THE SIMILAR AND THE DIFFERENT

The most striking logic of industry can be resumed in the principle of series. Small, medium or large, the repetition of sameness produces economies of scale and permits industry to continue within the strict laws of profitability which are its own, thus guaranteeing its existence and survival.

Over several decades, the logic of the corporation, based on costs, has revealed itself under two aspects.

On the one hand, the cost of production, on the other, the cost of advertising to allow the product to exist, or rather to promote the product to the gratest number.

Little by little, however, corporations which are the most sensitive to changes in society, have begun to perceive the necessity of product identity. And gradually, the product itself has embodied its own communication. It has become charged with meaning, with signs, with personality, the contrary of the pure theory of functionalism, but not neglecting the function. Along with the need to offer objects which tell a story, differences must be stressed.

Today, state-of-the-art industries no longer reason in terms of one market but of several markets, regrouping variable cultural identities.

THE INNOVATIVE PRODUCT AND THE STAR PRODUCT

To conceive of this product with a difference, industrial executives consult designers-creators who accept a part of the risk and do not conceive of the object only in a dialetic of function and esthetics. They also add an ethical conception, of art put to use, and of usage considered as an art.

Then the eternal question of time enters in.

To what point is an innovative product acceptable to a market even when it seeks to renew it ?
Certainly, form and appearance are not the only issue ; there is also function and the concept of the object, its usage and its image, a play of mirrors between the individual and an object which responds to a demand, or reveals it, or even invents it.

At this interface between the known and the new, the past and the future, the program and the project, the work of the designers begins.

THE IRRATIONAL AND THE PROFITABLE

Creation contains its necessary share of the irrational. No matter how they work, designers, architects and creators all speak of the moment of intuition which no thought, no theory can circumscribe. The most rational process, the most structured and the most conscious of constraints passes through this phase which cannot be objective but which precisely defines the creators, his capacity to crystalize all the givens into a personal alchemy unlike anything before. This mingling of mystery, of langage and of emotion, is at the opposite end of standardization. Yet, no matter how diverse and intelligent, the industrial approach involves standardization, which is inherent to it.

The dialogue between industrialists and creators thus results from a paradox which the product incarnates and transcends when it reaches its goal. How do these protagonists, both opposite and inseparable, confront one another, stand up to one another, and eventually come to terms with one another in order to create a product ?

By means of a dialogue, perhaps closest to that which this book demonstrates. Relationship : the nine industrialists and the nine creators relate their visions and define their roles, each one offering a different viewpoint. What then follows is the story of a product developped in common. Between this dialogue, questions remain, areas to explore, meaningful or empty, both the magic and the real, a space for reflection, and a reality which concerns the economy as a whole and the environment.
The stakes are real.

THE STAKES

For the industrialist, profitability today comes up against challenges which are not only those posed by the consumer alone. Profitability requires new attitudes.

Thus, at the end of the 20th century, one must ask : will consumption achieve the utopia of modernists, the union of beauty and utility, the passage from multiplicity of objects and from over-consumption, to the intrinsic quality of multi-purpose objects ?

At the same time, the cultural role of industry becomes clearer. Industry will shape the immadiate and future environment. Stimulated by a sense of utility, production becomes a discussion about the real, and about the culture of the present on the move. Yet, products thus fashioned by the artisan, then manufactured and finally mass-produced, must assure continuity, the marriage of tradition with modernity.

For the creators, the stakes are no less high. Certain among them reflect on what they call "disappearance". Weighed down, attacked by an excess of objects, the world is condemned to study the minimal. The minimum of matter, the maximum of service. The chapter devoted to the credit card with an electronic memory demonstrates this logic. The object is only a surface, while the function, invisible and inwardly focussed, provides intelligent action.

Even so, a language of objects exists and is more than ever necessary, the echo, the reflection or the revealer of identities.

Between the sensitive object with its irrational component and the object of pure immateriality with its strict intelligence, where does one situate the project and its meaning today ?