ESPAÇO DE VIAGEM – TRAVEL SPACE

LISBON, A NON-PLACE OR NOT

Lisboa, um não-lugar ou não

This project was one of my favourites and a poetic one at that, by seeking to understand (and portray) if Lisbon and outskirts were a non-place or not. As a reference, it had the anthropology theory of the non-place as defined by Marc Auge.

However, despite the theoretical grounding, the theory had its critics, and many denied the existence of non-places.

The theory has many attractive aspects and I sought to incorporate them into the film as well into its construction. The project shown here was to seek support for the research to take place.

Extract of notes:

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The thematic area of this project is the concept of non-place and to see how Lisbon is becoming a non-place. Globally the idea of non-place is defined as the absence of references in the super modernity being characterized by three figures of excess (the superabundance of events, the spatial superabundance and the individualization of the references).

The following describes some aspects that define in general the idea of non-place according to the author and anthropologist Mark Augé.

According to M. Augé, “if a place can be defined as identity, relational and historical, a space that can neither be defined as identity nor as relational nor as historical, it will define a non-place.”

Supermodernity is characterized by non-places. These non-places such as highways, airports, shopping malls and hypermarkets, do not supplant places in supermodernity but make connections between them or make them places of passage.

In non-places identity, relationships and history are only marginally significant. Within the non-places of supermodenity, individual identity is never an issue: the individual is equal to all others in the same non-place, but the identity of the individual is only an issue when it enters or leaves a non-place by showing a form of identification such as a passport or driving license. In non-places, individuals are reduced to solitude and resemblance. Because there is no individual identity in non-places, social relations are minimal and the passage of time is not marked by monuments of significant personal importance. Thus, non-places minimize the familiar, the known; suspend identity, relationships and history.

Most significant of non-places is the fact that there are no familiar faces. In supermodernity, we are confronted only by generic texts (“tighten the belt”, “please stay to the right”, “bridge: next exit”, “credit cards accepted”). These texts are addressed to no one in particular because in non-places individual identity is not an issue. We find people in non-places but they represent an agency or an institution from which we receive only information, instruction or prohibition. These people are intermediaries of the institutions they represent. Proximity and familiarity are almost impossible, for they, like the generalized texts, speak to everyone in general and to no one in particular.

These are some aspects that define the idea of non-place and the supermodernity. The research will deepen both these aspects, as inevitably aspects of urban nature and identity.

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