Tim Parsons
Projects ................................. Sand Lathe Southbank Ceramics Mirror Clock Pewter Picnic-ware Half Pint Glass Pewter Drip-Casting Pewter Film Pewter Dip-Casting Umbrella Tees Picture Frame Box Turned Candle Jewellery Exhibition Wicker Products Pasta Fork Brushanger Office Privacy Music Stand Products Half Pint Mug 50 Hangers Book	Exhibitions ................................. ADHOCISM Thinking:Objects at Aram Design Mart Time:Frame FAB Paris Selfridges Designers Block Industry of One RCA Graduation	Writing ................................. Blog: Object Thinking ................................. Books: Thinking : Objects Phaidon Classics ................................. Articles: London Design Guide Tati and the Wingnut Ironic Design Open Source Design Italian Furniture Decade of Droog Conran Collection Milan Satellite Good Company Vitra Workshop Drawing Ready-Mades	Teaching ................................. Lecturing: Chicago London Manchester ................................. Workshops: France Poland Italy	Information ................................. Contact Biography Interview Links

Elevating the Ordinary - The Motivation Behind Designing with Ready-Mades What follows is the abstract for a dissertation completed as part of the MA Design Products course in 1999. The full text is roughly 12,000 words in length and can be requested by e-mailing t.parsons@camberwell.arts.ac.uk.		There is an undercurrent in design being generated by practitioners who believe the genre has the power to stir us from our unthinking acceptance of corporate controlled consumer culture; who believe design has the power to encourage consideration of our role as consumers - to shift aspirations from the search for unattainable luxury towards enjoyment of the riches that already surround us. By including the ordinary and everyday in their design these protagonists give unusual importance to their subject matter, often creating intrigue in the mind of the viewer. We are prompted to ask: Why are they elevating the ordinary? The ready-made has become the tool of choice for many designers who believe design has to make a more concerted effort to comment on our social and cultural zeitgeist. The dissertation asks what the motivation behind the use of ready-mades in design is and why, as we face the beginning of a new millennium, has work of this kind resurfaced. By calling upon Walter Benjamin’s description of the aura of objects and Marcel Duchamp’s perception of The Creative Act the essay proposes that: “A ready-made is a component knowingly selected to contribute significantly to the aura of the whole of which it becomes a part, lending the resulting object a certain charm, character or personality expressing meaning” and “The ready-made, as a device that requires reinterpreting in its new context as a piece of design, engages the consumer in the creative act by forcing this reinterpretation.” Motivational factors are described under the following headings: Environmental Responsibility, Product Fetishism, Moderating Modernism, Independence and Control, Sobriety and Modesty, and Other Contemporary Influences. The essay aims to arm the casual reader with a wider knowledge of products that incorporate ready-mades, illustrate to the designer the advantages and disadvantages of designing with them and help us all understand the confusion that we have in gauging the value of such products.