Text sent out before lecture - The Order of Things: an archaeology of the human science. London: Routledge 2002 (orig.1966)
Again I will type up my notes and then review.
We believe things exist because they do, but they could be different - are they ever questioned?
Power is visible but unverifiable.
Through resistance you find out more than what the thing presents itself.
Space - A whole history remains to be written about spaces, why things look the way they do, our environments & those outside i.e. education systems, our houses. Mostly conventional how we make use of space.
Map of Utopia. Utopia feels out of reach but we may eventually get there. Thomas Moore’s Utopia, seen as an island so it is contained (Metaphor - an idea of Utopia - no borders just sea as borders and what is on the other side is out of our control) Utopia has rules according to Thomas Moore. Break rules and you are banished outside of the island.
Using a fictional idea to explain another idea. Main route of canal expedition through the alimentary canal. Geographical layout relates to bodily function. Wanting to turn something so it can be ordered and set. Co-operative city diagram was shown - to create order in people then there needs to be a physical order (refer to map of the city) It doesn’t allow for change and everyone stays within their set role.
Mere act of enumeration has an enchantment all of its own.
Collections work because they exist - the enchantment is because someone has gone to the trouble to put the collection together.
To be enchanted is to be drawn into something - at best avoiding reality, at worst being misled.
Notions of order only make sense through the place of language, it has the ability to make an unthinkable space possible.
Freuds desk with things in order whilst writing psychoanalysis.
More creative aspects of order - do we write on pieces of paper, notecards or restrict ourselves to books? Books = commitment.
Will Self writes with a typewriter as he enjoys the physicality of it and you can’t erase and so have to think about it more as it is hassle to delete something.
Order in zoos, order of animals. the idea that knowledge is a visible thing i.e. seeing a hippo in an old photo shows that it has very sharp teeth, do they?
Penguin pool in London was designed by an architect. The penguins didn’t like it, are they anti modernist?! It is now a porcupine pool. Great architecture but not a grate penguin pool. Therefore is it great architecture?!
Contradictions, writing lists. Through writing lists you take it out of your mind what it is you had to do onto paper and so you forget! It is a closed system we have never listed everything.
Power of the collection is the incomplete collection, power is of absence not the thing itself.
Lists is one of my bad habits. I say it is a bad habit because when busy I end up with lists for my lists, they are scrawled on paper, on my notes in my i-phone, in sketchbooks, as stickies only laptop and so my attempts to organise myself becomes unorganised and chaotic! I can definitely relate to how writing a list almost enables you to forget about what you ought to be doing, it is a way of relieving yourself of the task in a way and that you have made that first step into starting the task. Perhaps I ought to move back to my old way of keeping a list and maintain it to just one booklet so it is contained and feels less chaotic, more committed.
One of the main subjects of my study on my Ma is the objects we have around us and our relation to them and the way in that they are ordered. By arranging the items on our desk do we feel more in control. Some people, if they have work to do, cannot begin until they have tidied their desk, given it some order, put it in a list! This gives them control over the space and allows them to focus on the task ahead.
One of the things Clinton spoke about on the 5th of November was trying to create a metaphor for the work we are doing. This will help to explain what we are thinking and making to someone else who doesn’t have an understanding of it. It also helps to put all of the ideas into an order so that we can clearly understand what it is we are doing ourselves. A simple example would be using a sunday roast to explain a collaborative exhibition. The roast is the complete exhibition made up of all different ingredients, the process of cooking the meal is the curating of the show and how the pieces of work, work together and the gravy perhaps is the overall identity for the show that brings it all together and is consistent (no lumps though!)
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