9 minute read
Joshil Naran (Postgraduate Student
Me as Mirror
Dissociation with the Self through the Other
JOSHIL NARAN Postgraduate Student
Heterotopias of Deviation by Foucault 1 are spaces in which people whose behaviors are outside of the normal are placed within. I can’t help but consider that we have added to Heterotopias of Deviation through time from prisons, asylums and cemeteries to the domestic scale of a house - or in some cases a room.
Behavior that is out of the normal seems to be something that we have taken on as a result of this pandemic. This change in behavior is associated to the constant hand washing, social distancing, isolation and lock-downs implemented by the state, making it illegal to leave your home for a nonessential reason. This begins to morph our places of comfort and contentment to spaces of holding. At a time like this one begins to translate spaces of domesticity to spaces of heterotopias through our exchange within them and our surrender to them.
The fabric that maintains our day to day reality when we aren’t bound by lock-down laws seems to be made of a material that is inherently fragile. Systems of capitalism and rules of professional protocol and procedure begin to melt away through the powerless hands of employers. Working from home is a duality of blessing for some and curse for others. But it does remove the need to travel for non-essential workers. Those displaced by South Africa’s tragic past seem now to receive more time in a day than before. This ‘time’ appears to be an income that one can’t truly earn but is given circumstantially - another unfair result of past systems of separation.
Reflecting on these past systems now leaves us introspecting. Capital no longer serves as immunity though it creates much more pleasant circumstances for isolation. Privilege becomes a term coined with paranoia. Online learning begins to disconnect and social distancing is moved from a measurable separateness to a deeper score on togetherness. In a way, this digital dependency is a realization within itself that we are not as yet a technological species. The threshold from accessing the ‘online’ to connecting to others is still too far apart and noticeably intangible. This is before we begin to talk about being online and networking ‘there’ absolutely.
I wonder what does this mean; our behaviors are different as a result of the time: meaning we have changed now. Not only inwardly-out but outwardly-in. Not only from self-to-other or other-to-self but also from the self-to-self and other-to-other.
There are overlapping realities for different individuals in
times of crises. I say crises not because of the spread of the virus only, but because of the lack of escapism we are confronted by. The system of capitalism that is the driving force for our realities now fails to exist (non-essentially). In some ways we are now confronted with an inescapable existential. version of reality with the self and the other. This idea of the self and other is a curious one. In times when other is lost we tend to lose the self as well. As social beings our make-up of the self can be challenged as the resultant of the other. What is the self without the other? If all our realities are a composite of our individual experiences with the outside - we can also question then, what is the other, without the self? There is a cause and effect relationship that bounces between these ideas that begin to create identities for us. But when one is removed, the ability to bounce to affirm ones identity (from the other) becomes ineffective. This futility, I believe, is the beginning of the dissociation of the self through other.
Our changed behavior (and as a result changed spaces)
begins to draw abstracted thresholds of in and out. The cause and effect result of this means that the heterotopically deviated space now shows us our dissociation of self through space. A space familiar to us has now become other-space.
We have begun to change our interpretation of that otherspace. Since the closure of public spaces we begin to close the circle of accessibility that stems centre from our home. For some, that circle is the boundary wall and for others it remains the boundary of the room. But this is pragmatically speaking; the true anxiety of space begins at the boundary of our skin.
Our lack of ability to trust ourselves not to touch our faces creates a paranoia from the self and within the self. A dissociation as a result of the inability to trust oneself in an inescapable reality poses a much bigger problem that is existential. -Arundhati Roy This leads me to discuss existential space. Schulz’s work comes to mind when discussing this idea. To look at centre and place2 Schulz mentions that: “man’s space is subjectively centered”. I think that although this idea remains for the majority a subjective perception of centrality, a layer of objective centre is now applied. One’s centre and place stems from either one’s body or one’s home. This centrality now is a part of a reality that we all share - which is following the state’s laws and directives for isolation and lockdown. The home still remains a centre through which we can access other spaces, but the home itself has become an ‘other-space’ within itself.
The change of place-centrality, direction and path results in
a flux of the genius loci. Due to the loss of our ability to orientate ourselves not only physically but in the realms of professionalism, academia and even perhaps our sociocultural relations, we remain dissociated. We are caught in a world where we either comply and manage our dissociation through a non-escapist method, or we break the law.
For some it may simply be that their lack of understanding the severity of the virus makes them complacent and they decide to break the law. For
the majority, it is probably the need to deal with ‘less existential’ issues - like hunger. I do think that this idea of being unsure of the future or an acute unawareness of a new-normal is daunting and anxiety inducing. It affects all - consciously, subconsciously or both.
Schulz discusses the idea of being-in-the-world3. Beingin-the-world means being a part of it. Being a part of the world means interaction with its other parts, including other people. The disconnection of that interaction takes us away from that idea. Are we in the world and if so, what is this world that we are in? And if we can’t define the world we are in, when did this world begin, and when will this version end (if it does)?
This in-the-world vs with-theworld is an interesting idea. Paulo Fiere in ‘The Pedagogy of the Opressed’ suggests that the world and man are not exclusive entities. The former or latter never precedes or follows the other.
La conscience et le monde sont donnés d’un même coup: extérieur par essence à la conscience, le monde est, par essence, relatif à elle. - JeanPaul Sartre4
Our conscious attention is directed in some ways to the external as something inaccessible. I believe to some extent that within its inaccessibility our position on its existence is questioned on some subconscious level. Being unsure of where you are orientated in a space is not exclusive from the time in which there is an unsureness. Dissociation of the self through other is a space-time heterotopia.
Time as a direct relation to space has interesting notions of causes and effects spatially, for example; the changing of domestic spaces to other-spaces is ephemeral (relatively). To categorize time along with space is important, because time has a spatial response. The world pre-Covid 19 is an old world and the world post-Covid 19 (or more likely a contained Covid 19) is a new one.
“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.” -Arundhati Roy5
Perhaps the anxiety of this space-time heterotopia is simply the realization that we cannot continue as we did in the past. That we are between one world and another, as Roy suggests.
Our changed behavior is noticeable to ourselves.
This self-awareness is our relationship to the spaces we surrender to - like our homes. Our homes now contain the potential of unknown and could become tools for generating a new outside-in or rather an inside-in experience or process.
As inside-in is an experience all those isolating are maintaining, it is also an unprecedented experience that we will take with us into the new world. We now have, or will have, access to new spaces in the world. Spaces that are unchanged by physical architectural elements but rather our perceptions of those spaces. A new-normal that offers new potentials for our humanity in all disciplines and within ourselves.
Simultaneously though, this new-normal is still anthropocentric and perhaps still considers that we ourselves are first in nature’s hierarchy, but that’s an entirely new discussion of space and orientation that is and should be eco-centric (especially considering the viruses speculated origins).
Humans have an inherent need for community and social relations in a physical realm. This means that new considerations of space and new archetypes of togetherspaces will require design. Architects will inevitably need to hold in one hand the idea of community and social-relation and in the other, ideas of social distancing and quarantine.
Spaces that glue us on a social level are now detrimental and architectural language globally will have to undergo a transformation in which either a new glue is found that is equally accessible and maintainable, or the redesign/ reconsideration of existing archetypes of together-space.
This may be the time to question past notions of social spatial design and reinterpret them in ways that serve us even in times of National States of Disaster. I remain hopeful that the portal serves as an experience that pushes for a resurgence of these new archetypes, in some ways a modern decolonised architectural renaissance.
There is a duality in the way the new world might exist. This portal between worlds will either serve to support the separation between those disadvantaged and those privileged or it might be the call to recognize that humanity is only as strong as the person it supports least.
The new world is an uncertain one, and I think that might be for the best. It is only when we are unsure that the potential to be and do the best we can, might exist.
Endnotes 1 Foucault, (1967), Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias 2 Schulz, (1971), p. 18, Existence, Space and Architecture 3 Schulz, (1971), p. 15, Existence, Space and Architecture 4 “Consciousness and the world are given in one blow (at the same time): Reality is external to consciousness by its very nature, and subject to it, at the same time.” (Fiere, (1970), p. 81, Pedagogy of the Oppressed) 5 ROY, Arundhati. (2020). Arundhati Roy: ‘The pandemic is a portal’. INTERNET. https://www.ft.com/ content/10d8f5e8-74eb-11ea-95fefcd274e920ca Cited 12 April 2020.
