Jamin Doyle Prof.

Mikulay HER-H400 February 15, 2010

Society versus Community:

Civilization and its Discontents
How does a space become a place and conversely, a place become a space? Is it the milieu created by the social environment pervading the surrounding area? Or the behavioral practices in the area that lend themselves to some themed memes by any means of interpersonal communication i.e. emotional, physical, verbal and/or mental? History is site specic, however what happens to occur at that site determines how it will be remembered. According to Karl Marx and his theory of The Annihilation of Space by Time, eventually time would begin to overlap itself into what we know as First, Second and Third world nations. Or as Doreen Massey so aptly puts it, Time-Space Compression, where we nd different periods of time (synchronous and asynchronous), thoughts, values, beliefs etc. begin to coincide or otherwise conict thereby contributing to the overall sense of place. It is not necessarily the physical attributes of the space that makes it a place so much as it is what happens in the site makes it a place. In the same way as place there is also the space between places as described in Marc Augs essay on Places and Non-places. In transit, there are quite a few number of things that can happen to shift ones position on certain subjects of interest that may have never occurred to them beforeI.E. the the intersection of moving bodies (Certeau p.170), whereupon close contact can involve the interaction and exchange of ideas. Similarly these frequented places (Ceteau) provide opportunity for confrontation, conict, resolution, and conversation. As far as to what affect these spaces/places circumstances have on an individual or individuals entirely depends on their perspective and likewise the effect their interaction with others has on actual reality. In this way it becomes obvious that places are as important as non-places in that relatively anything can happen in places as well as non-places. In the production of locality, Arjun Appadurai explains how certain spaces have been geopolitically fabricated by their ruling government(s). In his essay, Appadurai addresses how locality has traditionally been fostered by the actions performed in them. Appadurai divides his thesis up into 3 parts: the nation state, diasporic ows, electronic virtual communities and the interconnectivity between them. Appadurai admits that there are some contradictions between the few and in the same way Geeta Kapur writes in his essay: subTerain: Art works in the Cityfold,
[.] in the wake of a deconstructed modernity that once valorized the rebel artist and set up a masquerade around Freuds theme of Society and its discontents. The revolutionary working-class of the twentieth century and subsequent history of decolonization added new contours to civilizational discourse by revealing the vast limitations of of a Eurocentric universe (p.175).

The rebel artist was valorized for poking fun at Freuds theory of Society and it's Discontents or rather the notion that the more we know the less content we become. However By offsetting diasporic ows via colonization, decolonization and in turn rerouting the exchange of knowledge and interconnectivity in places, non-places and the space between places, rebel artists more or less to stir things up. Due to ones socioeconomical station and limited perspectives in life we are unable to effect change, although those few who do become instrumental in the balance of synchronous and asynchronous annihilation of space by time.