The perceived and the priced
The distance between what an object costs and what the mind believes it is worth.
- Field
- Value
- Status
- In preparation
- Method
- Blind comparison, with an atelier
A price is not a label. It is an instrument that acts on perception before the object is touched: told that a cloth is dear, the hand finds it finer.
With an atelier, we intend to separate the two readings. The same material will be judged blind, and again with a price spoken aloud — by hands trained to know the difference, and by hands that are not.
We do not expect the two judgements to agree.
Where they diverge, the distance is the observation: not an error to be corrected, but the measurable weight that value places on the senses.
What we will ask
Does a spoken price change what the hand reports feeling?
Is a trained hand more resistant to the suggestion, or merely better at rationalising it?
Which properties survive the blind reading — weight, drape, grain — and which need the price to appear at all?
This observation is in preparation. No results are reported.