L'Infra-ordinaire

The #isolationartviews book has made me reflect upon Perec’s notion of ‘L’Infra-ordinaire’ (Perec, 1973). Perec defines the Infra-ordinary as “an everydayness that requires a kind of quixotic or excessive attention.” He uses neologisms like ‘infra-ordinary’ to describe an everyday that is ‘neither ordinary or extraordinary, neither banal nor exotic’. I was looking at my world, the news headlines, and in a reaction against the unfolding drama my daily routines became the focus on my attention. They became an antidote against the media and government which privileged trauma and drama over the ordinary and the everyday. Through meticulous recordings of everything and anything in my immediate surroundings I set out to uncover the unimportant and insignificant. The recycle bin (Day 13) is a case in point. We see all of the world at that point in time, in the bin. We see the global obsession with the virus, money, consumption, shopping, jobs, media and technology. But in contrast we also see the hidden everyday lives of people: of sex and pleasure, of trying to go about relationships, and live a normal existence under intense scrutiny.

I've written a new visual article for Visual Resources: An International Journal on Images and their Uses about #isiolationartviews which should be out soon.