Place%20and%20Non-Place

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Place and Non-Place Lecture 3
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Landscape is a natural scene mediated by culture.
It is both a represented and presented space,
both a signifier and a signified. WJT Mitchell

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GENIUS LOCI The unique spirit of place To be
human is to live in a world that is filled with
significant places to be human is to have and
know your place E Relph (Place and
Placelessness)

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Oliver Bomberg, Courtyard, 1997
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People do not simply locate themselves, they
define themselves through a sense of place.
Michael Chang Cultural Geography
Nathan Coley Villa Savoye 1997
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MACDONALDLAND In its brightness and its
suggestion of fantasy that is not realised, in
its superficial gloss to disguise a very ordinary
product, in its intimations of adventure and
freedom that barely obscure a precise and rigid
organisation, and especially in its obvious and
seductive appeal for commercial ends. E Relph


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Brent Cross, London
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Oklahoma City
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Little Italy, New York New York, Las Vegas
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What is non-place?Can non-place be a place?
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Marc Augé, Non-Places Introduction to
an Anthropology of Supermodernity, 1995
Willie Doherty 2000
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Hong Kong Airport
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Heathrow Airport
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Stuttgart Airport Germany
Kansai Airport, Osaka Japan
I suspect that the airport will be the true city
of the 21st century. The great airports of the
planet are already suburbs of an invisible world
capital a centripetal city whose population
forever circles its notional centre, and will
never need to gain access to its dark heart JG
Ballard
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Untitled (Toyko) Peter Fischli / David Weiss,
1990/2003
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Oliver Bomberg, Concrete Bridge, 1997
Willie Doherty 2000
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Placelessness

Oliver Boberg, City Tunnel, 1998
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Mass communication appears to result in a
growing uniformity of landscape and a lessening
diversity of places by encouraging and
transmitting general and standardised tastes and
fashions E Relph

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Elvira Hufschmid Highway Poem, 2004
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Jennie Pineus, Head Cocoons and Cocoonchair, 2000
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Lucy Orta Refuge Wear, 2001
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Perhaps all this movement blurs our surroundings,
like a view from a train window, separating us
from them. is place becoming increasingly
dissolved by the developments of the modern
world? Is the local vernacular being replaced by
international conformity? Are we losing distinct
places and places of distinction? Are our most
powerful relationships with other places mediated
by the screen? Tacita Dean / Jeremy Millar -
Place

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The real voyage of discovery consists in not
seeking new landscapes, but in having new
eyesMarcel Proust
Map Rock Snake River, Idaho Artist and date
unknown
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• For the Seminar
• Choose an image which you feel represents the
  concept of placelessness or non-place
• How does this image challenge ideas of place
  discussed earlier in the programme?
• Can nowhere also be somewhere?
• Bring your Critical Notebook and come prepared to
  discuss your ideas for your essay!