17/03/2012

Georges Perec; Notes Concerning the Objects that are on my Work-table.

“I tidy my work-table quite frequently. This consists of putting all the objects somewhere else and replacing them one by one I wipe the glass table with a duster (sometimes soaked in a special product) and do the same with each object. The problem is then to decide whether a particular object should or should not be on the table (next a place has to be found for it, but usually that isn’t difficult).
 
This rearrangement of my territory rarely takes place at random. It most often corresponds to the beginning or end of a specific piece of work; it intervenes in the middle of those indecisive days when I don’t quite know whether I’m going to get started and when I simply cling on to these activities of withdrawal: tidying, sorting, setting in order. At these moments I dream of a work surface that is virgo intacta: everything in its place, nothing superfluous, nothing sticks out, all the pencils well sharpened (but why have several pencils? I can see six merely at a glance!), all the paper in a pile or, better still, no paper at all, only an exercise book open at a blank page."

Sorting and reordering my actions. ‘clinging to the activities of withdrawal: tidying, sorting, setting in order’. Mindless organisation? Smoothing out wrinkles; shaving off anything superfluous of disruptive. My life is my messy work-surface.

Perec, G (2008) Species of Spaces and Other Pieces. London: Penguin Classics