Everyone knows the satisfying feeling of a storage box fitting snugly on a shelf. It slides easily into its niche and sits there tight and comfortable. A neat fit. All the things stored within this convenient object are hidden from sight. The potentiality of a void sitting in the gap on that board. Like you got your shit in order.
The contents of the container are hidden from sight but the overall shelving is visible, this is a visual and architectural concept. A fake-it-til-you-make-it of domestic organization starring storage solution systems, shelving and open plan structures.
“Wir gehorchen Mauern, Absperrungen, Linien und Zeichen. Panoptische Architekturen erreichen es durch Sichtbarmachung von Allem, die übersichtliche Anordnung und die Kontrolle durch den Blick, dass wir uns selbst im Sinne der Macht steuern und unser Leben für die Macht disponibel gestalten.” [1]
To submit to the open-shelves of contemporary design means to submit to the panoptic structure and its transparency and control. One ultimately realizes the utter futility of that submission, because IKEA’s next generation of storage boxes will not fit last season’s shelf. Modern consumption rhythms make the look of timeless simplicity impossible. All satisfaction is gone and the neurotic self feels terrorized.
“Tell me something, boy
Aren't you tired tryin' to fill that void?
Or do you need more?
Ain't it hard keepin' it so hardcore?” [2]
— Josefine Reisch
1. „We obey walls, barriers, lines and symbols. Panoptic architectures achieve this through the visualization of everything, the clear arrangement and the control through the view that we control ourselves in the sense of power and make our life available for power. “
Ludger Schwarte, Befreiung eine Architektonische Aufgabe? in Inventionen, Diaphanes Zürich 2012
2. Lady Gaga, Shallow from A Star Is Born, 2018