This article explores local variations in scientific practice through the lens of scientists’ international mobility. Its aim is twofold: to explore how the notion of epistemic living spaces may be mobilised as a tool for systematically exploring differences in scientific practice across locations, and to contribute to literature on scientific mobility. Using material from an interview study with scientists with experience of international mobility, and epistemic living spaces as an analytical frame, the paper describes a set of aspects of life (...) in science that interviewees described as being different in different places. These axes of variation were: embodied routines of research; resource levels and salaries; daily or longer-term rhythms of scientific life ; ‘efficiency’ and how work time is used; degree of hierarchy; the nature of social interactions between colleagues; the purposes of research; the social and interpersonal organisation of knowledge production; and the scale or ambition of research. In presenting an exploratory overview of these variations, the article points the way for future comparative investigation of epistemic cultures through studies of international mobility. (shrink)

Through an atmospherological approach, primarily inspired by the Aisthetik and the New Phenomenology, the paper investigates the relationship between atmosphere and lived space, defines what kind of perception the atmospheric one is and examines the space we experience in the lifeworld and to which plane geometry turns out to be completely blind. Sketching briefly the history of lived space, we assume that atmospheres function as affordances that permeate the lived space, i.e. as ecological (...) invites or meanings that are ontologically rooted in things and quasi-things. (shrink)

The article examines the reduction of architecture to the dimension of utility which results in placelessness. The modern redefinition of science as “knowing-making” is essential to this reduction, although it has fundamental and forgotten importance. Drawing upon Martin Heidegger’s and George Grant’s critique of technology, and the ideas of Alberto Pérez-Gómez and Charles-Francois Viel, the significance of the complex relations between theory and practice in architecture will be explored in the context of Kimberly Dovey’s notion of the cycle of (...) class='Hi'>lived-space. A re-definition of modern “knowing-making” reveals a semioticlevel which contains new possibilities for meaningful and environmentally attuned architecture within the technological framework. I suggest “designing-building” as an alternative, understood as a process of poetic recreation of meaningful spaces. (shrink)

The present paper explores patients’ experience of lived space at the hospital and at home. To expand the understanding of the existential meaning of lived space the study revisited two empirical studies and a study of a meta-synthesis on health and caring. Phenomenological philosophy was chosen as a theoretical framework for an excursive analysis. The paper demonstrates that existential dimensions of lived space at the hospital and at home differ significantly. For the patients, the (...) hospital space means alien territory as opposed to the familiar territory of home. To some extent the experienced differences are due to the physical environment; however, as our analysis shows, other and more significant meanings are also involved. For patients, lived space at the hospital primarily concerns the influence of complex institutional power structures and specific cultural and social conventions, e.g. the role of the good patient and the ambiance of hospitals. Home, on the other hand, offers familiar lived space in which patients feel protected and safe. Further, the paper relates patients’ experience of lived space to a phenomenological view of lived space in order to illustrate the radical influence of illness on patients’ lifeworld and experience of lived space. The combination of illness and general discomfort may influence patients’ experience of home negatively; the former experience of home as a sanctuary changes into feelings of being left on one’s own and burdened by too much responsibility. Consequently, in the light of the increasing focus on patients’ self-monitoring at home, it is important for healthcare professionals to recognize the influence of spatial aspects on patients’ well-being both at the hospital and at home. (shrink)

Walter Benjamin pointed out the affinity of cinema and architecture, and argued unexpectedly that tbese art forms are both essentially tactile arts. The tactility of the material art of building is not difficult to grasp, but the idea that a cinematic projection could result in fundamentally tactile experience certainly meets objections. However, the philosophical as well as neurological studies ofthe past few decades in perception, emotion, and thought, as well as in artistic expressions, suggest that these two arts, or poetic (...) images at large, address ali our senses, including our synthesizing existential sense, all at once. The arts communicate through the “fiesh of the world”, to use a notion of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The acts of perception, feeling, thinking, and memorizing cal! for the reality and sense of embodiment. We identify ourselves unknowingly with constructed architectural spaces as well as projected cinematic situations with our empathetic capacity. So, Benjamin ‘s argument could be re- -formulated: cinema and architecture are embodied atis in which the externa! and the internal are fully intertwined and fused. “The world is wholly inside, and 1 aro wholly outside myself’, as Merleau-Ponty enigmatically argues. (shrink)

The paper the author considers Bachelard’s approaches to the question of space in his specific phenomenological manner. After a preliminary reflection on Bachelard’s polemics with a Bergsonian underestimation of space in favor of time as duration, the paper discusses on the phenomenological attitude to the constitution of space. The next chapter explains Bachelard’s dynamical model of valorization in which positive and negative values oscillate in relation to our inner and personal experiences. The last chapter concerns the specific (...) phenomenology of hostile spaces in contrast to intimate ones. In agreement with Bachelard, the author claims that intimacy needs experience of the dangerous and of openness, so it is not easy to determine when a specific place is or is not experienced as secure. Majestic, light and spacious buildings may not be experienced as more secure for us than small cabins with an intimate shadow of humanity. (shrink)

This essay explores theories of place, or lived-space, as regards the role of objectivity and the problem of relativism. As will be argued, the neglect of mathematics and geometry by the lived-space theorists, which can be traced to the influence of the early phenomenologists, principally the later Husserl and Heidegger, has been a major contributing factor in the relativist dilemma that afflicts the lived-space movement. By incorporating various geometrical concepts within the analysis of place, (...) it is demonstrated that the lived-space theorists can gain a better insight into the objective spatial relationships among individuals and within groups—and, more importantly, this appeal to mathematical content need not be construed as undermining the basic tenants of the lived-space approach. (shrink)

In _The Preparation of the Novel_, a collection of lectures delivered at a defining moment in Roland Barthes's career, the critic spoke of his struggle to discover a different way of writing and a new approach to life. _The Neutral_ preceded this work, containing Barthes's challenge to the classic oppositions of Western thought and his effort to establish new pathways of meaning. _How to Live Together_ predates both of these achievements, a series of lectures exploring solitude and the degree of (...) contact necessary for individuals to exist and create at their own pace. A distinct project that sets the tone for his subsequent lectures, _How to Live Together_ is a key introduction to Barthes's pedagogical methods and critical worldview. In this work, Barthes focuses on the concept of "idiorrhythmy," a productive form of living together in which one recognizes and respects the individual rhythms of the other. He explores this phenomenon through five texts that represent different living spaces and their associated ways of life: Émile Zola's _Pot-Bouille_, set in a Parisian apartment building; Thomas Mann's _The Magic Mountain_, which takes place in a sanatorium; André Gide's _La Séquestrée de Poitiers_, based on the true story of a woman confined to her bedroom; Daniel Defoe's _Robinson Crusoe_, about a castaway on a remote island; and Pallidius's _Lausiac History_, detailing the ascetic lives of the desert fathers. As with his previous lecture books, _How to Live Together_ exemplifies Barthes's singular approach to teaching, in which he invites his audience to investigate with him -- or for him -- and wholly incorporates his listeners into his discoveries. Rich with playful observations and suggestive prose, _How to Live Together_ orients English-speaking readers to the full power of Barthes's intellectual adventures. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Affective Spaces: Architecture and the Living Body by Federico de MatteisJasna SersicAffective Spaces: Architecture and the Living Body BY FEDERICO DE MATTEIS New York, NY: Routledge, 2021What is architectural space? For architects, urban planners, and all involved in the design and transformation of the environment, space is a central subject. However, despite this fact, nobody accurately states what space is all about. As a result, (...) the concept of space remains ambiguous, challenging to transmit, and a point of fundamental misunderstandings, with consequences on how we move, inhabit, and transform the world around us (1).In the attempt to provide order in today’s theory of space in architecture, De Matteis’ Affective Spaces invites the reader to explore the question of space from the subject’s point of view by asking what the encounter with architecture is like, and how do I feel, here, now?, borrowed from Eugene Minkowski (7). De Matteis offers an interconnected yet clear and instructive way to explore further what first-hand, direct experience with architecture can tell us about the effects it produces on us. Through this exciting intellectual journey, De Matteis thus shows how architecture, generally understood as an art of building space, does not regard the built environment alone. As people are also emotionally affected by the (built) world they live in, this book can ultimately be read as a quest to understand the relation between the feelings and moods arising from the bodily, corporeal experience of the built environment and the way they invite us to respond and act within environments we inhabit and modify (130).To accept De Matteis’ invitation to join him on his quest entails two things. The first is to take the position that the root of the emergence of sense and feelings is the subject’s corporeity. We must thus acknowledge the primacy of feeling (130). The second, by extension, is to put aside preconceived notions and conceptual tools for representing space inherited from modernity, as they are grounded in dualistic contraposition between physical reality, which is seen as objective (9). In contrast, experience and feeling are seen as subjective (9). Consequently, [End Page 142] they cannot adequately grasp the non- measurable dimensions of the lived space and thus the experience that the subject makes of it.Instead, De Matteis argues that one cannot describe space as a thing separate from us and that we are always a part of the space we inhabit. For this purpose, the book derives its theoretical model of space from phenomenology, which considers the felt body as a sounding board for the built environment and human experience of the world.The book is arranged into fourteen chapters that show the thematic progression of the argument, and is structured in three parts that explore space, the living body and corporeal dynamics, and the experiential character of some specific families of space. Titles of the chapters provide clear signposts to the reader about where the story is going and are much appreciated in this unique exploration. They also show that the author carefully weaves the conceptual intersections between phenomenology and its model of space with investigations in several fields of knowledge. Drawing across a multitude of disciplines, ranging from geography, anthropology, psychology, philosophy of mind, and aesthetics to neurosciences, and offering many examples from art, literature, film, and everyday life, the book helps the reader visualize the content discussed. This panoramic character and accessible language and format make it an engaging read for experts in the field and to a broader audience interested in topics addressed in the book.Perhaps one of the most compelling arguments the book brings forward is that the corporeal dynamics of space enable understanding of space as a thing that is not separate from us. It is from the coming together of persons and things that atmospheres arise. They are not objective, yet they exist as the natural qualities of things; neither are they subjective, yet they belong to sensing beings. This understanding implies a possible workable definition with no boundary between the subject and object. However, it also clearly points out that the book emerged in response to our modern understanding and critique... (shrink)

City Living is about urban spaces, urban dwellers, and how these spaces and people make, shape, and change one another. More people live in cities than ever before: more than 50% of the earth's people are urban dwellers. As downtown cores gentrify and globalize, they are becoming more diverse than ever, along lines of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, sexuality, and age. Meanwhile, we are in the early stages of what seems sure to be a period of intense civil unrest. During (...) such periods, cities generally become the primary sites where tensions and resistance are concentrated, negotiated, and performed. For all of these reasons, understanding cities and contemporary city living is pressing and exciting from almost any disciplinary and political perspective. Quill R Kukla offers the first systematic philosophical investigation of the nature of city life and city dwellers. The book draws on empirical and ethnographic work in geography, anthropology, urban planning, and several other disciplines in order to explore the impact that cities have on their dwellers and that dwellers have on their cities. It begins with a philosophical exploration of spatially embodied agency and of the specific forms of agency and spatiality that are distinctive of urban life. It explores how gentrification is enacted and experienced at the level of embodied agency, arguing that gentrifying spaces are contested territories that shape and are shaped by their dwellers. The book then moves to an exploration of repurposed cities, which are cities materially designed to support one sociopolitical order, but in which that order collapsed, leaving new dwellers to use the space in new ways. Through detailed original ethnography of the repurposed cities of Berlin and Johannesburg, Kukla makes the case that in repurposed cities, we can see vividly how material spaces shape and constrain the agency and experience of dwellers, while dwellers creatively shape the spaces they inhabit in accordance with their needs. The book concludes with a reconsideration of the right to the city, asking what would be involved in creating a city that enabled the agency and flourishing of all its diverse inhabitants. (shrink)

Targeting people living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus, this research examined the prevalence of space-focused stereotypes and their underlying mechanism on behavioral inclinations. Study 1 adopted the explicit nomination and implicit Go/No-Go association tests to explore the existence of space-focused stereotypes of people living with HIV/AIDS. The results demonstrated that space-focused stereotypes were only manifested explicitly with characteristics such as messy, dirty, and gloomy. Study 2 demonstrated a more negative evaluation and community-approaching willingness for communities that include people (...) living with HIV/AIDS than those without HIV/AIDS. Additionally, space-focused stereotypes were found to have an indirect influence on community-approaching willingness; the influence was mediated by both emotional and cognitive factors. These results indicate the deviation of explicit and implicit space-focused stereotypes. More importantly, it revealed that space-focused stereotypes decreased community evaluation and influenced behavioral inclination. This research suggested the existence of space-focused stereotypes on another stigmatized social group. Characteristics of space might be the key to forming space-focused stereotypes. (shrink)

Two questions are central to the “rationality debate” in the philosophy of social science. First, should we acknowledge differences in basic norms of epistemic and agential rationality, or in the content of perceptual experience, as the “best explanation” of radical differences in belief and practice? Second, can genuine understanding be achieved between cultures and research traditions that so differ in their beliefs and practices? I survey a number of responses to these questions, and suggest that one of these, “dialogical optimism”, (...) while attractive, is in need of further clarification. Such clarification may be forthcoming if we attend to recent work by John McDowell. McDowell claims that perceptual experience, as our primary mode of epistemic access to the world, must be located within what Sellars termed the “space of reasons” if we are to make sense of our conception of ourselves as thinking creatures. I develop a reading of this claim in terms of a fundamental duality in human perceptual experience, and use this conception of experience to illuminate the dialogical optimist strategy in the rationality debate. (shrink)

In _The Preparation of the Novel_, a collection of lectures delivered at a defining moment in Roland Barthes's career (and completed just weeks before his death), the critic spoke of his struggle to discover a different way of writing and a new approach to life. _The Neutral_ preceded this work, containing Barthes's challenge to the classic oppositions of Western thought and his effort to establish new pathways of meaning. _How to Live Together_ predates both of these achievements, a series of (...) lectures exploring solitude and the degree of contact necessary for individuals to exist and create at their own pace. A distinct project that sets the tone for his subsequent lectures, _How to Live Together_ is a key introduction to Barthes's pedagogical methods and critical worldview. In this work, Barthes focuses on the concept of "idiorrhythmy," a productive form of living together in which one recognizes and respects the individual rhythms of the other. He explores this phenomenon through five texts that represent different living spaces and their associated ways of life: Émile Zola's _Pot-Bouille_, set in a Parisian apartment building; Thomas Mann's _The Magic Mountain_, which takes place in a sanatorium; André Gide's _La Séquestrée de Poitiers_, based on the true story of a woman confined to her bedroom; Daniel Defoe's _Robinson Crusoe_, about a castaway on a remote island; and Pallidius's _Lausiac History_, detailing the ascetic lives of the desert fathers. As with his previous lecture books, _How to Live Together_ exemplifies Barthes's singular approach to teaching, in which he invites his audience to investigate with him--or for him--and wholly incorporates his listeners into his discoveries. Rich with playful observations and suggestive prose, _How to Live Together_ orients English-speaking readers to the full power of Barthes's intellectual adventures. (shrink)

이 연구는 우선 집 그 안에 사는 사람의 품성이나 성향 내지 정서를 느끼게 해준다는 점에서 볼 때, 집이야말로 그 어떠한 건축물보다도 또한 사람이 만드는 그 어떤 물리적인 실체보다도 일상생활에서 사람의 감성이 담겨지고 표현되고 계발되어 승화시키는 그릇임을 전제한다. 이러한 전제하에 한국의 대표적인 주거 형태로 자리잡은 아파트의 의미를 전통적인 삶의 주거 구조와 비교하면서, 서구적인 아파트가 토착화되는 과정에서 발생한 변화에 주목하여, 아파트식 주거 구조에 공동체적 계기의 실현을 강조하였다. 한국의 주거문화는 생활 기능적 측면보다는 가족 구성원 중심을 강조한다. 여러 가족 구성원이 한 공간에서 모여 산다는 (...) 것은 구성원간의 서로 다른 욕망의 본질에 의해서 갈등, 분열과 긴장이 일어나게 마련이지만, 이러한 갈등구도는 가족 구성원간의 협력과 정(情)의 공간성에 근거해서 해소되어야 한다. 따라서 아파트형 주거문화에서 개별성과 독립성을 포기하지 않으면서도 공동체성을 살릴 수 있는 공간적 계기가 구성되어야 한다. 여기서 말하는 공동체적 계기의 실현이 전통적인 사회의 공동체성으로의 복귀를 의미하지는 않는다. 즉 이러한 공동체적 계기는 전통적인 의미에서의 공동체성이라기 보다는 현대사회의 특징이 반영된 공동체성으로 변화되어야 할 것이다. 사생활 보호와 안정성에 대한 요구와 더불어 공동체성에 대한 요청이 서로 조화될 수 있는 공동체성이 무엇인지 우리는 생각해 보아야 할 것이다. 그리고 이 연구는 현대 주거 공간의 철학적ㆍ윤리적 의미에 대한 숙고의 필요성을 제시한다. 인간을 포함한 모든 존재자는 자신의 존재에 상응하는 고유한 공간을 지니고 있다. 공간과 존재자는 서로 필연적인 관계를 맺고 있기 때문에 공간의 의미는 존재자의 존재의미와 직결되며, 결국 공간의 위기는 존재자의 위기로 연결될 수밖에 없다. 따라서 좋은 공간이란 인간적인 공간임을 전제하지 않을 수 없으며, 좋은 집은 인간적인 집임을 부정할 수 없을 것이다. (shrink)

공동체는 얼핏 보면 사회와 같은 공동생활의 공간이기도 하거니와 연대나 결속에 의한 공동생활의 장이기도 하다. 어떤 의미에서 공동체는 천차만별인 이해와 요구를 수용해 줄 수 있는 공간이어야 하는데, 그런 공동체 구상은 동아시아에서 꾸준히 진행되어 왔다. 거기에는 고대에서 현대에 이르기까지 시대 변화에 맞게 모색되는 ‘대동이상(大同理想)’도 있고 ‘만물일체’의 ‘인(仁)’의 함의를 실현할 공동체도 있다. 또한 도가의 ‘무위(無爲)’ 자연 사상이 실현되는 소국과민의 공동체도 있다. 이런 점에 유의하여 이 논문은 우선 공동체 의미에 대하여 동아시아적 각도에서 접근한다. 그러면서 거기에 보이는 ‘하나’로 조화로운 공동체에 대하여 성찰하는데, 전체주의적 공동체주의와, 전일성을 (...) 의미하는 ‘하나’로의 길을 더불어 살펴본다. 나아가 공생, 상생의 공동체 의식에 대하여 논의한다. 여기서 동아시아 공동체 사유에서 중요한 대상 간 유기적 한 몸, 그리고 존재론과 인식론 국면의 ‘하나’-통(通), 관계성-의 이상에 대해 논의를 계속한다. 그렇게 함으로써 살림, 생명, 관계, 소통을 그 특성으로 하는 동아시아 공동체 정신이 우리 시대에 어떤 대안으로 다가올 수 있을지 그 가능성을 모색한다. (shrink)

This study analyses of the Living Memorial: a counter-monumental installation located since 2014 in the highly contested Szabadság (‘Liberty’) Square in central Budapest, Hungary. The focus on the LM allows showcasing it as a unique type of commemorative installation that not only contests the current Hungarian top-down, hegemonic narrations and practices of memory but also counteracts the country’s politicised and ideologised narrations of the past. The LM is explored as a dialogical ‘nexus’ of, on the one hand, individual, lived (...) experiences of the Holocaust in Hungary in 1944–45 and, on the other, of the wider historical and contemporary socio-historical narratives as well as commemorating practices. Presented in the article – and set against the wider input from memory and commemoration research – the systematic, discourse-ethnographic analysis of the Living Memorial links its discursive and visual as well as spatial aspects with the exploration of various types of spectator engagement. In doing so, the article connects the wider context of memory and commemoration in the national and city spaces – and specifically in the often strongly politicised capital milieus – to the specific, localised contexts of ‘commemorative battlegrounds’ wherein ‘official’ displays of memory clash with, and are opposed by, their bottom-up, counterhegemonic contestations. (shrink)

What is special about all our living exchanges with our surroundings is that they occur within the ceaseless, intertwined flow of many unfolding strands of spontaneously responsive, living activity. This requires us to adopt a kind of fluid, process thinking, a shift from thinking of events as occurring between things and beings existing as separate entities prior to their inter-action, to events occurring within a continuously unfolding, holistic but stranded flow of events, with no clear, already existing boundaries to be (...) found anywhere (Mol & Law, 1994)—a flow of events within which we ourselves are also immersed. We thus become involved in activities within which we find things happening to us, as much as we make things happen in our surroundings—in other words, our surroundings are also agentive in that they can exert “calls” upon us to respond within them in appropriate ways. Consequently, what we can learn in such encounters is not just new facts or bits of information, but new ways of relating or orienting ourselves bodily to the others and othernesses in the world around us—although much can “stand in the way” of our doing this. My concern below is to explore events happening on the (inter)-subjective side of the Cartesian subject/object divide which “shape” our spontaneous ways of acting in, and reflecting on, the “worlds” within which we live out our lives. (shrink)

In this article, I pursue the question whether it is possible to understand Derridean ethics in terms of space rather than time. More precisely, I ask whether what Derrida proposes as an ethics (and exactly what that is will have to be explained) falls under the general heading of future-oriented, ‘eschatological’ or ‘messianic’, ethics that sacrifices the present for a better future, or whether it can be understood in terms of presence, more specifically of the demand to cohabit here (...) and now in the world. After proposing a reading of the to-come in terms of the intrusion of exteriority in the present, I turn to the figure of hospitality to show that Derrida's ethics is better understood in spatial rather than temporal terms: it requires a certain way of relating to the space in which we dwell. (shrink)

Public streets are central to the built environment, where individuals seek a fair share of the roadway’s benefits and harms. But the American street, an asphalt landscape typically defined and designed for cars, can be inaccessible, unhealthy, and dangerous for the non-motorized, whose transportation choices have the smallest ecological footprint. Concern for social equity and sustainability requires rethinking the street geographically and ethically, and asking: “In what sense is the street a space of justice? How do traditional street regulation (...) and design manifest ethical priorities? And what might a more just street look like, in theory and practice?” Such questions prompt one to engage both the spatial and moral, thus drawing from critical geography and ethics to analyze roadways in terms of fairness and relational wholeness, and argue for what might be called a shalom street. Engaging such ethical concepts with the technical vocabularies of street regulation and design requires analyzing how national model standards and their interpretation enforce and materialize justice on the street.The promise of more just alternatives such as more sustainable and fair “Complete Streets” to live in needs to be explored. (shrink)

Feminist research on community care and ‘informal carers’ identified this as a women's issue but failed to address the interests and experiences of older and disabled women – those who received ‘care’ One consequence is that such feminist research has implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, undermined disabled women's rights to a home, children and personal relationships. Using qualitative research, the article highlights the actual experience of women whose physical impairment means that they need help with daily living activities, looking at the (...) different circumstances in which such help is received. The disability movement's concept of ‘independent living’ raises particular issues for disabled women. ‘Independent living’ is about having choice and control over the assistance needed, rather than necessarily doing everything for yourself. However, gender inequalities may also inhibit the choice and control that women have in their lives. Assistance can be given within a personal relationship as an expression of love, but disabled women may also experience abusive, restrictive or exploitative relationships. Public services do not generally provide assistance in a way which enables a woman to have choice and control in her life, or even to carry out child-caring or homemaking tasks. The research on the various ways of receiving personal assistance found that those women who were able to purchase their own help were most likely to be living independently, in the sense of exerting choice and control in their lives. Feminist research can help to create a space for disabled women's absent voices, and add to the pressure for change in the way that personal assistance needs are met. This is a human and civil rights issue which has a key impact on the control that disabled women have over their lives. (shrink)

This article reviews experimental evidence for a specific sensorimotor function which can be dissociated from higher level representations of space. It attempts to delineate this function on the basis of results obtained by psychophysical experiments performed with brain damaged and healthy subjects. Eye and hand movement control exhibit automatic features, such that they are incompatible with conscious control. In addition, they rely on a reference frame different from the one used by conscious perception. Neuropsychological cases provide a strong support (...) for this specific motor representation of space, which can be spared in patients with lesions of primary sensory systems who have lost conscious perception of visual, tactile or proprioceptive stimuli. Observation of these patients also showed that their motor behavior can be ''attracted'' by a goal only under specific conditions, that is, when the response is immediate and when no cognitive representation of this goal is elaborated at the same time. Beyond the issue of the dissociation between an implicit motor representation and more cognitive processing of spatial information, the issue of the interaction between these two systems is thus a matter of interest. It is suggested that the conscious, cognitive representation of a stimulus can contaminate or override the short-lived motor representation, but no reciprocal influence seem to occur. The interaction observed in patients can also be investigated in normals. The literature provides examples of interaction between sensorimotor and cognitive framing of space, which confirm that immediate action is not mediated by the same system as delayed action, and that elaborating a categorial representation of the action goal prevents the expression of the short-lived sensorimotor representation. It is concluded that action can be controlled by a sensory system which is specialized for on-line processing of relevant goal characteristics. The temporal constraints of this system are such that it can affect the action before a full sensory analysis of this goal has been completed. The performance obtained on the basis of this spatial sensory processing suggests that short-lived motor representations may rather be considered as real ''presentation'' of the action world, which share its metric properties. (shrink)

We live today within a system in which state and corporate power aim to render space flat, transparent, and uniform, for only then can it be truly controlled. The gaze of power and the commodity form are capable of infiltrating even the darkest of corners, and often, we invite them into our most private spaces. We do so as a matter of convenience, but also to placate ourselves and cope with the alienation inherent in our everyday lives. The resulting (...) dominant space can best be termed totalitarian. It is space stripped of uniqueness, deprived of the “spatial aura” necessary for authentic experience. In Totalitarian Space and the Destruction of Aura, Saladdin Ahmed sets out to help us grasp what has been lost before no trace remains. He draws attention to that which we might prefer not to see, but despite the bleakness of this indictment of reality, the book also offers a message of hope. Namely, it is only once we comprehend the magnitude of the threat to our spatial experience and our own complicity in sustaining this system that we can begin to resist the totalizing forces at work. (shrink)

Existential space is lived space, space permeated by our raced, gendered selves. It is representative of our very existence. The purpose of this essay is to explore the intersection between this lived space and art by analyzing the work of the Cuban‐born artist Ana Mendieta and showing how her Siluetas Series discloses a space of exile. The first section discusses existential spatiality as explained by the phenomenologists Heidegger and Watsuji and as represented in (...) Mendieta's Siluetas. The second section analyzes the space of exile as a space of in‐between‐ness and borders. Lastly, the third section discusses temporality as it relates to the space of exile. Through the analysis of Mendieta's Siluetas, and in light of phenomenological accounts of space and the works of Anzaldúa and Mignolo, Ana Mendieta herself is disclosed as well as the space characteristic of those who can no longer be said to have a “home.” My exploration through my art of the relationship between myself and nature has been a clear result of my having been torn from my homeland during my adolescence. The making of my Silueta in nature keeps (makes) the transition between my homeland and my new home. It is a way of reclaiming my roots and becoming one with nature. Although the culture in which I live is part of me, my roots and cultural identity are a result of my Cuban heritage.1 As quoted in Gloria Moure, Ana Mendieta (Barcelona: Ediciones Polígrafa, S.A., 1996), 108. Ana MendietaLiving in a state of psychic unrest, in a Borderland, is what makes poets write and artists create.2 Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands La Frontera, The New Mestiza (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1987), 73. Gloria Anzaldúa. (shrink)

In this article, we observe the possibility of ‘practicing’ cosmopolitanism in three distinct experiential spaces intrinsic to human existence: knowledge spaces, habitation spaces and marketplaces. Although cosmopolitanism has been overwhelmingly deliberated upon across multiple disciplines, it has been confined to ‘conceptualisms’ in the Western scholarship. On the other hand, we find that some of the works of thinkers, such as, Rabindranath Tagore’s Creative Unity (1922), Aurobindo Ghosh’s The Ideal of Human Unity (1915–1918) and Mikhail Bakhtin’s Rabelais and His World (1984), (...) open the possibilities of experiencing cosmopolitanism in lived human spaces. Cosmopolitanism emerges through knowledge generation and exchanges in the academic vision of Tagore’s ideal Visva-Bharati, in the everydayness of city life through Aurobindo’s Auroville and in the cultural spaces of the Bakhtinian marketplace. Further, we find that cosmopolitanism in these thinkers interweaves the physical place with spaces of the mind. The individual emerges as a core of their cosmopolitan worldview. We argue that these thinkers not only pave the way for recognizing cosmopolitanism in real, lived spaces but also inspire a future vision, practicable in the society through academic institutions, human habitats and regular interactions at marketplaces. (shrink)

This reflection focuses on lived experience with the Technological Other (Quasi-Other) while pursuing creative video and film activities. In the last decade work in the video and film industries has been transformed through digital manipulation and enhancement brought about by increasingly sophisticated computer technologies. The rules of the craft have not changed but the relationship the artist/editor experiences with these new digital tools has brought about increasingly interesting existential experiences in the creative process. How might this new way of (...) being with technology change the craft and the crafter? Through a phenomenological understanding of Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Don Ihde, and their contributions to the human-technology conversation, this essay moves to reveal the lived experiences of artists/editors who use computers to create by means of film and digital video formats. Exploring notions of lived space, lived body, lived time, and lived relation through the computer interface allows for digging deeper into inhabiting technology and experiencing the Technological Other. (shrink)

This paper focus on the problem posed by the rigidity of categories to the translation/transaction operation of the intercultural approach to law. This rigidity holds subjects back from leaving the more structured paradigms (moral, social, cultural, legal) of their culture. The first methodological issue this paper seeks to clarify is to place the problem of categories within a narrowly delimited research horizon in which this issue can be treated with an appropriate degree of scientific rigor. This need seems to find (...) a solution in a shift from the strictly legal plane to the linguistic plane. In linguistic terms, one could observe categories as the articulation of certain linguistic signs (signifier/signified) to a high degree of abstraction and fixity of meaning. The question, then, is whether and how it is possible to overcome the resistance of this elementary unit of language. This opens to the legal-theoretical problem a strictly linguistic (semiological and semiotic) line of inquiry. The research idea of this contribution is that the linguistic sign has spaces of resilience that remain unknown to the semiological view but visible to a semiotic view. A ‘bridge’ between the abstraction of the semiotic level and the concreteness of the legal level can be find in the most recent developments of cultural anthropology, which will be used here. Following this approach and these tools the aim of this paper is to show the potential of the sign observed from a semiotic perspective in drawing intersubjective and even interspecific semiotic lines useful to intercultural law. The method adopted here consists of an epistemological pluralism that holds together semiotics, anthropology and law, thus showing the fruitfulness of an openly interdisciplinary approach. (shrink)

SOUL SPACE is a poetic photo book about the ways in which God is manifest as a hidden travel advisor. Challenging the existing religious communities, Soul Space announces the birth of the eMigrant - an electronic Deity that will alter our world in an unprecedented manner. -/- Soul Space combines philosophy and photography in an inquiry into religious experience. The book covers the first part of a trilogy aiming to study and elaborate three different perspectives on the (...) nature of God. Soul Space addresses the human perspective, questioning the ways in which God is manifest as a hidden travel advisor and how this forceful phenomenon can be captured photographically. With a focus on the quest for how to live, the ultimate goal is to show that God is a sign of our evolutionary potential. -/- Isbn 978-90-804240-5-0. (shrink)

By studying the logic that unites play, the rules of games and the body of players, this article intends to highlight a spatial mimesis through play and games. It consists of carrying out a Ricœurian anthropology of play and game, taking Ricœur's analysis of the relationship between time and narrative as a model. The article then shows that play prefigures the physical space as a lived space, that game configures a space of rules and that the (...) player's body is refigured by the spatiality of the rules of the game. This application of the ternary model of Ricœurian mimesis thus allows a unified understanding of play and games by space, and of space by play and games. (shrink)

This book addresses the social, functional and symbolic dimensions of urban space in today’s world. The twelve essays range from a conceptual framing of the issues to case descriptions, rich with illustrations. Together they provide a thorough exploration of the nature and significance of social space and particular aspects of its distribution in today’s urban spaces and the various factors that are competing for it. -/- The book addresses a topic that is intrinsically interdisciplinary. Questions of space (...) are examined from a rich variety of perspectives from urban planning to political philosophy, shedding some light on this shadowy process. Some of the issues addressed include the dichotomies of public and private space, rights and duties regarding the use of space, and conflicts over its allocation. Well-reasoned and lively discussions are offered from the perspective of basic values and rights. The recognition of the specifics of (minority community) identity as an institutional policy is raised in opposition to “abstract distributive accounts of justice” – economic pressures by developers and would-be gentrifiers. (shrink)

Our lives take place within specific time-space contexts, and in everyday life these contexts are taken as self-evident. Simultaneously, we have accepted the classical idea of fixed, permanent and acontextual truths. This paper argues that people use and are aware of various time-space contexts, and have implicitly created knowledge and approaches that work within them. The paper further argues that explicit consideration of time-space contexts should influence the tools, techniques and methods we use when making sense of (...) each situation, and determining the management interventions we make. (shrink)