If we were to visualize the curatorial imperative, we can imagine two very diferent modes of arranging a commercial space: the flea market and the concept store. The flea market is the utmost non-curated space, as the sellers simply sell their products without having the imperatives of selection, narration, and expertise in mind. There is no expectation that the products will intervene in the general vision or identity of the customer or that the seller’s “unique vision” will be communicated to the customer: the underlying agreement between sellers and consumers is that market exchange is merely functional. Thus, decisions around selection and display in a flea market are mostly hands-on, having to do with fitting as many products as possible in the vendor’s limited space and usually selecting the top selling products to be displayed in the front. On the contrary, the selection and display of items in a concept store are regulated by a theme, a concept that echoes the larger vision of the brand or the owner of the store. The items are expressions, representations, or documents of this concept, and their arrangement in space seemingly conveys an ordered narrative, the customer consumes a story that can intervene in their social identity. To go back to Adorno, it is not that similar shops or curated practices did not exist before but that the increasing difusion of digital platforms in social and economic life intensifies curated forms of social interaction quantitatively and qualitatively. In the rest of this chapter, I present the theoretical points of departure and methodological perspectives informing this book.
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Homo Curatorius