Questions week 2: Lefevbre, Tuan, Simonsen
1) To say that I felt a certain sense of (possibly unintentional) ableism running through the work is an understatement as Tuan is very focused on physical space. Tuan notes that, “an infant is unfree, and so are prisoners and the bedridden. They cannot, or have lost the ability to, move freely; they live in constricted spaces” (52). While I understand this article did not take up digital space, there was a certain generalization that physical space=freedom=satisfaction. I wonder, how do the issues with space (not enough, crowding, etc) in the digital environment, more specifically digital communities occur?
2) This question seems tangential but I have been wondering throughout all of the readings this week. In his discussion regarding ‘socialism’ and space, Lefebvre notes, “a social transformation, to be truly revolutionary in character, must manifest a creative capacity in its effects on daily life, on language and on space” (54). While my question does not directly refer to socialism, this idea of revolution had me thinking about encroaching on space. His theories are invested on singular societies, so I wonder how space is imagined when, say, modernity encroaches on indigenous societies? There is no basis or frame of reference to the society for space to be changed or reimagined if the modern concepts of space did not exist or evolve organically.
3) Lefebvre discusses the issues of time, and the ways in which modernity has destroyed the ‘lived’ aspects of time (regarding social space) in favor of simply inscribing time on trivial things like clocks, or recording it. He articulates that “time may have been promoted to the level of ontology by the philosophers, but it has been murdered by society” (96). I am interested to know how this idea of modern time holds up in digital spaces? Similar (I suppose) to a recording device, the information will be there, but it is frozen. It will be there forever, and the drunken frat picture mistake will always be there. So how does the Internet reimagine time?
Definitions:
Space: that which can be occupied; an intermediary
Production: the creation of something which, in some form, occupies space. To consolidate matter through movement, or a collection of ‘things’ together for various purposes