>Brian
>Why is the failure to see Home Shopping as spatial a severe danger?
>How is the despatialization of shopping an attack on our social
>(spatial) existence?
I believe that there exists what one might call a 'spatial imperative' to
certain aspects of human socialization and communication. If we look at
Habmermas' _Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere_, we can begin
to outline a set of activities (political communication, social
discourse, etc.) that rely on a spatial medium for their existence.
Habermas traces the transformation of this particular space from a
physical, public space of royal ostentation (court festivals, decrees,
etc.) into a mediated space of journalistic, commodified political
'idea.' Even though in this latter phase, public discourse is maintained
through non-physical-spatial means, its politic relies on the
'spatiality' of the publication medium: that it is open to public
contribution, that it is a platform of discourse rather than a univocal
podium, and that movement within this discourse is not only possible but
flexible. Upon the elimination of the spatiality of the print medium,
its political value is undermined. Habermas makes the point that when
publication begins to serve a singular interest through editorship and
sponsorship, the ability of the medium to be 'spatial' (as I introduced
above) is questioned, and the political discourse becomes preconceived
statement.
Loosely from this, I have extrapolated that 'space' is most significant
to our existence in its ability to empower and that 'despatialization,'
then, is a strategy for disempowerment. What is most important to
consider (and I point towards the expected, Henri Lefebvre, here) is that
this space that I am talking about is not, as architects tend to conceive
it, a necessarily physical entity. The despatialization that I accused
Home Shopping of having promulgated is not an accusation of merely
mediatizing a once physical establishment, but rather a removal of the
criteria of spatiality from its mechanisms of communication and trade.
By removing these spatial criteria, which in the end are concerned with
movement, interaction, and multidirectional communication, a mechanism of
control is created. One cannot move from one product to another in the
way one can in a physical shopping experience (or even in a catalog),
'discourse' is unidirectional (products are presented, then discussion of
them ensues; in physical markets, the product is part of the discussion
via barter, boycott, etc.), and interaction is conducted in clean
one-on-one packets (i.e., my interaction with a home shopping channel is
kept distinct from another's interaction with it).
Now, my point is that home shopping can nevertheless be seen as a spatial
phenomena. This, however, takes effort, and in many ways is counter to
the project of the home shopping corporation. It is, I believe, a
necessary pursuit of the designer today to spatialize, or to maintain
spatiality of these entities to counter their 'subtle' means of control.
This begs the question, then, of the role of control systems in spatial
domains. I'm hardly suggesting that spatial domains are free from
control, but I am raising the question whether methods of control in
general are actually methods of despatialization, and whether we may not
be better off to investigate them in this light.
brian lonsway
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j erik jonsson distinguished visiting assistant professor.
rensselaer architecture.
lonsway@rpi.edu.