# shelf reality test existential test for the existence of realty involving generally well designed yet pathetically overpriced elf-assembly shelving units driving with one's parents to a ikea furniture store one day in the early morning dr. orloff: did you know ikea is swedish for 'utopian hyper consumer lite heck' one notices full colour paper printouts of book cover spines on the shelves each cover displays hyper generic unlikely middling class sounding titles looking around this largely empty store and wandering happy and lost among its many elf-contained idealised swedish korporate design setups immaculately constructed showrooms provoking specific senses of focus tested calm bathrooms bedrooms little outdoor scenes complete with garden umbrellas and piped in birdsong all under one roof for wide eyed store wondering meatballs to stare at in braindead wonder one then gets the oddest feeling of unliving inside a giant realty simulation - an infinite ikea stretching to the electronic horizon a forever welcoming subtly disorientating realm providing intangible customer value through ambient swedish-tinted consumerist experience the global hyperreal ludocapitalist neurospectacle at work once again flat-packed universes made of compressed plywood illegally harvested from pristine forests by tax phobic companies owned by nakedly evil multi-billionaires an ambient liminal nonplace where poor old souls get lost and die after several days wandering uselessly in search of the exit and even worse a nonplace where the still young-at-heart loose ir minds and become mentally undead smiling like idiots at the bland hyperplastic wonderment of it all // republic of bob