Session 2. Optimization

The construction of boxes meets a seemingly simple objective: to match a container to its contents. Yet behind this objective lie complex optimization problems. How do you maximize a container’s internal volume while minimizing its external footprint? What value should be placed on the unoccupied space inside the box? Should it be reduced for reasons of profitability or hygiene, as in a can? Or should it be preserved to facilitate, for example, the breathing or circulation of the living beings inside?

Depending on these calculations, the trade-offs evolve between two opposing situations: either the container imposes itself on the content to the point of redefining its format (think of the plan to produce square tomatoes), or the container adapts to the content because, like a work of art, the latter is highly valued.

Such considerations reach another level when containers have to be contained within other containers: the optimization effort then consists in imposing proportional ratios between all formats. The ultimate product of these considerations, folding carton, is standardized to fit on a pallet, which in turn is designed to fit inside a container. The preferred form of capitalism seems to be the quadrilateral. But as the history of over-packaging shows, this economic optimization can prove disastrous from an environmental point of view. This is what we’ll be examining through the history of the storage and transportation of goods and works of art.

A proposal by Samir Boumediene, teacher-researcher (IHRIM, UMR 5317, ENS de Lyon) in charge of the “Mises en boîtes: histoire, anthropologie et muséographie d’une pratique quotidienne” project at the Mucem.