Madrid generics
Dec. 18th, 2006 11:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusOne of the things I tend to photograph when I'm out and about are generics, patterns, display systems which categorize things. It's fascinating to see the way people display a lexis or set of objects, a group of repeating yet varying shapes. I especially like it when somewhat bloopy, organic shapes are squeezed into a gridlike structure and displayed face-on, behind glass, framed in the "naive order" of a rectangle, classified for convenience or for sale.
In Madrid this weekend I kept seeing -- and photographing -- simple head-on display, storage and classification systems. Or just patterns, sometimes related to the patterns of Islamic tile design, sometimes not. Shops tended to present their goods simply, in windows and counters, squeezing raw produce up against the flat plane of a glass pane in categorized and labelled squares. A tapas bar specializing in mushroom dishes displayed a poster of species, the outlandish shapes and colours tamed by a grid and Latin genus names. A store blind sported a leaf motif, an arts centre sorted its amenities using simple graphic design, a hardware depository ranked screws and nails rather in the same way a new social housing block ranged the urban poor.
In the Sunday market I discovered a wonderful wagon specialized in plastic tubes and rubber bands -- I've never seen so many rubber bands, or such huge ones -- while a vegetable market hung phallic gourds from hooks. A poster for an MC Escher exhibition was unexpectedly matched by an apartment building decorated with an Escher pattern. Juxtaposed with the polygons of an architectural poster, donuts became architectural too.
The thrill of generics isn't just in the generous presentation of consumer choices these displays present; there's also a delicious tension between the quiddity of the stubbornly unique single object and its capitulation to the order of the group, the grid, the genus. So it isn't too much of a stretch to say that my interest in generics relates to my interest in collectivism, sociology, anthropology and our ability to generalize about groups. The generic grid makes the pathos of individuality very clear. We're all different, but our differences all fit safely into pre-existing classifications, grids of description. That's the beauty -- and the tragedy -- of generics.
In Madrid this weekend I kept seeing -- and photographing -- simple head-on display, storage and classification systems. Or just patterns, sometimes related to the patterns of Islamic tile design, sometimes not. Shops tended to present their goods simply, in windows and counters, squeezing raw produce up against the flat plane of a glass pane in categorized and labelled squares. A tapas bar specializing in mushroom dishes displayed a poster of species, the outlandish shapes and colours tamed by a grid and Latin genus names. A store blind sported a leaf motif, an arts centre sorted its amenities using simple graphic design, a hardware depository ranked screws and nails rather in the same way a new social housing block ranged the urban poor.
In the Sunday market I discovered a wonderful wagon specialized in plastic tubes and rubber bands -- I've never seen so many rubber bands, or such huge ones -- while a vegetable market hung phallic gourds from hooks. A poster for an MC Escher exhibition was unexpectedly matched by an apartment building decorated with an Escher pattern. Juxtaposed with the polygons of an architectural poster, donuts became architectural too.
The thrill of generics isn't just in the generous presentation of consumer choices these displays present; there's also a delicious tension between the quiddity of the stubbornly unique single object and its capitulation to the order of the group, the grid, the genus. So it isn't too much of a stretch to say that my interest in generics relates to my interest in collectivism, sociology, anthropology and our ability to generalize about groups. The generic grid makes the pathos of individuality very clear. We're all different, but our differences all fit safely into pre-existing classifications, grids of description. That's the beauty -- and the tragedy -- of generics.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-19 03:47 am (UTC)I'm just saying, it's the general human condition to be ethno and egocentric. It's part of humanity at large - it's built into the very code of our genes, not matter how Confucian a society is.
An outward appearance can be as dignified, polite, and calm as possible, but can it be trusted as a signal of the state within? can it??!!
without the wig
Date: 2006-12-19 02:46 pm (UTC)And don't we all feel that our own way is better than anyone else's? That is why we do it this way, as misguided as we may be.
The way that is the USA
Date: 2006-12-19 02:51 pm (UTC)The word freedom gets said a lot.
"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Life: but Americans execute people on the chopping block.
Liberty: How can Americans promise anyone liberty when they execute people on a chopping block?
The pursuit of happiness: How smug and self-important to think that anyone could ever promise anyone the pursuit of happiness.
There you have it. The promises in the DI are absurd. The values we hold cannot be collectivized.
The American way is bullying, self-absorbed, materialistic, and technologically more sophisticated than any place else in the world. Till China takes over with stem cell research.