Regimes of Space

Abstract

Starting from a general model of interaction, this analysis tries to provide an account of the diversity of ways of understanding space on the plane of the lived experience. It ends in a definition of four spatial configurations that correspond to the same number of regimes of relations with the world. Conventional space of the circulation of values takes the form of a network (represented by the internet). Operatory space of the dominion over things is the handling of objects in a material environment seen as a weaving of stable and intelligible relations. The experienced space of corporal movement, to which we can give the scroll as its emblem, translates the dynamics of the sentient relations between one’s self and the other. The existential space of presence in the world is that of our relation with a limitless universe that no one can truly imagine, yet does not cease in obsessing art and thought: its figure is the abyss.