The Creation of Space
In the beginning of chapter 1 and continuing throughout (and emphasized in Simonson), Lefebvre refuses to acknowledge mental space as real or not as legitimate. Is mental space not real? Although he is concerned more with physical spaces (although space is not always/necessarily tangible) and acknowledgeable spaces that can be occupied by more than one person. Is this what constitutes space – multiplicity of occupation? Although there is acknowledgment of this mental space — I would have liked to have seen this idea pushed further, especially when our relationship to space is in part defined by the way we perform. Are our actions not based primarily in this occupied mental space. Maybe I’m looking to much into this, but this is a part of contention that I have with Lefebvre.
Lefebvre takes most of his inspiration from his origin in Marxist theory, which translates directly into his work on the body and space. Lefebvre is fetishizing the body and space as if to say that the two cannot exist without each other. In this instance I think it would be fair to say that Lefebvre is a space fetishist in the sense that he is giving meaning and a value (not monetary) to space through the body and the work that it produces (energy -> space -> time).
As I read through Simonson I start to wonder what a combination of Erving Goffman’s ideas of the performance of the everyday self would act in relationship with the creation of space. I ask this in relation to what Simonson says on page 7 of her article “…Lefebvre stresses how social/spatial practice, which is performed at the level of the perceived, presupposes the use of the body – of the hands, members and sen sory organs, performing gestures of work or of activity unrelated to work.”
Definition(s):
Space: an intangible ‘thing’ that invokes feelings (spiritual, positive, negative, or otherwise) rather than physicality. It would seem to express an expansion through prosthesis. It is an area of performance for the individual, group, or community. Space is subjective.