Perec

Of the readings so far this was the easiest to read, it wasn't bogged down by flowery language. It's structure with many subheadings made it much easier to digest as well. The lecture was on the categorisation of things, why do we do this and how. Early on Perec points out that a list should not list everything but by doing so it misses things out. He highlights the imperfection of categories yet their necessity in how we understand the world.

I was particularly interested that despite the arbitrary nature of categories such as the alphabet and despite us knowing this we then apply meaning to its order. For example a B movie or a C list celebrity, in reality the position of these numbers mean nothing yet they help us make sense of the world. For me categorisation enviably leads to a hierarchy. Wether this way of understanding the world is a positive one I am unsure, Apartheid, Nazi Germany in fact the whole notion of a government is based upon this. This process of forgetting that things don't make sense is known as naturalisation. In my own practice I should try to remember that thing don't have to be the way they are and to question the structure within I am working.