L'Escalier : dispositif au cœur du montage de la Vie mode d'emploi

Abstract

ABSTRACTGiving rhythm to our daily routine, the staircase that we climb and descend, like a musical scale that carries on and on, can open up like a fan of possibilities. An architectural feature meant to permit transit from one level to another, it also channels bodies and the flow of information, opening passages between different states. Seeing how Perec uses the stairs to gather the collective life of a building, in this case the dwelling in La Vie mode d'emploi, we understand that the staircase is a gateway to people's stories, an access to perspectives from which narratives are born. Taken for granted most of the time, the staircase can be a powerful and dramatic tool, a structure suspended between two planes, designed to create suspense. Its delayed temporality animates the shadow plays of anticipation and memory, akin to vertigo in space, the stairs being the source from which all lines of escape project. In short, the poetics of Perec takes a common place and reinvests it as a means to assemble the collective story.