Ode to Perec

History feels at my heels, the distractions of my daily life stacking up like receipts in my purse. Things shine so brilliantly, the next, the better, the new. What was once mystified perhaps seems inconsequential now. Light, shadow, space, knots in wood, the way the blossom falls on the windscreens of cars and collects in the gutters, universal, existential moments. Perhaps today we don't have the same interest or attention span for the daily details, the mundane happenings. What does it mean to observe? We have lost the ability to see the everyday, it is forgotten, we forget we need it. It seems obvious, the space our bodies occupy and take up, but the obviousness is a mask covering what we need to see. Writing is essential to this process, to capture the feeling of seeing the reeds blow in the wind, to notice the sun changing its position on the coffee shop slowly each day. We are a world built on words like never before, a worthy medium of recording that should not be ignored. Writing about the everyday is to ensure its survival, to bring it into brilliance and make it worthy of note. Just because you walk past the same bus stop, patch of trees, corner-shop, coffee shop, is not to say these things stay the same. Yesterday and today and tomorrow and tomorrow, space changes.

French novelist Georges Perec makes known in his writing the invisible details we overlook in our daily lives. This project materialises the act of observing the everyday, of noticing space, and is a kind of thank you, an ode, to him. Perec asks us to question how we navigate our space, and this project expands on that question. ‘Ode to Perec’ is a collection of observational, experimental writing pieces along with an exploration of methods of reinterpreting the everyday, inspired by works from Perec. A camera box, an adapted camera lucida, as a materialised form of the written work and everyday observations, along with instructions on how to construct such a device. This project is an exploration and reinterpretation of the normal, an investigation into the infra-ordinary using the combined mediums of writing and photography to communicate a lesson about the everyday. Yesterday and today and tomorrow, space changes.


These images have been produced by a modified camera Lucida, a camera box. The idea was to create a simple, easily put together system which produces high quality, interesting images. The box works when light reflects off a mirror positioned at 45 degrees, downwards into the chosen lens which is set in the box at a height at which it focuses at infinity, and then the image is projected onto the surface of the ground. There is the option to take a photograph of the image - I installed holes next to the mirror for a camera to be inserted into or cut slits into the back of the box so a phone might be put through. It is also worthwhile not taking a picture, and using the box as an experience to observe what is happening in front of it. The camera box offers an alternative reframing opportunity to everyday spaces. It is a simple contraption that produces complex and layered images - painting the view from in front on the surface of the ground with the light from the sun above you. There is something to be said about seeing this expected, familiar image projected down onto the ground, obscured and altered by the light, texture of the surface of the ground, the moving element of people and trees and light… There is a painterly, dreamlike feel to the image, tangible yet untouchable.