have the ability to freely choose their products, but at the cost of a semiotically manipulated freedom provided by these giants themselves. In other words, you are free to choose what you purchase, but regardless of what you purchase you are participating and continuously coded by the trends pushed by the companies. Hence Baudrillard describes this modern capitalist phenomena as the “obsolescence of desirability”. Where “In this situation a product that is still sound in terms of quality or performance becomes ‘worn out’ in our minds because a styling or other change makes it seem less desirable.” (The System of Objects).

The Postmodern Condition, Baudrillard and McLuhan

The individual that lived in the traditional period - in a strict Baudrillardian sense - did not have the freedom to alter his social identity, as his identity is strictly rooted in the social order of his time. The individual living in the Postmodern and consumerist period experiences a trouble in individuating him or herself to a strict or singular identity, as the identity of the individual can be altered and coded by the system of objects provided by large companies. Additionally, the identity of the consumer can be altered immediately simply by participating in purchasing, and consuming products. As such, this semiotic approach that Baudrillard provides, describes the postmodern condition in a similar light to that of Marshall McLuhan’s lecture on the Acoustic man. Below is the quote from McLuhan on the Acoustic man.

Role-playing is a very different thing from goal-seeking, and in the electric time we are moving very much in that direction. The reason that most of you in this room find it difficult to imagine a goal in life is simply that you’re living in an electric world where everything happens at once. It’s hard to have a fixed point of view in a world where everything is happening simultaneously. It is hard to have an objective in a world that is changing faster than you can imagine the objective being fulfilled.

- Quote from Marshall McLuhan, "Living in an Acoustic World"

In this quote, McLuhan is providing a comparison between the visual man (traditional man of the Gutenberg era) versus that of the acoustic man (modern man in the electric age of the 60s and later). McLuhan provides that the modern man is “Role Playing”, and I believe this is most accurate with Baudrillard’s analysis on how the modern man in the system of signs, has the ability to go from one identity to another, previously barred in the symbolic order. Otherwise, the individual is capable of role playing identities, which is greatly different from the strictly symbolic identity of the visual man that is incapable of "role playing". Additionally, the last sentence from McLuhan - in my opinion - perfectly describes the subtly oppressive power that the sign value system has on the individual, and that would be the constant change in trends that the sign system imposes unto the consumer, and consumer’s inability to catch up. Such that the electric world in McLuhan's case is often described as discontinuous, all at once, and Acoustic; and - in my opinion - these characteristics are reminiscent and of how Baudrillard's sign value system operates. Consequently, it is interesting to note that both Baudrillard and McLuhan - from differing perspectives - arrive at a similar analysis of the modern period that is emblematic of Nietzsche’s famous phrase: God is dead, and God remains dead, and we have killed him.