Shelf Space Is Rented

Lecture 4 — SLOP2236

List everything. Then ask what the list means.

The infra-ordinary

  • Perec’s method: exhaustive description before interpretation
  • describe what’s actually there, not what you expect to see
  • applied to a shelf, “neutral” doesn’t survive the first count

Observe the street, from time to time, with some concern for system perhaps.

— Georges Perec, Species of Spaces

Eye level is a market, not a fact of anatomy

  • shelf space at eye height is rented, priced, and sold
  • the price tells you exactly whose attention the store has decided is worth buying — an adult’s, a child’s, a brand’s placement fee
  • nothing here is subtle once you’ve counted it

Before next week

  • stand in one aisle and list everything at eye level, without looking twice
  • then look down, and do it again
  • bring both lists, and say who they were built to catch