“He could always be found doing a strange thing: he used to throw an item on the floor of the hallway in our big communal apartment, close to his door – it might be an old shoe, a dirty tin can that once contained meat stew, a bunch of useless keys or even an overcoat or old trousers. He would stand on the other side, close by the crack-open door, a pen and a notepad in his hands, waiting excitedly for what would happen in the hallway. To onlookers he might easily remind of a fisherman, breathlessly waiting for his luck with a rod in his hands. And then he hears somebody’s steps in the hallway (a flatmate or a stranger walking towards the kitchen or the bathroom). On seeing or stumbling over a strange item under their feet, everybody says something fitting to the occasion. And he, behind the door, immediately registers that in his notepad, whatever it may be: a lengthy and elaborate oath, an exclamation of surprise or a dirty word that has become common here…”

Ilya Kabakov “A person who collected others’ opinions”