Packaging. La molteplicità dell’oggetto-tipo

The universe of packaging is in continual evolution, looking for solutions that take full advantage of new technology, in which archaic forms and technologically advanced solutions mix, in a process of stratification that creates visible multiple forms and functions which bear witness to its pliable being. Starting with this idea, we would like to concentrate on morphological-structural expressions to observe and classify the packaging, to know and distinguish the different varieties of it, to retrace an ordering structure and finally build up a catalogue of the types - in this case, of the structural types. Through phenomenological research we can trace the “model figures” which represent a physical, tangible, interpretative illustration of the various types identified. Reporting the surface forms and structures is, as noted, an operation that refers to the organisation of the sense, obliging us to reconsider the taxic component which considers the oppositions and the differences that put the object in relation with those close to them on the system axis; just as Barthes, in his semiology elements lesson, teaches us. An approach, supported by the semiotic disciplines, which, through the division into configurations and components, provides tools of analysis and allows us to record the variation in relation to the capacity to create a deviation from the norm, as it is only by starting from the norm that the sense of the variation can be reinterpreted. For best comprehension, each packaging type can be read according to an organisation of the sense that identifies three “components” and three “configurations”.The first, the configurative component, decomposes the object into its constitutive parts and recomposes it as a form to allow the object to be recognised through its essential parts. The second, the taxic component, considers the oppositions and the differences that put the object in relation to the other objects near to it on the system axis; the classification of the taxonomic unit allows us to isolate the characters of each of its members and, starting with these, to define dichotomous keys of identification to create a system to identify the objects. The third is functional and explains the object’s presumed uses, concentrating on the functional, practical and mythical components. Each type comes from the weaving of these three components and is the result of a combination of distinctive characters: morphological, formal, dimensional and material quality, but also technology and production techniques. Recognising the types means marking out boundaries between objects, distinguishing one from the other as belonging to different types, but it also means elaborating a nomenclature, a consequence, a classification system that works as a unit containing information on one hand, and a predictive tool on the other.