FETISHES (INTRO)

By: PROJECT:OBJECT
April 1, 2019

The seventh PROJECT:OBJECT volume is a 25-part series of true stories about fetishes. That is to say: things that endlessly, inescapably compel our devoted, obsessive attention.

The colonialist concept of the fetish — first introduced by the Portuguese, who were referring to the objects used in religious cults by the indigenous peoples of Africa’s Guinea coast, then popularized throughout Europe during the mid-18th century — was an opprobrious one, suggesting as it did that so-called primitive peoples were attached to material objects in irrational ways, imbuing these objects with imaginary powers. The Portuguese term was derived from the Latin facticius, “artificial.”

However, in 1867 Karl Marx would make the devastating point, in the first chapter of Das Kapital, that we modern, Western, supposedly sophisticated peoples are also attached to material objects in irrational ways, imbuing them with imaginary powers:

[T]he commodity-form, and the value-relation of the products of labour within which it appears, have absolutely no connection with the physical nature of the commodity and the material relations arising out of this. It is nothing but the definite social relation between men themselves which assumes here, for them, the fantastic form of a relation between things.

Cultural theorists and semioticians have used Marx’s insights about “commodity fetishism” to demonstrate how human needs and desires are manipulated and reshaped for commercial gain; commercial semioticians have deployed these theorists’ insights to assist businesses in manipulating human needs and desires. But for our purposes here, the crucial point is that — to use Bruno Latour’s memorable phrase — we have never been modern. Humankind has always had, and always will have a tendency to fall under the spell of objects. PROJECT:OBJECT neither condemns nor embraces this inclination; as journalists, we simply find it fascinating.

The FETISHES series, which begins tomorrow, will explore a variety of fetishes including, but by no means restricted to commodities. These are objects — vintage or contemporary, owned or coveted, tangible or conceptual — with which our contributors are obsessed, to which they are devoted, and from the influence of which they cannot escape. It’s a terrific collection of stories. Enjoy!

Here’s the FETISHES lineup: