Monday 1 August 2011
Tuesday 28 September 2010
"Visiting Artist Day: examining different fine art practices"
Nathan Eastwood MA UAL
Title: Craft + Conceptualism = Fine Art Practitioner
Mel Bochner & Gerhard Merz
Mel Bochner (born 1940) is an American conceptual artist. Bochner received his BFA in 1962 and honorary Doctor of Fine Arts in 2005 from the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University. He lives in New York City.
A member of the first generation of Conceptual artists, with his sculpture, drawing and photography he explored the opacity of language and questioned the authority of knowledge over perception.
The artist in conversation with Elayne Varien talks about his measurement works. One of his notions I find very profound is when he says that “It seems to me that our perception of things is determined by the ideas that we have about them. It’s a case of a certain mental space that one has for both seeing and thinking. We like to feel that they are separate, but they are not – they overlap. They overlap in our conception of things, and consequently, our experience of them.”
MB: goes on to say that he is talking about the ‘human activity and art as an activity of the mind.’ MB: thinks that art is a way of thinking about things. ‘By superimposing the measurements of a thing on the thing itself, I incorporate it into my art.’
MB: is simply making work which questions these systems through the material properties of art. Conceptually I find this fascinating. Is it that he is questioning art or measurements? Maybe both all as one project? I consider this art questioning itself, or should I say through the materials of art, questioning the use of measuring and its relationship to the gallery - is very similar to that of Kant who according to Clement Greenberg’s seminal essay ‘Modernist Painting’ Greenberg says that “Western civilization is not the first to turn around and question its own foundations, but it is the civilization that has gone the furthest in doing so........Kant...was the first to criticize the means itself of criticism, I conceive of Kant as the first Modernist. The essence of Modernism lies, as I see it, in the use of the characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself – not in order to subvert it, but to entrench it,” etc....
Gerhard Merz
During his studies at the Munich Academy of Art from 1969 to 1973, Merz began to tackle suprematist and constructivist positions with his metal sculptures and monochrome works. Moreover, his works should be considered with regard to the conceptual tendencies of the 1970s and 80s. From 1984 Merz created local paintings, for which he designed the exhibition room walls with monochrome mineral colours. In 1986 installations Merz united aspects of writing, colour, and architecture and in this manner reflected history of art and the forms of presentation in the art business.
Since the late 60s, Gerhard Merz has been developing a concept of painting that is strongly influenced by Formalism and architectural Modernism--a concept he refers to as "archi-painting." In this most recent exhibition catalogue, Merz employs the notion of emptiness to evolve into experiential reflection, as his allusive paintings and architecture are augmented by fragments of text.
My Masters
Key notions which interest me:
Perception
Measurements
Site specific/site responsive
1st element is the craft, the understanding of materials, process, and using these tools to make a final aesthetic;
and
2nd the conceptual part to the practice, for me this is the philosophical/idea informing element
Title: Craft + Conceptualism = Fine Art Practitioner
Mel Bochner & Gerhard Merz
Mel Bochner (born 1940) is an American conceptual artist. Bochner received his BFA in 1962 and honorary Doctor of Fine Arts in 2005 from the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University. He lives in New York City.
A member of the first generation of Conceptual artists, with his sculpture, drawing and photography he explored the opacity of language and questioned the authority of knowledge over perception.
The artist in conversation with Elayne Varien talks about his measurement works. One of his notions I find very profound is when he says that “It seems to me that our perception of things is determined by the ideas that we have about them. It’s a case of a certain mental space that one has for both seeing and thinking. We like to feel that they are separate, but they are not – they overlap. They overlap in our conception of things, and consequently, our experience of them.”
MB: goes on to say that he is talking about the ‘human activity and art as an activity of the mind.’ MB: thinks that art is a way of thinking about things. ‘By superimposing the measurements of a thing on the thing itself, I incorporate it into my art.’
MB: is simply making work which questions these systems through the material properties of art. Conceptually I find this fascinating. Is it that he is questioning art or measurements? Maybe both all as one project? I consider this art questioning itself, or should I say through the materials of art, questioning the use of measuring and its relationship to the gallery - is very similar to that of Kant who according to Clement Greenberg’s seminal essay ‘Modernist Painting’ Greenberg says that “Western civilization is not the first to turn around and question its own foundations, but it is the civilization that has gone the furthest in doing so........Kant...was the first to criticize the means itself of criticism, I conceive of Kant as the first Modernist. The essence of Modernism lies, as I see it, in the use of the characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself – not in order to subvert it, but to entrench it,” etc....
Gerhard Merz
During his studies at the Munich Academy of Art from 1969 to 1973, Merz began to tackle suprematist and constructivist positions with his metal sculptures and monochrome works. Moreover, his works should be considered with regard to the conceptual tendencies of the 1970s and 80s. From 1984 Merz created local paintings, for which he designed the exhibition room walls with monochrome mineral colours. In 1986 installations Merz united aspects of writing, colour, and architecture and in this manner reflected history of art and the forms of presentation in the art business.
Since the late 60s, Gerhard Merz has been developing a concept of painting that is strongly influenced by Formalism and architectural Modernism--a concept he refers to as "archi-painting." In this most recent exhibition catalogue, Merz employs the notion of emptiness to evolve into experiential reflection, as his allusive paintings and architecture are augmented by fragments of text.
My Masters
Key notions which interest me:
Perception
Measurements
Site specific/site responsive
1st element is the craft, the understanding of materials, process, and using these tools to make a final aesthetic;
and
2nd the conceptual part to the practice, for me this is the philosophical/idea informing element
Marc Auge ‘non-place’ in the age of ‘spaces of flow’
Nathan Eastwood (MA UAL)
2009
Introduction:
This paper discusses notions of non-place and its relationship to contemporary place. It will consider Marc Auge’s ideas in relation to growing new forms of modernity, such as ‘supermodernity’, its co-existence with global capitalist modernity and its transformation of western cultural form. It will focus on the development of Auge’s non-place and discuss other descriptions of forms of cultural exchange. It will look at the changing attitudes to place, from the ethnologist’s and anthropologist’s conception; Auge’s ‘non-place’ and reflect on Peter Osborne’s use of the notion in light of Castells ‘spaces of flow’. The term Non-place was invented by French historian Michel de Ceteau.
The paper will navigate the reader through three chapters and finish with a conclusion. 1) An elaborate synopsis regarding ‘Anthropological’ place and ‘Supermodernity.’ Auge’s description of three the main accelerations which define ‘supermodernity’ and the distinction between anthropological places, and supermodern places. 2) A clarification and extended synopsis on the concept of ‘non-place,’ the difference between modernity and supermodernity, and spatial forms of place, from de Certeau who talks about a place becoming a space, when it’s transformed or activated by people. These spatial meanings need to be understood in terms of differences. In order to comprehend what is a non-place, we must first learn what a place is and its relationship to space. 3) An explanation of terms such as ‘global capitalist modernity,’ new forms of spatiality through new concepts like ‘spaces of flow’ a term referred to by Osborne, (a concept invented by Manual Catells) and a reflection on Osborne’s Non-Places and the Spaces of Art; with the ends of creating an analysis of this model in relation to Auge’s syntax of the notion non-place. The focus of this paper is to consider Osborne’s ideas on Auge’s notion of non-place as a hypothesis; and to delve into Osborne’s nuances of ‘non-place’ and ‘spaces of flow’ which together may give description to a new possible ontological type of place, a hybrid regarding new forms of spatiality (non-place and spaces of flow).
1. Anthropological Place and Supermodernity
Ague seems to describe the anthropologist and ethnologist as working side by side, in consideration of the ‘here and now’. He uses the word “practising” to precede ethnologist thus emphasising this person is active in gathering information i.e. he is in the field observing first-hand what he hears or sees. Anthropology he precedes with the word, ‘theoretical’. This relates to the analytical approach the anthropologist takes as he calls on the data gathered by the ethnologist.
Auge clarifies the term ‘here’ in regards to a division between and opposition of the European here and the “formally ‘colonial’ now ‘underdeveloped’” elsewhere. Auge uses two observations to bring further clarity to the basis of the subject of anthropology. The first observation is to do with anthropological research. He states the question of the other is the sole ‘intellectual object’. Anthropology engages with all forms of other, exotic, ethnic, and cultural. To use Auge’s text he stipulate “Internal other as the reference for a system of differences...division of sexes...defining everyone’s situation in political, economic and family terms, so that it is not possible to mention a position in the system without referring to one or more others.” (1)
An ethnologist’s main objective is to set out and decipher, by reading the way a place is organised. Auge explains: a frontier is marked out into signs; the cultivated and the wild nature, the permanent or temporary in terms of cultivable land, housing arrangement to the group’s economics, political and religious geography.
The other varies in different studies ranging from the exotic (indigenous tribes) which is the far off, to the here which is the European other (ethnic and social concerns, etc). The second observation is regarding the world in which it finds its objects; ‘Its’ objects’ being the things or points of focus which it can analyze. Auge states the contemporary or modern world has three main accelerated transformations which are attracting anthropological scrutiny, calling for a renewed methodical reflection.
The first transformation is related to time, the acceleration of history and multiplication of events which are conveyed to us due to our accessibility of information thus creating an over abundance of events. We arrive at the term ‘Supermodern’ which is synonymous with the overabundance of events, which according to Auge is price we pay as we want to give meaning not only to the past but also the present. “A situation we could call ‘supermodern’ to express its essential quality: excess.”(2)
Auge then refers to the “second accelerated transformation that is specific to the contemporary world that of the excess of space which is another characteristic of supermodernity.” (3) The shrinking of the planet is made possible because of technology. The development of transportation has brought any capital within a few hours. In our homes we can receive images from satellites sent to us via the aerials which can give us instant, simultaneous vision of events happening around the world. He also continues with the notion of excess in terms of global transference of mixed images through news, advertisement, and fiction; and it is here that Auge uses the term ‘non-places’ for the first time.
The last of the three excesses (accelerated transformations) is another defining characteristic of supermodernity is ‘ego’. I quote ‘In Western society at least, the individual wants to be a world in himself; he intends to interpret the information delivered to him by himself and for himself.’ (4) He also refers to this figure of excess as the ‘individualisation of references’. By explaining these three figures of excess, Auge is almost justifying a need for a new methodical anthropological reflection on the contemporary or as he now uses the phrase the supermodern.
The ethnologist deals with demarcation of space – Auge asks could this lead to a new rousing of interest in inhabitants regarding their own origins? Auge speaks about illusions or fantasies held by ethnologists. He discusses a fantasy held by the ethnologist of a society anchored since the very old distant time and anything outside of its perimeters is not really understandable; and that a society so transparent to itself is held up conceptually by the ethnologists, and that knowledge regarding a mapping of nature which is managed by a society continues with this fantasy and the illusion.
Is Auge saying that an ethnologist prefers to deal with spaces which are not necessarily completely understood but do lend themselves to being easily observed and categorized or mapped out? These spatial arrangements can then be related to the identity of the group. Auge explains: a frontier is marked out into signs; the cultivated and the wild nature, the permanent or temporary in terms of cultivable land, etc, housing arrangement to the group’s economics, political and religious geography. The notion of anthropological place is interwoven with the ethnologist’s conception of place and early in his book Auge establishes what a place is in terms of an ethnologist’s perception of place and what defines this; these spatial arrangements can then be related to the identity of the group. “The indigenous fantasy is that of a closed world founded long ago...does not have to be understood. “Everything there...is already known: Land, forest, springs, notable features, religious places, medicinal plants...and whose stability is supposed to be assured, by narratives about origins and by the ritual calendar.” (5)
This establishes the organisation of a place, in crude terms but terms which can be used as an example for later discourse regarding the notions of place. We could then interpret that Auge is saying that in an ethnologists’ opinion each group expresses its identity through its arrangement of space, and ensures this language of identity retains a meaning by defending against external and internal threats
According to Auge anthropological places have three characteristics; they want to be and people want them to be places of identity, relations and history. He talks about the historical combining identity and relations – carrying on of rituals or festivals not directly related to the individual who currently occupies but part of what individual takes on about the space and continues to live in its history. Other important factors which Auge includes regarding a place are to do with the ‘layout’ of a house, rules of residence, placement of altars, the design of public spaces, and land distribution. He also says that to “be born in a place, to be a assigned to residence,” (6) in other words to be born into a particular locality is where that person becomes associated with, he aligns himself to the places characteristics of that place, So in this sense an actual place of birth gave the person an identity. To enforce this argument Ague uses an analogy as an example; he states that an African born outside of a village ends up with the name which derives from some kind of feature of the landscape. To reiterate ‘place of birth is constituent of individual identity’ (7)
Auge refers to de Certeau in regard to relational notions, where he talks about the place containing the order of elements which coexist and interrelate; “place instantaneous configuration of positions;” (8) In other words the order of elements that coexist in the same space; these elements have inter-relations between each other maintaining shared identities due to occupying the same space. Auge says that an anthropological place is first geometric and He explains that it is mapped out into three spatial forms – elementary forms of social space; line, intersection of line, point of intersection. In terms of geometric geography they correspond to us through certain signs, routes, axes or paths which lead form one place to another; “to crossroads and open spaces where people pass, meet and gather, large marketplaces which satisfy the needs of economic exchange.”(9) Auge says that these routes, cross roads, centres are not necessarily independent in terms of notion and goes on to say ‘these simple forms are not characteristic only of great political or economic spaces’ (10) he uses it in relationship to individuals space of occupancy e.g. the domestic. He talks about the temporal dimension of spaces; market place, religious assemblies etc all occurring on certain days. Ritual activity of a space creates in us a condition for the memory attached to certain places. Auge re-enforces what he said previously ‘identity’ and relations lay at the heart of all spatial arrangements as well as history. In these spatial arrangements monuments are erected, so that citizens of that community may think about important subjects, to borrow the title of Marcel Proust book, ‘Remembrance of Things Past.’ The notion ‘monument’ derives from the Latin ‘monumentum’ – from monere ‘to remind’. “Without the monumental illusion before the eyes of the living, history would be mere abstraction.” (11) The monument itself may no longer be functional and stands as a break in space “strangely it is a set of breaks and discontinuities in space that expresses continuity in time.” (12)
Auge continues that it has been said that the new spatial arrangements of towns do not offer ‘places for living;’ town planning has affected the amount of time we spend talking to others as our paths cross. He speaks about routes, road systems linking centres together. Thus making reference to going out of our town or village, more people travelling outside of their town, ‘intensified accelerated traffic’ the physical outcome of this being that signs are larger. Auge sets up the notion of interaction with other places e.g. French towns twinning with those in Europe as something very modern almost in contrast with the exotic where a town or village is considered within itself as an entity – not seeing anything outside of its own boarders.
Information boards make history of local villages etc explicit to those who would pass them due to reorganization of space. Auge says one will only make the turn off into a place if what is written on the ‘business card’ appeals to our own taste or interest. Auge refers to ‘our towns hav(ing) been turn(ed) into museums’ and talks about how we bypass these leading into the discussion of these spaces i.e. non-places.
2. Marc Auge, Place and Non-place
In the starting pages of Auges chapter ‘non-place’ he distinguishes the difference between supermodernity and modernity by elaborating and reflecting on the question of whether there is still some sense of the community being organised through ritual (either religious or historical) in modern society. If you look at certain modern writers they still have a sense of this, these things still organise time. But these things may be becoming superseded by other things i.e. these rituals are still present but are being pushed aside and no other forms are offered within modernity to take their place. These rituals still exist but cannot be assigned their original function – Marcel Proust – (10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) French novelist, essayist and critic best known for his large series of novels. Proust spent many holidays at a village called ‘Illiers’ which became part of his writings. This village and his recollections of his uncles house located in Auteuil became the model for his fictional town named ‘Combray’; A hybrid of ‘Illiers’ and ‘Auteuil’ that gave birth to his fictional stage that contains important scenes in the novels ‘In Search of Lost Time’ (English translation was made by C. K. Scott Moncrieff titled as ‘Remembrance of Things Past’ between 1922 – 1931) that considers the other things replacing the ritual.
Auge refers to a piece of text which describes “the cycle of the hours around the Combray bell tower punctuates the rhythm” (13) translating this idea that the society’s identity is concerned with the local church where its bells remind the citizens to attend and maintain its traditional rituals around the religious infrastructure. As Wikipedia explains a ritual would be performed on specific occasions, normally at the discretion of the communities. And these chosen places of worship are places which have been reserved especially. These rituals serve many purposes, such as, spiritual or emotional needs, strengthening of social bonds, stating ones affiliation or obtaining social acceptance are just a few examples. These rituals are normally part of the history and fabric of the community.
What are the rituals today? Football, or is this just habitual practice? Art was ritualistic according to Walter Benjamin. So are modern rituals practiced out of a sense of habit or nostalgia? Auges refers to the writer who Jean Starobinski himself in his own discourse paper refers to James Joyce the opening pages of Ulysses and the use of the word liturgy (in classic Greek means ‘public work’) which means an elaborate formal ritual practiced by certain religious organisations. It also encompasses other associating life events, for instance births, coming of age, marriage and death.
Nevertheless rituals are shown as being pushed to the side by modernist writers, but they still carry on, they are wrapped up in our language. When we say ‘Sunday is our day of rest’ one might not be religious or deliberately making reference to Christianity ‘He rested on the seventh day’ but the saying is built into our language. Place is completed through the word, each geographical place has its own language or certain words it uses. The identity of a place is made up by the words and language its inhabitants use.
Auge continues by referring to another writer Starobinski, who in his work takes an extract from Baudelaire’s poem in ‘Tableaux parisiens, “...the workshop with its song and chatter; chimneys and great skies making us dream of eternity. ‘Bass line.’” (14) This expression used by Starobinski is a significant as it evokes ancient ‘places and rhythms’; where they co-exist together. Modernity then allows the coexistence of two different worlds; chimneys alongside spires; the old and new are interwoven. Roland Barthes says there are new forms of ritual, such as sport, media, etc. They still contain some of the ancient thoughts, patterns and needs which we have in our community.
Super-modernity doesn’t have the unconscious rules, principles, ethics, and morals that modernity has; as within modernity there is still a ‘base line’ a musical analogy is used to reference the underlying rhythms which are still present in modernity. To re-iterate Baudelarian modernity allows everything to be combined' (the old to harmonise with new), however, supermodernity makes the old (historical) into a specific spectacle. Baudelarian Modernity is contrasted with supermodernity: it is supermodernity which creates non-places, spaces which are not themselves anthropological places and which, unlike Baudelairean modernity, do not integrate the earlier places, and in Auges words, “If a place can be defined as relational, historical, and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational or historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place.” (15) So Marc Auge has set up the perimeters by identifying what the distinctions between anthropological place and non-places are.
According to Auge non-places cannot integrate the earlier places, listed as ‘places of memory’ empty of any spiritual or religious feeling. Here I would like to speculate that Peter Osborne reflects that Ague is melancholy and nostalgic – as supermodernity produces non-places which are devoid of anthropological meaning and that in Auges words it has become “a world where people are born in the clinic and die in a hospital.” (16) Auge speaks about non-places creating this wordless environment, supermarkets, slot machines, credit cards etc. In contrast to Auge’s previous statement a “place is completed through the word.” (17)
Osborne (who will be referred to later on in this paper) considers that the notion ‘non-place’ as put forward by Auge is conveyed negatively – one could agree when we observe Auge’s own words; “...born in the clinic and die in a hospital.” (18)
Auge further explains that place and non-place act as a crossover, there are points of connection, I quote “place and non-place are rather like opposed polarities: the first is never completely erased, the second never totally completed; they are like palimpsests on which the scrambled game of identity and relations is ceaselessly rewritten.”(19)
So as we can ascertain from what Auge is saying he believes a non-place cannot be grasped in terms of identity/relation/history like anthropological place. It would only be grasped in terms of measurements totalling all the “air rail and motorway...mobile cabins we call means of transport, aircraft, trains and road vehicles...the airports and railway stations, hotel chains” (20) and finally the complexity of communication systems, appropriate notion which the writer Manual Castells calls ‘spaces of flow’ which will be discussed later in this paper.
An opposition between space and place has produced the distinction between places and non-places. We learn that Michel de Certeau does not oppose place and space as place is opposed to non-place. The difference between place and space is the presence of people. Place is transformed into space when activated by people (space is therefore not in opposition to place – it is a transformation of it). Auge previously refers to de Certeau in regard to relational notions, where he talks about the place containing an order of elements which coexist and interrelate; a “place instantaneous configuration of positions.” (21)
De Certeau makes three references to define its terms. The first reference is to Merleau Ponty who in his seminal paper draws a distinction between anthropological space (existential space) and geometric space. The next reference is to the analogy of the word when it is spoken – it is activated. And the last is in regards to the doing as the activation and seeing is the observation of a map. In de Certeau’s words ‘you go in, you cross, and you turn.’ The term ‘space’ is more abstract in itself than the term ‘place’ e.g. air space, advertising space etc; and yet de Certeau uses place to represent the geometric and space to represent the area activated by humans. So when he uses this expression ‘space narratives’ de Certeau means both the narratives that ‘traverses’ and ‘organise’ places.
Michel de Certeau’s notion of non-place contrasts Auges meaning and allows much more potential for places to be transformed into non-places ‘an absence of the place from itself, caused by the name it has been given. “Proper names...........impose on the place ‘an injunction coming from the other (a history)....these names create non-places in the places; they turn them into passages” (22) which is an interpretation of what de Certeau is saying. It is the naming of places along a route and creating a passage, then traversing this route that creates (in Michel de Certeau’s opinion) a non-place. One is not occupying/inhabiting a place thus not activating it into a ‘space’ but one is instead traversing/cutting through these places/thus creating non-places.
So it is easy to understand what de Certeau describes as a non-place; these elements such as traversing or cutting through of places this de Certeau idea of non-place could go on to suggest that anywhere may be simultaneously a place and a non-place, this in turn opens up the possibility of a struggle between de Certeua’s conception and Auges perception wherein there lays an inherent struggle to create place from non-place. Auge’s non-places are “defined by words, they offer us’ referring to signs on motorways, and the use of cash machines In Auge’s own words when interviewed; “(23) when you put your credit card into a bank machine, you come in contact with an impalpable space - non-places in contrast to anthropological place are centre-less and have no frontiers, non-place is borderless. It is a bi-product of an ever expanding capitalist global modernity.
3. Peter Osborne & Non-place
Peter Osborne commences by starting with the notions on ‘A global capitalist modernity’. Osborne narrows it down to three key points which one will tackle with further detail. These key points are: 1: “we live in an emergent global modernity; 2: ‘At the same time, there are many modernity’s’.... and 3: ‘Global modernity is not, fundamentally, geo-politically, about the hegemony of the west, but about the hegemony of capital” (24)
According to Osborne all recent art is contributing to a capitalist spectacle – the capitalist spectacle is a form of abstraction, in some way it is not giving us the full or real picture. It abstracts to the extent of fetishization of the real state of things. According to the Osborne (Marxist) there are vast inequalities in the world, and in global market place, the means of production are not shared by everyone, the monetary system itself is abstracted. Osborne believes there is still a possibility for an old traditional Marxist view. For modernity to exist in a certain space that space that has to have certain conditions for it to thrive. These conditions are currently subject to transformation due to the globalization of capitalism. Geo-politics is changing as places that were once disassociated with capitalism are now becoming engulfed by it hence the ‘globalization of capitalism’ modernity is found to now exist within these spaces hence ’global capitalist modernity’. Osborne refers to this modernity (linked with globalization of capitalism) as a new historical form of modernity itself. Osborne says ‘the fundamental change in its special conditions alters the distribution and dynamics of what he previously referred to as modernity’s ‘temporal form’.
It is these transformations of modernity due to its linkage with globalization of capitalism which are creating new forms of spatial forms of capital which is now the main hegemony. The previous forms’ of modernity were under the two main geo-political conditions of colonialism and the cold war.
It appears that Osborne does not like the term post-modern as it implies modernism is over, Osborne believes there is still plenty to grapple with within modernity itself. The use of the term ‘supermodern’ by Auge is not a completely satisfactory term for Osborne but one which is most suitable at present; as the concept of supermodern by definition refers to excess; of space, time , ego, which relates to capitalism.
Osborne takes one idea from Auge’s paper ‘non-place’; ‘space never exists in pure form’, and continues to use this quote to undermine Auge’s ideas on non-place; and believes that Auge’s explanation could be much more radical as an idea rather than the version given which according to Osborne over simplifies into a list of non-places, (hotel chains, and motorways, etc). He uses it to lead him to the belief that ‘all non-places are places qua non-places;’ this comment could be referring to the potential that a non-place has to become a place; and place has to become a non-place continually shifting. This possibility could align itself with the notion of place talked about by de Certeau who as we have learnt talks about no matter where the traveler is located if he is in continuous flux and not stationary then he is in a non-place which conceptually negates Auge’s notion of what constitutes a non-place. Osborne criticizes that Auge did not maintain a high level of criticality and that he only resolves this notion ‘non-place’, poetically, and remains critically ambivalent. Utilizing ambivalent language Auge is able to conceal his over simplification of what Peter Osborne considers a complex subject of non-place. He perceives that non-place cannot be properly analyzed by the anthropologist (“critical anthropology can never, in principle, be critical enough,” (25) as anthropology needs a fixed object such as traditional anthropological subjects containing history, identity, and relational qualities, unlike non-place which is fluid and (as Auge states are) devoid of these.
According to Osborne non-place is not just concerned with a physical place, but also the abstract spatial forms, such as slot machines and credit cards, which “communicates wordlessly, through gestures, with an abstract, unmediated commerce.” (26) Osborne stipulates that this new form of interdependence exceeds an anthropological sense of place because non-place deals with not only the physical spatiality but also abstract spatiality – inevitably the limit for anthropology as it only deals with identity forming types of meanings, “anthropology ...fails to conceive ...the possibility of an identity-forming generation of meaning outside the confines of place...defined by boundaries of physical contiguity;” (27)
This critical response to Auge’s conceptual position is a good time to introduce the writer Manuel Castells who Osborne refers to and his notions of ‘Spaces of Flow’. It may be possible that Osborne is looking to build a new model and is looking to another writer to support him in this. As we have established non-place conceptually deals with physical place and abstract spatiality. According to Wikipedia spaces of flow is a high level of abstraction regarding space, time, and the dynamic interaction with our society in this digital age. This notion was invented by Castells in order to reconceptualize new forms of spatial types under this new technological age. Apparently according to Castells space should not be disconnected from the abstract thing known as ‘time’. Castells asserts that “space is a dynamic entity related to time, and rejects the concept that it will disappear as to create a global city. Space is defined by the as the material organization of time-sharing social practices that work through flows” (28)
Castells says that “the space of flow, links up distant locales around shared functions and meanings on the basis of electronic circuits and transportation corridors, while isolating and subduing the logic of experience embodied in the space of places, (Information and network society, etc.) Castells defines space as the physical support for the way we live in time, this space and time is the ‘real world time’ which is...‘spaces of places’. This appears to be a development from the first notion of non-place and this new term ‘space of flow’ could be better equipped in dealing with new technological spatiality in terms of abstraction such as communications via networking tools like the internet, etc.
The idea of ‘spaces of flow’ is part of the whole globalization which Osborne discussed earlier in his paper; that this new technological form governs flows of capital, flows of information, flows of images, etc, are a few examples. This notion is part of the whole idea of ‘a global capitalist modernity’ discussed by Osborne; and that since the fall of the iron curtain modernity has spread out across the globe creating a global network of exchange, “the existence of market accelerations, the circulation and exchange of goods...” (29)
Osborne states that Auges paper critically oscillates between ‘a backward-looking romanticisation of the anthropological conception of place and a forward looking positive ethnology of solitude’; an example of this backward looking romanticisation which Osborne believes Auge has can be found in a selected text by Ian Buchanan in which he talks about how home grown produce which we provision our self’s with has been superseded by imported continental commodities; all of this is now taken for granted due to recent process of expanding globalization. And although in most societies we embrace all the possibilities that globalization offers us, we nonetheless still have nostalgia for the past, and (“we continue to sense a longing for a past none of us has actually known...)” (30)
This feeling of nostalgia can be sensed with Auge, he wants to attain this anthropology but can’t help but to look at the future and acknowledge that this may not include the traditions of anthropological model. “Auge woke up an anthropologist, only to find that his anthropological way of thinking about the world has led him to the conclusion that anthropology no longer exists....it’s a discipline bereft of a proper object.”(31)
So Osborne is talking about a new form of spatiality which is a new ‘ontological type of place’ which could become another part to a whole, ‘non-place’. It has been established that there are two forms of place put forward for discussion that of an historical established form conceptually acknowledged as ‘anthropological place,’ and the new form, supermodern non-place which is promoted by Auge. And now could there be a third idea on place, not a new term but a development of non-place? Non-place according to Osborne is intrinsically a special type of place; not separate entities (place & non-place) but the two making up a whole.
It would appear that Peter Osborne is setting up a new polemic discourse within his paper by placing the new term by Castells, ‘space of flows’ in opposition to Auges ‘non-place’ or it’s possible that Osborne perceives, that this ‘spaces of flow’ is just a conceptual development from ‘non-place’ that is better suited in explaining our new forms of spatiality (abstracted space). Is this then our new and appropriate term ‘spaces of flow’, for contextualising/describing ‘new ontological types of places? If we analyse Osborne’s comment, “Auge’s ‘non-places’, it would seem, are more properly conceived as the product of the dialectic of the space of places and the space of flows”(32) This comment could be understood as saying that both ideas are inter-related and that both Auges ‘non-place’ and Castells ‘spaces of flow’ need this dialectic between the two forms of conceptual meaning; and in this sense, that it is, critically reconceived as a potential form which critiques our new forms of spatiality (combining physical non-places, such as, motor ways, air-ports, with ‘flows of capital, flows of information, flows of images, etc) which it has been argued before cannot be achieved by anthropology. Via new technological abstract communication systems this idea of ‘flows’ is made possible and due to modernity has spread out across the globe; modernity is everywhere, new modernity which came about after the cold war means modernity has become spatially one, borderless. So the notion held by the ethnologist regarding the here and elsewhere (the rest of the world) has changed although according to Auge there is still a “centre of the world” (33) but it has downsized and deterritorialized. This growing deterritorialisation allows for the freedom of exchange and is made possible by new technologies which make the notion ‘spaces of flow’ possible, like banking, the internet, etc.
4. Summary
To sum up I will endeavour to reiterate key points within this paper and to draw on some conclusions which may still be argued as speculative. Marc Auge’s book is written in the style that it would retain some academic credential, although this might be the intention Peter Osborne has argued its failure as a book to establish the concept ‘non-place.’ Auge systematically writes that the anthropologist needed to establish a new series of objects to focus on as the study of the ‘elsewhere’ became out dated, not because in the words of Auge the anthropologist became ‘bored’ with foreign fields’ but due to the contemporary or modern world with its three transformations having something new to deal with – it is calling for scrutiny. The anthropologist is notion of place is interwoven with the ethnologist’s conception of place which Auge has listed as, ‘Land...and medicinal plants. (34)
Auge created a distinction between his concept of ‘non-place’ and Michel de Certeau perspective on the subject. Thus Auge’s ‘non-place’ by definition was summed up as being the opposite to his explanation of anthropological place, and is different to de Certeau’s as it is not just about being in constant flux but remaining outside of the confines of anthropological place.
Osborne criticizes that Auge did not maintain a high level of criticality and that he only resolves the notion of ‘non-place’, poetically, remaining critically ambivalent. The idea of non-place according to Osborne is complex and he re-creates a setting in his paper where he puts non-place as a conceptual form back into a dialectical position through considering Auge’s ideas in relation to Manual Castells concept of ‘spaces of flow’. Osborne does not hold on to the anthropological methodology and he states, non-place cannot be properly analyzed by the anthropologist; “critical anthropology can never... be critical enough,” (35) Taking this in to consideration, it marks the death of the anthropological study of place and the genesis of Post-anthropological study of ‘non-place’ and Castells ‘spaces of flow’.
What is interesting is that Osborne criticises Auge for making a simple list which denotes what a non-place encompasses and states that this conceptually weakens his hypothesis; and as Peter Osborne stipulates in his paper that by reducing the concept of non-place to a list of signifiers kills the criticalities of the form which could analyse these new forms of places. But Peter Osborne refers to Castells who too has listed a series of examples regarding what constitutes ‘spaces of flow’ i.e. “flows of capital...flows of images.” (36) This highlights a possible area of contradiction in his paper, or perhaps Osborne may need some clarification to this section of the paper.
Its plausible that Osborne’s objective is to establish a hybrid between the two concepts ‘non-place’ and ‘spaces of flow’ that will form this new radical system of analysis which could return to the true ideas of non-place in terms of criticality, and re-shape Auges notions (in Osborne’s opinion). Is Osborne believing that this hybrid of spatial forms is the new ontological type of place, or to use Osborne’s comments “the idea of non-place may be developed into a genuinely ‘post-anthropological’ conception of place,” (37) So the rethinking of Auge’s ideas and the possibility of a hybrid regarding new forms of spatiality (non-place and spaces of flow) has pre-occupied Osborne’s paper. And in the words of Osborne “...rethinking of Auge in relation to Castells raises the possibility of giving analytical substance to what Hardt and Negri have recently called ‘a new place in the non-place’ or better ‘a new place of the non-place,” (38) which could be an interesting new ontological site for analysis and Osborne puts forward a hypothesis that our current form of global non-place could be replaced by the non-place of the currently emerging power they call ‘empire’.
Bibliography
1. Marc Auge, non-places – introduction to anthropology of supermodernity, published by Verso, 1995, p. 18/19.
2. Ibid. p. 29.
3. Ibid. p. 31.
4. Ibid. p. 37.
5. Ibid. p. 44.
6. Ibid. p. 53.
7. Ibid. p. 53.
8. Ibid. p. 54.
9. Ibid. p. 57.
10. Ibid. p. 58.
11. Ibid. p. 60.
12. Ibid. p. 60.
13. Ibid. p. 76.
14. Ibid. p. 77/78.
15. Ibid. p. 77/78.
16. Ibid. p. 78.
17. Ibid. p. 77.
18. Ibid. p. 78.
19. Ibid. p. 79.
20. Ibid. p. 79.
21. Ibid. p. 54.
22. Ibid. p. 85.
23. Jean-Pierre Criqui talks with Marc Auge, Homemade strange - interview with ethnologist Marc Auge, Artforum, summer, 1994.
24. Peter Osborne, Non-Places and the Spaces of Art, The Journal of Architecture, Volume 2, Summer 2001, p.188
25. Ibid. p. 189
26. Marc Auge, non-places – introduction to anthropology of supermodernity, published by Verso, 1995, p. 78.
27. Peter Osborne, Non-Places and the Spaces of Art, The Journal of Architecture, Volume 2, Summer 2001, p.189
28. Manual Castells, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Castells
29. Marc Auge, non-places – introduction to anthropology of supermodernity, 2nd edition published by Verso, 2008, p. XVIII.
30. Ian Buchanan, Deleuze and Space, published by Edinburgh university press, 2005, p. 17.
31. Ibid. p. 27.
32. Peter Osborne, Non-Places and the Spaces of Art, The Journal of Architecture, Volume 2, Summer 2001, p.189
33. Marc Auge, non-places – introduction to anthropology of supermodernity, 2nd edition published by Verso, 2008, p. XX.
34. Marc Auge, non-places – introduction to anthropology of supermodernity, published by Verso, 1995, p. 33.
35. Peter Osborne, Non-Places and the Spaces of Art, The Journal of Architecture, Volume 2, Summer 2001, p.189
36. Ibid. p. 189.
37. Ibid. p. 189.
38. Ibid. p. 189.
2009
Introduction:
This paper discusses notions of non-place and its relationship to contemporary place. It will consider Marc Auge’s ideas in relation to growing new forms of modernity, such as ‘supermodernity’, its co-existence with global capitalist modernity and its transformation of western cultural form. It will focus on the development of Auge’s non-place and discuss other descriptions of forms of cultural exchange. It will look at the changing attitudes to place, from the ethnologist’s and anthropologist’s conception; Auge’s ‘non-place’ and reflect on Peter Osborne’s use of the notion in light of Castells ‘spaces of flow’. The term Non-place was invented by French historian Michel de Ceteau.
The paper will navigate the reader through three chapters and finish with a conclusion. 1) An elaborate synopsis regarding ‘Anthropological’ place and ‘Supermodernity.’ Auge’s description of three the main accelerations which define ‘supermodernity’ and the distinction between anthropological places, and supermodern places. 2) A clarification and extended synopsis on the concept of ‘non-place,’ the difference between modernity and supermodernity, and spatial forms of place, from de Certeau who talks about a place becoming a space, when it’s transformed or activated by people. These spatial meanings need to be understood in terms of differences. In order to comprehend what is a non-place, we must first learn what a place is and its relationship to space. 3) An explanation of terms such as ‘global capitalist modernity,’ new forms of spatiality through new concepts like ‘spaces of flow’ a term referred to by Osborne, (a concept invented by Manual Catells) and a reflection on Osborne’s Non-Places and the Spaces of Art; with the ends of creating an analysis of this model in relation to Auge’s syntax of the notion non-place. The focus of this paper is to consider Osborne’s ideas on Auge’s notion of non-place as a hypothesis; and to delve into Osborne’s nuances of ‘non-place’ and ‘spaces of flow’ which together may give description to a new possible ontological type of place, a hybrid regarding new forms of spatiality (non-place and spaces of flow).
1. Anthropological Place and Supermodernity
Ague seems to describe the anthropologist and ethnologist as working side by side, in consideration of the ‘here and now’. He uses the word “practising” to precede ethnologist thus emphasising this person is active in gathering information i.e. he is in the field observing first-hand what he hears or sees. Anthropology he precedes with the word, ‘theoretical’. This relates to the analytical approach the anthropologist takes as he calls on the data gathered by the ethnologist.
Auge clarifies the term ‘here’ in regards to a division between and opposition of the European here and the “formally ‘colonial’ now ‘underdeveloped’” elsewhere. Auge uses two observations to bring further clarity to the basis of the subject of anthropology. The first observation is to do with anthropological research. He states the question of the other is the sole ‘intellectual object’. Anthropology engages with all forms of other, exotic, ethnic, and cultural. To use Auge’s text he stipulate “Internal other as the reference for a system of differences...division of sexes...defining everyone’s situation in political, economic and family terms, so that it is not possible to mention a position in the system without referring to one or more others.” (1)
An ethnologist’s main objective is to set out and decipher, by reading the way a place is organised. Auge explains: a frontier is marked out into signs; the cultivated and the wild nature, the permanent or temporary in terms of cultivable land, housing arrangement to the group’s economics, political and religious geography.
The other varies in different studies ranging from the exotic (indigenous tribes) which is the far off, to the here which is the European other (ethnic and social concerns, etc). The second observation is regarding the world in which it finds its objects; ‘Its’ objects’ being the things or points of focus which it can analyze. Auge states the contemporary or modern world has three main accelerated transformations which are attracting anthropological scrutiny, calling for a renewed methodical reflection.
The first transformation is related to time, the acceleration of history and multiplication of events which are conveyed to us due to our accessibility of information thus creating an over abundance of events. We arrive at the term ‘Supermodern’ which is synonymous with the overabundance of events, which according to Auge is price we pay as we want to give meaning not only to the past but also the present. “A situation we could call ‘supermodern’ to express its essential quality: excess.”(2)
Auge then refers to the “second accelerated transformation that is specific to the contemporary world that of the excess of space which is another characteristic of supermodernity.” (3) The shrinking of the planet is made possible because of technology. The development of transportation has brought any capital within a few hours. In our homes we can receive images from satellites sent to us via the aerials which can give us instant, simultaneous vision of events happening around the world. He also continues with the notion of excess in terms of global transference of mixed images through news, advertisement, and fiction; and it is here that Auge uses the term ‘non-places’ for the first time.
The last of the three excesses (accelerated transformations) is another defining characteristic of supermodernity is ‘ego’. I quote ‘In Western society at least, the individual wants to be a world in himself; he intends to interpret the information delivered to him by himself and for himself.’ (4) He also refers to this figure of excess as the ‘individualisation of references’. By explaining these three figures of excess, Auge is almost justifying a need for a new methodical anthropological reflection on the contemporary or as he now uses the phrase the supermodern.
The ethnologist deals with demarcation of space – Auge asks could this lead to a new rousing of interest in inhabitants regarding their own origins? Auge speaks about illusions or fantasies held by ethnologists. He discusses a fantasy held by the ethnologist of a society anchored since the very old distant time and anything outside of its perimeters is not really understandable; and that a society so transparent to itself is held up conceptually by the ethnologists, and that knowledge regarding a mapping of nature which is managed by a society continues with this fantasy and the illusion.
Is Auge saying that an ethnologist prefers to deal with spaces which are not necessarily completely understood but do lend themselves to being easily observed and categorized or mapped out? These spatial arrangements can then be related to the identity of the group. Auge explains: a frontier is marked out into signs; the cultivated and the wild nature, the permanent or temporary in terms of cultivable land, etc, housing arrangement to the group’s economics, political and religious geography. The notion of anthropological place is interwoven with the ethnologist’s conception of place and early in his book Auge establishes what a place is in terms of an ethnologist’s perception of place and what defines this; these spatial arrangements can then be related to the identity of the group. “The indigenous fantasy is that of a closed world founded long ago...does not have to be understood. “Everything there...is already known: Land, forest, springs, notable features, religious places, medicinal plants...and whose stability is supposed to be assured, by narratives about origins and by the ritual calendar.” (5)
This establishes the organisation of a place, in crude terms but terms which can be used as an example for later discourse regarding the notions of place. We could then interpret that Auge is saying that in an ethnologists’ opinion each group expresses its identity through its arrangement of space, and ensures this language of identity retains a meaning by defending against external and internal threats
According to Auge anthropological places have three characteristics; they want to be and people want them to be places of identity, relations and history. He talks about the historical combining identity and relations – carrying on of rituals or festivals not directly related to the individual who currently occupies but part of what individual takes on about the space and continues to live in its history. Other important factors which Auge includes regarding a place are to do with the ‘layout’ of a house, rules of residence, placement of altars, the design of public spaces, and land distribution. He also says that to “be born in a place, to be a assigned to residence,” (6) in other words to be born into a particular locality is where that person becomes associated with, he aligns himself to the places characteristics of that place, So in this sense an actual place of birth gave the person an identity. To enforce this argument Ague uses an analogy as an example; he states that an African born outside of a village ends up with the name which derives from some kind of feature of the landscape. To reiterate ‘place of birth is constituent of individual identity’ (7)
Auge refers to de Certeau in regard to relational notions, where he talks about the place containing the order of elements which coexist and interrelate; “place instantaneous configuration of positions;” (8) In other words the order of elements that coexist in the same space; these elements have inter-relations between each other maintaining shared identities due to occupying the same space. Auge says that an anthropological place is first geometric and He explains that it is mapped out into three spatial forms – elementary forms of social space; line, intersection of line, point of intersection. In terms of geometric geography they correspond to us through certain signs, routes, axes or paths which lead form one place to another; “to crossroads and open spaces where people pass, meet and gather, large marketplaces which satisfy the needs of economic exchange.”(9) Auge says that these routes, cross roads, centres are not necessarily independent in terms of notion and goes on to say ‘these simple forms are not characteristic only of great political or economic spaces’ (10) he uses it in relationship to individuals space of occupancy e.g. the domestic. He talks about the temporal dimension of spaces; market place, religious assemblies etc all occurring on certain days. Ritual activity of a space creates in us a condition for the memory attached to certain places. Auge re-enforces what he said previously ‘identity’ and relations lay at the heart of all spatial arrangements as well as history. In these spatial arrangements monuments are erected, so that citizens of that community may think about important subjects, to borrow the title of Marcel Proust book, ‘Remembrance of Things Past.’ The notion ‘monument’ derives from the Latin ‘monumentum’ – from monere ‘to remind’. “Without the monumental illusion before the eyes of the living, history would be mere abstraction.” (11) The monument itself may no longer be functional and stands as a break in space “strangely it is a set of breaks and discontinuities in space that expresses continuity in time.” (12)
Auge continues that it has been said that the new spatial arrangements of towns do not offer ‘places for living;’ town planning has affected the amount of time we spend talking to others as our paths cross. He speaks about routes, road systems linking centres together. Thus making reference to going out of our town or village, more people travelling outside of their town, ‘intensified accelerated traffic’ the physical outcome of this being that signs are larger. Auge sets up the notion of interaction with other places e.g. French towns twinning with those in Europe as something very modern almost in contrast with the exotic where a town or village is considered within itself as an entity – not seeing anything outside of its own boarders.
Information boards make history of local villages etc explicit to those who would pass them due to reorganization of space. Auge says one will only make the turn off into a place if what is written on the ‘business card’ appeals to our own taste or interest. Auge refers to ‘our towns hav(ing) been turn(ed) into museums’ and talks about how we bypass these leading into the discussion of these spaces i.e. non-places.
2. Marc Auge, Place and Non-place
In the starting pages of Auges chapter ‘non-place’ he distinguishes the difference between supermodernity and modernity by elaborating and reflecting on the question of whether there is still some sense of the community being organised through ritual (either religious or historical) in modern society. If you look at certain modern writers they still have a sense of this, these things still organise time. But these things may be becoming superseded by other things i.e. these rituals are still present but are being pushed aside and no other forms are offered within modernity to take their place. These rituals still exist but cannot be assigned their original function – Marcel Proust – (10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) French novelist, essayist and critic best known for his large series of novels. Proust spent many holidays at a village called ‘Illiers’ which became part of his writings. This village and his recollections of his uncles house located in Auteuil became the model for his fictional town named ‘Combray’; A hybrid of ‘Illiers’ and ‘Auteuil’ that gave birth to his fictional stage that contains important scenes in the novels ‘In Search of Lost Time’ (English translation was made by C. K. Scott Moncrieff titled as ‘Remembrance of Things Past’ between 1922 – 1931) that considers the other things replacing the ritual.
Auge refers to a piece of text which describes “the cycle of the hours around the Combray bell tower punctuates the rhythm” (13) translating this idea that the society’s identity is concerned with the local church where its bells remind the citizens to attend and maintain its traditional rituals around the religious infrastructure. As Wikipedia explains a ritual would be performed on specific occasions, normally at the discretion of the communities. And these chosen places of worship are places which have been reserved especially. These rituals serve many purposes, such as, spiritual or emotional needs, strengthening of social bonds, stating ones affiliation or obtaining social acceptance are just a few examples. These rituals are normally part of the history and fabric of the community.
What are the rituals today? Football, or is this just habitual practice? Art was ritualistic according to Walter Benjamin. So are modern rituals practiced out of a sense of habit or nostalgia? Auges refers to the writer who Jean Starobinski himself in his own discourse paper refers to James Joyce the opening pages of Ulysses and the use of the word liturgy (in classic Greek means ‘public work’) which means an elaborate formal ritual practiced by certain religious organisations. It also encompasses other associating life events, for instance births, coming of age, marriage and death.
Nevertheless rituals are shown as being pushed to the side by modernist writers, but they still carry on, they are wrapped up in our language. When we say ‘Sunday is our day of rest’ one might not be religious or deliberately making reference to Christianity ‘He rested on the seventh day’ but the saying is built into our language. Place is completed through the word, each geographical place has its own language or certain words it uses. The identity of a place is made up by the words and language its inhabitants use.
Auge continues by referring to another writer Starobinski, who in his work takes an extract from Baudelaire’s poem in ‘Tableaux parisiens, “...the workshop with its song and chatter; chimneys and great skies making us dream of eternity. ‘Bass line.’” (14) This expression used by Starobinski is a significant as it evokes ancient ‘places and rhythms’; where they co-exist together. Modernity then allows the coexistence of two different worlds; chimneys alongside spires; the old and new are interwoven. Roland Barthes says there are new forms of ritual, such as sport, media, etc. They still contain some of the ancient thoughts, patterns and needs which we have in our community.
Super-modernity doesn’t have the unconscious rules, principles, ethics, and morals that modernity has; as within modernity there is still a ‘base line’ a musical analogy is used to reference the underlying rhythms which are still present in modernity. To re-iterate Baudelarian modernity allows everything to be combined' (the old to harmonise with new), however, supermodernity makes the old (historical) into a specific spectacle. Baudelarian Modernity is contrasted with supermodernity: it is supermodernity which creates non-places, spaces which are not themselves anthropological places and which, unlike Baudelairean modernity, do not integrate the earlier places, and in Auges words, “If a place can be defined as relational, historical, and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational or historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place.” (15) So Marc Auge has set up the perimeters by identifying what the distinctions between anthropological place and non-places are.
According to Auge non-places cannot integrate the earlier places, listed as ‘places of memory’ empty of any spiritual or religious feeling. Here I would like to speculate that Peter Osborne reflects that Ague is melancholy and nostalgic – as supermodernity produces non-places which are devoid of anthropological meaning and that in Auges words it has become “a world where people are born in the clinic and die in a hospital.” (16) Auge speaks about non-places creating this wordless environment, supermarkets, slot machines, credit cards etc. In contrast to Auge’s previous statement a “place is completed through the word.” (17)
Osborne (who will be referred to later on in this paper) considers that the notion ‘non-place’ as put forward by Auge is conveyed negatively – one could agree when we observe Auge’s own words; “...born in the clinic and die in a hospital.” (18)
Auge further explains that place and non-place act as a crossover, there are points of connection, I quote “place and non-place are rather like opposed polarities: the first is never completely erased, the second never totally completed; they are like palimpsests on which the scrambled game of identity and relations is ceaselessly rewritten.”(19)
So as we can ascertain from what Auge is saying he believes a non-place cannot be grasped in terms of identity/relation/history like anthropological place. It would only be grasped in terms of measurements totalling all the “air rail and motorway...mobile cabins we call means of transport, aircraft, trains and road vehicles...the airports and railway stations, hotel chains” (20) and finally the complexity of communication systems, appropriate notion which the writer Manual Castells calls ‘spaces of flow’ which will be discussed later in this paper.
An opposition between space and place has produced the distinction between places and non-places. We learn that Michel de Certeau does not oppose place and space as place is opposed to non-place. The difference between place and space is the presence of people. Place is transformed into space when activated by people (space is therefore not in opposition to place – it is a transformation of it). Auge previously refers to de Certeau in regard to relational notions, where he talks about the place containing an order of elements which coexist and interrelate; a “place instantaneous configuration of positions.” (21)
De Certeau makes three references to define its terms. The first reference is to Merleau Ponty who in his seminal paper draws a distinction between anthropological space (existential space) and geometric space. The next reference is to the analogy of the word when it is spoken – it is activated. And the last is in regards to the doing as the activation and seeing is the observation of a map. In de Certeau’s words ‘you go in, you cross, and you turn.’ The term ‘space’ is more abstract in itself than the term ‘place’ e.g. air space, advertising space etc; and yet de Certeau uses place to represent the geometric and space to represent the area activated by humans. So when he uses this expression ‘space narratives’ de Certeau means both the narratives that ‘traverses’ and ‘organise’ places.
Michel de Certeau’s notion of non-place contrasts Auges meaning and allows much more potential for places to be transformed into non-places ‘an absence of the place from itself, caused by the name it has been given. “Proper names...........impose on the place ‘an injunction coming from the other (a history)....these names create non-places in the places; they turn them into passages” (22) which is an interpretation of what de Certeau is saying. It is the naming of places along a route and creating a passage, then traversing this route that creates (in Michel de Certeau’s opinion) a non-place. One is not occupying/inhabiting a place thus not activating it into a ‘space’ but one is instead traversing/cutting through these places/thus creating non-places.
So it is easy to understand what de Certeau describes as a non-place; these elements such as traversing or cutting through of places this de Certeau idea of non-place could go on to suggest that anywhere may be simultaneously a place and a non-place, this in turn opens up the possibility of a struggle between de Certeua’s conception and Auges perception wherein there lays an inherent struggle to create place from non-place. Auge’s non-places are “defined by words, they offer us’ referring to signs on motorways, and the use of cash machines In Auge’s own words when interviewed; “(23) when you put your credit card into a bank machine, you come in contact with an impalpable space - non-places in contrast to anthropological place are centre-less and have no frontiers, non-place is borderless. It is a bi-product of an ever expanding capitalist global modernity.
3. Peter Osborne & Non-place
Peter Osborne commences by starting with the notions on ‘A global capitalist modernity’. Osborne narrows it down to three key points which one will tackle with further detail. These key points are: 1: “we live in an emergent global modernity; 2: ‘At the same time, there are many modernity’s’.... and 3: ‘Global modernity is not, fundamentally, geo-politically, about the hegemony of the west, but about the hegemony of capital” (24)
According to Osborne all recent art is contributing to a capitalist spectacle – the capitalist spectacle is a form of abstraction, in some way it is not giving us the full or real picture. It abstracts to the extent of fetishization of the real state of things. According to the Osborne (Marxist) there are vast inequalities in the world, and in global market place, the means of production are not shared by everyone, the monetary system itself is abstracted. Osborne believes there is still a possibility for an old traditional Marxist view. For modernity to exist in a certain space that space that has to have certain conditions for it to thrive. These conditions are currently subject to transformation due to the globalization of capitalism. Geo-politics is changing as places that were once disassociated with capitalism are now becoming engulfed by it hence the ‘globalization of capitalism’ modernity is found to now exist within these spaces hence ’global capitalist modernity’. Osborne refers to this modernity (linked with globalization of capitalism) as a new historical form of modernity itself. Osborne says ‘the fundamental change in its special conditions alters the distribution and dynamics of what he previously referred to as modernity’s ‘temporal form’.
It is these transformations of modernity due to its linkage with globalization of capitalism which are creating new forms of spatial forms of capital which is now the main hegemony. The previous forms’ of modernity were under the two main geo-political conditions of colonialism and the cold war.
It appears that Osborne does not like the term post-modern as it implies modernism is over, Osborne believes there is still plenty to grapple with within modernity itself. The use of the term ‘supermodern’ by Auge is not a completely satisfactory term for Osborne but one which is most suitable at present; as the concept of supermodern by definition refers to excess; of space, time , ego, which relates to capitalism.
Osborne takes one idea from Auge’s paper ‘non-place’; ‘space never exists in pure form’, and continues to use this quote to undermine Auge’s ideas on non-place; and believes that Auge’s explanation could be much more radical as an idea rather than the version given which according to Osborne over simplifies into a list of non-places, (hotel chains, and motorways, etc). He uses it to lead him to the belief that ‘all non-places are places qua non-places;’ this comment could be referring to the potential that a non-place has to become a place; and place has to become a non-place continually shifting. This possibility could align itself with the notion of place talked about by de Certeau who as we have learnt talks about no matter where the traveler is located if he is in continuous flux and not stationary then he is in a non-place which conceptually negates Auge’s notion of what constitutes a non-place. Osborne criticizes that Auge did not maintain a high level of criticality and that he only resolves this notion ‘non-place’, poetically, and remains critically ambivalent. Utilizing ambivalent language Auge is able to conceal his over simplification of what Peter Osborne considers a complex subject of non-place. He perceives that non-place cannot be properly analyzed by the anthropologist (“critical anthropology can never, in principle, be critical enough,” (25) as anthropology needs a fixed object such as traditional anthropological subjects containing history, identity, and relational qualities, unlike non-place which is fluid and (as Auge states are) devoid of these.
According to Osborne non-place is not just concerned with a physical place, but also the abstract spatial forms, such as slot machines and credit cards, which “communicates wordlessly, through gestures, with an abstract, unmediated commerce.” (26) Osborne stipulates that this new form of interdependence exceeds an anthropological sense of place because non-place deals with not only the physical spatiality but also abstract spatiality – inevitably the limit for anthropology as it only deals with identity forming types of meanings, “anthropology ...fails to conceive ...the possibility of an identity-forming generation of meaning outside the confines of place...defined by boundaries of physical contiguity;” (27)
This critical response to Auge’s conceptual position is a good time to introduce the writer Manuel Castells who Osborne refers to and his notions of ‘Spaces of Flow’. It may be possible that Osborne is looking to build a new model and is looking to another writer to support him in this. As we have established non-place conceptually deals with physical place and abstract spatiality. According to Wikipedia spaces of flow is a high level of abstraction regarding space, time, and the dynamic interaction with our society in this digital age. This notion was invented by Castells in order to reconceptualize new forms of spatial types under this new technological age. Apparently according to Castells space should not be disconnected from the abstract thing known as ‘time’. Castells asserts that “space is a dynamic entity related to time, and rejects the concept that it will disappear as to create a global city. Space is defined by the as the material organization of time-sharing social practices that work through flows” (28)
Castells says that “the space of flow, links up distant locales around shared functions and meanings on the basis of electronic circuits and transportation corridors, while isolating and subduing the logic of experience embodied in the space of places, (Information and network society, etc.) Castells defines space as the physical support for the way we live in time, this space and time is the ‘real world time’ which is...‘spaces of places’. This appears to be a development from the first notion of non-place and this new term ‘space of flow’ could be better equipped in dealing with new technological spatiality in terms of abstraction such as communications via networking tools like the internet, etc.
The idea of ‘spaces of flow’ is part of the whole globalization which Osborne discussed earlier in his paper; that this new technological form governs flows of capital, flows of information, flows of images, etc, are a few examples. This notion is part of the whole idea of ‘a global capitalist modernity’ discussed by Osborne; and that since the fall of the iron curtain modernity has spread out across the globe creating a global network of exchange, “the existence of market accelerations, the circulation and exchange of goods...” (29)
Osborne states that Auges paper critically oscillates between ‘a backward-looking romanticisation of the anthropological conception of place and a forward looking positive ethnology of solitude’; an example of this backward looking romanticisation which Osborne believes Auge has can be found in a selected text by Ian Buchanan in which he talks about how home grown produce which we provision our self’s with has been superseded by imported continental commodities; all of this is now taken for granted due to recent process of expanding globalization. And although in most societies we embrace all the possibilities that globalization offers us, we nonetheless still have nostalgia for the past, and (“we continue to sense a longing for a past none of us has actually known...)” (30)
This feeling of nostalgia can be sensed with Auge, he wants to attain this anthropology but can’t help but to look at the future and acknowledge that this may not include the traditions of anthropological model. “Auge woke up an anthropologist, only to find that his anthropological way of thinking about the world has led him to the conclusion that anthropology no longer exists....it’s a discipline bereft of a proper object.”(31)
So Osborne is talking about a new form of spatiality which is a new ‘ontological type of place’ which could become another part to a whole, ‘non-place’. It has been established that there are two forms of place put forward for discussion that of an historical established form conceptually acknowledged as ‘anthropological place,’ and the new form, supermodern non-place which is promoted by Auge. And now could there be a third idea on place, not a new term but a development of non-place? Non-place according to Osborne is intrinsically a special type of place; not separate entities (place & non-place) but the two making up a whole.
It would appear that Peter Osborne is setting up a new polemic discourse within his paper by placing the new term by Castells, ‘space of flows’ in opposition to Auges ‘non-place’ or it’s possible that Osborne perceives, that this ‘spaces of flow’ is just a conceptual development from ‘non-place’ that is better suited in explaining our new forms of spatiality (abstracted space). Is this then our new and appropriate term ‘spaces of flow’, for contextualising/describing ‘new ontological types of places? If we analyse Osborne’s comment, “Auge’s ‘non-places’, it would seem, are more properly conceived as the product of the dialectic of the space of places and the space of flows”(32) This comment could be understood as saying that both ideas are inter-related and that both Auges ‘non-place’ and Castells ‘spaces of flow’ need this dialectic between the two forms of conceptual meaning; and in this sense, that it is, critically reconceived as a potential form which critiques our new forms of spatiality (combining physical non-places, such as, motor ways, air-ports, with ‘flows of capital, flows of information, flows of images, etc) which it has been argued before cannot be achieved by anthropology. Via new technological abstract communication systems this idea of ‘flows’ is made possible and due to modernity has spread out across the globe; modernity is everywhere, new modernity which came about after the cold war means modernity has become spatially one, borderless. So the notion held by the ethnologist regarding the here and elsewhere (the rest of the world) has changed although according to Auge there is still a “centre of the world” (33) but it has downsized and deterritorialized. This growing deterritorialisation allows for the freedom of exchange and is made possible by new technologies which make the notion ‘spaces of flow’ possible, like banking, the internet, etc.
4. Summary
To sum up I will endeavour to reiterate key points within this paper and to draw on some conclusions which may still be argued as speculative. Marc Auge’s book is written in the style that it would retain some academic credential, although this might be the intention Peter Osborne has argued its failure as a book to establish the concept ‘non-place.’ Auge systematically writes that the anthropologist needed to establish a new series of objects to focus on as the study of the ‘elsewhere’ became out dated, not because in the words of Auge the anthropologist became ‘bored’ with foreign fields’ but due to the contemporary or modern world with its three transformations having something new to deal with – it is calling for scrutiny. The anthropologist is notion of place is interwoven with the ethnologist’s conception of place which Auge has listed as, ‘Land...and medicinal plants. (34)
Auge created a distinction between his concept of ‘non-place’ and Michel de Certeau perspective on the subject. Thus Auge’s ‘non-place’ by definition was summed up as being the opposite to his explanation of anthropological place, and is different to de Certeau’s as it is not just about being in constant flux but remaining outside of the confines of anthropological place.
Osborne criticizes that Auge did not maintain a high level of criticality and that he only resolves the notion of ‘non-place’, poetically, remaining critically ambivalent. The idea of non-place according to Osborne is complex and he re-creates a setting in his paper where he puts non-place as a conceptual form back into a dialectical position through considering Auge’s ideas in relation to Manual Castells concept of ‘spaces of flow’. Osborne does not hold on to the anthropological methodology and he states, non-place cannot be properly analyzed by the anthropologist; “critical anthropology can never... be critical enough,” (35) Taking this in to consideration, it marks the death of the anthropological study of place and the genesis of Post-anthropological study of ‘non-place’ and Castells ‘spaces of flow’.
What is interesting is that Osborne criticises Auge for making a simple list which denotes what a non-place encompasses and states that this conceptually weakens his hypothesis; and as Peter Osborne stipulates in his paper that by reducing the concept of non-place to a list of signifiers kills the criticalities of the form which could analyse these new forms of places. But Peter Osborne refers to Castells who too has listed a series of examples regarding what constitutes ‘spaces of flow’ i.e. “flows of capital...flows of images.” (36) This highlights a possible area of contradiction in his paper, or perhaps Osborne may need some clarification to this section of the paper.
Its plausible that Osborne’s objective is to establish a hybrid between the two concepts ‘non-place’ and ‘spaces of flow’ that will form this new radical system of analysis which could return to the true ideas of non-place in terms of criticality, and re-shape Auges notions (in Osborne’s opinion). Is Osborne believing that this hybrid of spatial forms is the new ontological type of place, or to use Osborne’s comments “the idea of non-place may be developed into a genuinely ‘post-anthropological’ conception of place,” (37) So the rethinking of Auge’s ideas and the possibility of a hybrid regarding new forms of spatiality (non-place and spaces of flow) has pre-occupied Osborne’s paper. And in the words of Osborne “...rethinking of Auge in relation to Castells raises the possibility of giving analytical substance to what Hardt and Negri have recently called ‘a new place in the non-place’ or better ‘a new place of the non-place,” (38) which could be an interesting new ontological site for analysis and Osborne puts forward a hypothesis that our current form of global non-place could be replaced by the non-place of the currently emerging power they call ‘empire’.
Bibliography
1. Marc Auge, non-places – introduction to anthropology of supermodernity, published by Verso, 1995, p. 18/19.
2. Ibid. p. 29.
3. Ibid. p. 31.
4. Ibid. p. 37.
5. Ibid. p. 44.
6. Ibid. p. 53.
7. Ibid. p. 53.
8. Ibid. p. 54.
9. Ibid. p. 57.
10. Ibid. p. 58.
11. Ibid. p. 60.
12. Ibid. p. 60.
13. Ibid. p. 76.
14. Ibid. p. 77/78.
15. Ibid. p. 77/78.
16. Ibid. p. 78.
17. Ibid. p. 77.
18. Ibid. p. 78.
19. Ibid. p. 79.
20. Ibid. p. 79.
21. Ibid. p. 54.
22. Ibid. p. 85.
23. Jean-Pierre Criqui talks with Marc Auge, Homemade strange - interview with ethnologist Marc Auge, Artforum, summer, 1994.
24. Peter Osborne, Non-Places and the Spaces of Art, The Journal of Architecture, Volume 2, Summer 2001, p.188
25. Ibid. p. 189
26. Marc Auge, non-places – introduction to anthropology of supermodernity, published by Verso, 1995, p. 78.
27. Peter Osborne, Non-Places and the Spaces of Art, The Journal of Architecture, Volume 2, Summer 2001, p.189
28. Manual Castells, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Castells
29. Marc Auge, non-places – introduction to anthropology of supermodernity, 2nd edition published by Verso, 2008, p. XVIII.
30. Ian Buchanan, Deleuze and Space, published by Edinburgh university press, 2005, p. 17.
31. Ibid. p. 27.
32. Peter Osborne, Non-Places and the Spaces of Art, The Journal of Architecture, Volume 2, Summer 2001, p.189
33. Marc Auge, non-places – introduction to anthropology of supermodernity, 2nd edition published by Verso, 2008, p. XX.
34. Marc Auge, non-places – introduction to anthropology of supermodernity, published by Verso, 1995, p. 33.
35. Peter Osborne, Non-Places and the Spaces of Art, The Journal of Architecture, Volume 2, Summer 2001, p.189
36. Ibid. p. 189.
37. Ibid. p. 189.
38. Ibid. p. 189.
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