Week 5 Session: The Endcap
The endcap isn't a display. It's a détournement of your own attention, staged at the end of an aisle you were already walking down
22 March 2027
Before the session#
On your next store visit, photograph one endcap. Do not buy from it yet.
In the session#
Détournement — turning an existing sign against its own intention — is a situationist tool built for exactly this kind of manufactured urgency. The endcap borrows the aisle’s momentum and spends it on a decision you hadn’t planned to make. We take one apart in class, then talk about what détourning it back would look like: not vandalism, a counter-sign.
Afterwards#
Keep the photograph. The final project asks for more of these than you think you’ll need.
The spec
What you bring to the session. Written so a reader can tell whether it has been met without asking you.
- you can name the last endcap you passed and what it was selling
- you can say what made it feel urgent, and whether the urgency was true
- you can describe one way an endcap could be turned against its own message
Teaching team
- Marisol Quaye — convenor