The Poetics of Space

Topoanalysis is the study of sites/space in our intimate lives as well as how we inhabit them. Bachelard thinks that topoanalysis would be most useful when " a [being] wants [time] to "suspend" its flight."

I answered both questions in one paragraph:
    The reading from Delirious New York considers how New York’s grid system influenced the city’s development over time. Once the block was defined, it was rigid and almost inherent. It proved integral in all future development of the city, and it had to. It split the city into its modern “mosaic of episodes.” By splitting the city up and giving it its modern structure, the grid defined the future evolution of the city. It defined the outlines of buildings, parks and man-made geological features in Manhattan, shaping its entire physical and architectural future. It gave structure to what previously had no structure. New York City’s new grid shaped every single aspect of the city, from its creation to now.

I made an archive that links space (my yard and house) with scent. I made a 30x30 step grid in my yard. Then I took 9 containers, labelled them as 10-step intervals on this grid, and closed them at their designated locations. The steps were not of equal distance; I walk differently outside than I do inside. This means that it's an archive specifically of scents while walking. It can be experienced for tens of thousands of years, as plastic degrades very slowly. It can only be experienced for a few moments before it disperses.

    The invention of a common, universally defined and quantified time allowed people to ignore spacial divides and disconnect time from individual spaces. Universal time makes space significantly less of a barrier. It doesn’t make it irrelevant (or we wouldn’t have Facebook location posts, Instagram’s photo map or Find My Friends) but it makes it less of a conceptual barrier. We can coordinate much more easily when we don’t have to first spend effort to ensure that we’ll be on time. For railroads, this meant safe and convenient travel. For our society today, this means that I can think about and talk to my friends in London or Israel or Seattle or Pakistan without violating our sense of time and schedule or making a huge investment of effort.
    Technology enables us to physically move and create space, but it also removes space’s role as a barrier. When we build a bridge today, technology makes it faster and more reliable than it once would have been. This means a greater change in space, and a greater impact on people. However, the same bridge negates the spatial effect of the river it spans. Even modern communication technology has these effects. It allows us to coordinate projects that change space more rapidly and profoundly than ever before, while also making these projects less of a priority. Why build and maintain a bridge to cross a river when you can build cell towers on either side?

Tactical Cartography is a powerful way to make social issues more obvious and visible. Revealing a relationship between space and any social concept, construct or problem can help people conceptualize it without any experience. In the example given, mapping security cameras shows people who widespread they are. I was a little confused about what the actual meaning of tactical cartography is, especially what fits into the meaning.

My map is on my computer, and I've had limited success gif-ing it so I'll just show it in class.

    The Poetics of Space tries to express the complex feelings and associations we attach to intimate, inhabited spaces. Bachelard theorizes that “specimens of fossilized duration [are] concretized.” He seems to believe that these innermost memories, sensations and feelings of shelter are preserved both in our heads (exposed in dreams) and in the physical dwelling-place. This profound message applies to everyone, but I feel that the language gets in its way. The writing is extremely complex, and I think there’s more of it than needed to express the concepts.

    Topoanalysis is the study of spaces we inhabit and how they shape our mind and actions. Bachelard thinks topoanalysis can help us understand the context of our psyche. This can be used to help us grasp “a knowledge of intimacy” and become aware of why we make the decisions we do.

Critical Theory Final Assignment

Space As A Vibe

by Kate Reed

Most people define space as a location and its physical surroundings, but that just skims the surface. Space is a constant that cannot always be defined. Space can be anything from a box to a vibe. You cannot put parameters around space, as it does not necessarily have to be a place, a room, or physically restricted in any way.

Spaces impose feelings on us. Often times we go to specific space for our memories and comfort. When people get older they revisit their high school to feel nostalgic. We go to our comfort spaces and places we feel safe when we cry. Bedrooms are our safe place, and our bed within it, even safer.

However, physical space is less important to us, and it is more about the vibe a particular space embodies. For example, we get scared when we go into creepy caves and don’t like doctor’s offices. In both of these examples, it is not the physical space that causes us to feel unnerved, but it is the vibe. A cave is dark, damp, and echoes. It exaggerates the unknown, which can be scary. Doctor’s offices smell of rubbing alcohol, which we associate with shots. Our experience in and about space has very little to do with the physical constraints of a specific location.

Knowing that space is a vibe, you really can’t predict how a space will be perceived, because ultimately you cannot predict the vibe until a space is built and in community use. There is a creepy Dunkin Donuts in Central Square. Dunkin Donuts look the same all over the country. What is it about this Dunkin Donuts that makes it known for being creepy when the physical space looks the same as any other Dunkin Donuts would? It’s creepy because it is filled with extremely sketchy homeless people. It’s also next door to a liquor store, which attracts more creepy people. Often times there is construction around it so you have to physically cross a bridge to enter it. Crossing this bridge exaggerates that you are in an unknown territory and isolated.

While most people define space as a location, my definition of space begins where theirs ends. Space is the feelings and emotions that come with a physical location, whether imposed by history, the community interacting there, or by our senses connecting us to our past.

Graeme Mills

June 1, 2015

Space

         Before doing in depth thinking about the definition of space one would define it simply as either an open area or place, or outer space beyond Earth. But, space can be perceived as a much more personal and individualized place or experience. For example, a house to the owner is very different from a house to a guest. To this guest a house is simply rooms with doors and chairs and tables and furniture. But to the owner, a home is a collection of memories and emotions that are attached to each room, along with associated smells, sounds, and tactile connections. I think it is fair to say that the same physical space can be very different depending on who is inside the space or experiencing it.

When we analyze space we have to be aware that there is more than meets the eye, more than a defined geographic, measurable place. Space is just as much a physical idea as it is an emotional idea or mental construct. When analyzing a space we should not just look at it and think about it on in isolation or without context. Even observing space depends on other people’s experiences and perspectives. It’s much like the highly individual interpretation that comes from a work of art.

Space is also a social sharing of experiences. A space can be determined by who is with you and what you are doing with that person. For example an empty room with music playing from a speaker is very, very, different from a room that is full of people, conversation, and music. If people understood that space is not just what they interpret and rather a collaborative interpretation, they would not look at space, which could be other people, other cultures, or other ideas, from just their own perspectives or measuring sticks. Instead, people would seek out other opinions and people’s own opinions and personal experiences in order to define their own. This would significantly help the global community in terms of the acceptance of others and their cultures and ideas. This would help create a far more inclusive and open global community.

It is 4 o’clock pm on a Saturday afternoon and my muscles are screaming. I’ve been dancing for the last 2 hours straight and I still have one more hour to go in the gymnasium of the German School of Boston. Technically, this gymnasium is not our studio. My dance school has rented this space for at least 30 years to be used from 11am to 5pm on Saturdays, and generations of dancers at the O’Shea Chaplin Academy of Irish Dance have grown up both fearing and loving this space. So in my mind, we own this space.

Often, when I leave the gym to gulp down some much needed water, I look at the crayon drawings elementary students at the GSIB have put on display in the hallway. I look at their abandoned lunch boxes and jackets in their cubbies, and I imagine them running down the halls and their warm-hearted teachers trailing after them. In these hallways they learn to read. They learn to add and subtract. They finger paint and learn to play the recorder. And when it’s time to enter the gym across the hall they form a line and walk through those white double doors and play whatever game is awaiting them on the other side. When I walk through those double doors, I walk into a cacophony of blaring jigs and hornpipes, and fiberglass tips trebling and clicking away. I walk into a space that has held some of the most pivotal 4 hours in my life. It is a space that has dictated my goals and aspirations since I was 8 years old. It is a space physically defined by a sea of dance bags arranged in social hierarchy. The queen bees sit near the left hand windows, while the rest follow behind. Even on the easiest days the air always feels heavy to me. Everything is heavy in that gym. Everything has consequence. And if my core friends aren’t there, the air is even heavier and space more empty.

In this instance and personal experience, space is defined by memories, by connections, by an artform that has defined my passion, and the effects of physical exertion. This is my space.

On the surface, “space” seems to be a wash concept. In our daily interactions and conversations space seems to be synonymous with emptiness. But in reality, space is something that we fill with our own perceptions, anxieties and hopes. We define it so that it shapes itself in a way that allows us to make the most sense of our lives. We give space borders and labels to create a sense of “us.” Sometimes the “us” is created first, and the spatial boundaries are dictated afterwards. Othertimes space is seen only as a physical mass that can be expressed on a piece of paper, and because of this understanding spatial borders and labels can divide “us”es and create a sense of resentment towards what the space symbolically represents. Space is both an idea and an experience and it is moldable. It is an address, a place, a definably undefinable realm of experience. It becomes space when we can leave it and return to it, when we assign it a purpose and a place in our lives.