“western society chose to accumulate rather than to live...creating a contradiction between enjoying and economizing whose drama would thereafter hold society in an iron grip” -H. Lefebvre
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apartment for the
new bourgeois
The hypermodern subject is ceaslessly innundated with a constructed image of self. The clockmaker of consumerism relied previously upon instrumentalized propaganda, alienation, and constructed demand. The alienated subject received these stimuli through various forms of media (digital, advertisements, product placement, et cetera) and reinforced their sense of wealth entitlement through neoliberal practice and politics. However, only recently has this constructed demand began to reproduce itself through the projection of an image of wealth and accumulation. The typical newbourgeois consumer requires a new spatial schema to support this new social practice. The prototypical suburban home of the late-1990s allows for a digital projection of implied wealth via new social media that have given society a collective outlet to express values, lifestyles, and social status. Its physcial spatial structure both on the micro level of the suburban home and the macro level of suburban configuration allows only for a locally-accessible projection. However, the mere possessiion of objects does not generate the full potential of this reproductive consumerism. It is the projection of possession that transfers the possessions that one attains into the desires of another. While the prototypical suburban home projects the image of ‘home’ to the street while relegating the realities of its alienation to the spatially deeper zones, the Apartment for the New-Bourgeois unfolds the inner spaces of possession into the public realm, allowing for a physical and always-accessible projection of wealth. One can effectively advertise his or her lifestyle, possessions, and values to an ever-envious and upwardly mobile public, thereby reproducing demand. Spaces of exception are relegated to more private zones where they can inevitably occur without sullying of this constructed image. The configuration of home and spaces of consumption allows for a seamless transition between living/buying/projecting,blurring the relationship between living and consuming.
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