ABSTRACT
This chapter approaches the strange world of plastics from the perspective of design, which is a practice concerned to resolve the material facts of 'things' with their 'social life'. It sketches in some of the history of the material: key moments in its developing cultural presence, its double nature as both useful and dubious. As a consequence, they have become in a sense invisible to us, while, at the same time, becoming potentially active, 'smart' by design that operates at nano-scale. Concentrating only on plastics' material, sensorial presence, however, risks leaving behind its role as a component of their imagined 'figural' world. The physical materials also are as malleable in their cultural manifestations as in their physical properties, and the examples of current 'fashionings' of plasticity discussed below draw on themes that can be found in the materials' history since the start of Meikle's Plastic Age.
