Perception, Aesthetics and Envelopment
Encountering Space and the Materiality of Railway and Ferry Terminal Buildings

This page presents a video recording and the outline of the talk which I have given during the conference Technological and Aesthetic (Trans)Formations of Society as part of the panel Urban Places and Private Quarters.

Author: Lars Frers (2005)

I am publishing the contents of this page under the
Creative Commons License.

contents

• intro
• encountering space & materiality (and people)
• wrapping up: envelopment – risk & safety
• references

intro

This talk is based on the work for my Ph. D. thesis which deals with the interactions between space, materiality, and people in railway stations and ferry passenger terminals. (Further info on the thesis can be found on my homepage.) The study is based on participant observation, the detailed analysis of video recordings made in railway and ferry terminals, and on observations of my self, of how I feel and act in these places.

You can read the outline of the talk and / or watch the video recording (23:30 minutes). The video has subtitles which are based on the outline of this talk, and it also features the actual two video clips which I have shown to the audience during the presentation.

I am using modern web standards (HTML5) to present the video on this page. For the best experience you need a standards compliant browser like Firefox (version 3.5+), Safari (version 3.1+) or Google Chrome (Version 3+). For offline use of the video an application like the open source player VLC or Apple’s QuickTime Player is necessary.

encountering space & materiality (and people)

how to grasp and name my unease (Unbehagen) with urban places

what I knew I wanted

• no hierarchical concept of social control
• physical / corporeal (leiblich)
• aesthetics / perception
  • aesthetics not as the sublime, but as the mundane, everyday
    (Gernot Böhme)
  • perception not as an analytical, but as a live process
    (Maurice Merleau-Ponty)
• action as a sequential, fine-grained process
  (ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, Harold Garfinkel)
• perspective of the actor

back to contents

video clip part 1 – leaving the train

building the envelope

leaving the train: the material, spatial & social organization of the platform

• two sides of the platform, obstacles in between
• danger: train, gap & rails
• announcements & construction noise
• light
• others: walking, rushing, standing / in front and in back

encountering the specific material-spatial-social constellation

• all impressions at once envelop those who enter the setting (Einhüllung)
• characteristics of the envelope (specific to the setting)
  • dampening, filtering perception
  • reducing the zone of bodily reach or activity
  • directing attention and activity
  • protecting the individual from distraction and sensual risk
    (not looking at people or things, ignoring talk and noise, reducing the sense of smell, evasion of physical contact)

people who enter a setting envelop themselves too (brace myself)

• directedness
  (leaving the train station, meeting others (lovers, business partners, strangers), changing trains)
• mood
  (being in a hurry, taking one's time, being frightened, being absent minded…)

back to contents

video clip part 2 – leaving the terminal

passage through envelopes

going through the noise, entering the main hall, orienting oneself, leaving, being outside

• new envelopes are added
• thickness changes – overall and in specific directions
• parts of the envelope or shell fall off, erode
• falling off / changes makes reorientation necessary – pausing (innehalten)

back to contents

wrapping up: envelopment – risk & safety

• design of places produces envelopes of specific character
  (thickness, circumference, persistence – encapsulation as a special case)
• problem
  • who envelops? to what degree? place or person
    (active—passive)
• ambivalence of envelopment / Einhüllung
  • reduction of risk and irritation – protection, comfort, efficiency
    (Georg Simmel – added after the presentation)
  • reduction of engagement in and towards the environment
    (Richard Sennett – added after the presentation)
  • ambivalences of the term ≈ ambivalences of the aesthetics of the city and its places

back to contents

references

• Böhme, Gernot (1995) Atmosphäre. Essays zur neuen Ästhetik. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
• Garfinkel, Harold (1967). Studies in Ethnomethodology. Malden MA: Polity Press/Blackwell Publishing.
• Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1962/1945) Phenomenology of perception. London New York: Routledge & K. Paul Humanities Press.
• Sennett, Richard (1994) Stone and Flesh. The Body and the City in Western Civilization. New York – London: W.W. Norton.
• Simmel, Georg (1903/1950) The metropolis and mental life, in: Kurt H. Wolff (ed.) The sociology of Georg Simmel, Glencoe/IL: Free Press. Pp. 409-424.

• back to top
• other texts
• weblog

• 
• 
•