This leads to the next image in which a man sits in a room full to the brim with cylinders. There are no walking paths, and only one small window provides light. He sits pensively over one small cylinder in his hands, seem-ingly unaware of his situation, or completely complicit in it. Here these ob-jects are not quite the powerful spheres offered in the first image, they are dull, and as a collection will never be quite complete. But in having them, and surrounding himself with them, the collector has become a piece of his collec-tion.
This image addresses the emotional connection we get from owning a series of objects. Hoarding, collecting, and ultimately the amassment of things in the context of the home follow very specific rules. One may continue to bring any number of objects into their home as long as they do not first, run out of room to hide their things, and second fail to organize what they have. As long as a person has the financial means to safely purchase, and properly house their collection it remains a source of personal empowerment. We envy car collectors, we encourage coin collecting in children, and each of us probably has a specific collection of clothing, or books. However, if either of those rules are broken, the collector crosses the line into being a hoarder.
From the consumer’s point of view, though, the hoarder has lost con-trol. They have given too much precedence to their objects, and their collec-tion. They have become like this figure, trapped in their own maze of objects, obsessed with inconsequential things. Curiously this assessment is made from the safe perspective of their own appropriate collection.
Still, the hoarder has to deal with the emotional disconnect that they’ve created by expecting objects to do the work of human interaction. The attachment to a series of objects is a dangerous game, whose rules are easy to break.