Fashioning the Body: Versions of the Citizen, the Self, and the Subject

What is this space?

Full of objects physical, stacked and organized, rows and aisles, labeled, branded; a system of order. A temporary affront to entropy. Also a transient victory over chaos. Thus a place of interest, of necessary observation, examination, analysis, synthesis, legend, myth, worship, and perhaps conquest.

Has chance or intent created this arrangement of matter in space? See here the fluid, fluidious creature putting this here and that there. A staggered stack, straightened; a misplaced piece, reset; a fallen object, resurrected. Only consciousness is so audacious as to impose order upon a universe where the relentless destruction of order is immutable law.

Movement of these (presumed) conscious creatures : grabbing and nabbing and picking and touching these objects in rows and aisles. Sometimes taking, keeping, holding some piece against their body. Then a trade, an exchange, green paper or many-colored plastic. And a machine that eats these. And a creature that tames the machine that eats these. The plastic is regurgitated. Something has been gained and something has been lost. But what? The audacity of imposed order is inevitably coupled with the expectancy of purpose. What is this purpose?