Place and Non-Place

Lecture 3
Landscape is a natural scene mediated
by culture.

It is both a represented and presented

space, both a signifier and a signified.

WJT Mitchell
GENIUS LOCI

The unique spirit of place

To be human is to live in a world

that is filled with significant
places: to be human is to have and
know your place

E Relph (Place and Placelessness)

Oliver Bomberg, Courtyard, 1997
Thomas Demand, Rolltreppe (escalator), 2000
Thomas Demand, Gate, 2004
People do not
simply locate
themselves,
they define
themselves
through a sense
of place.

Michael Chang
Cultural Geography

Nathan Coley
Villa Savoye
1997
MACDONALDLAND

In its brightness and its suggestion of

fantasy that is not realised, in its
superficial gloss to disguise a very ordinary
product, in its intimations of adventure and
freedom that barely obscure a precise and
rigid organisation, and especially in its
obvious and seductive appeal for
commercial ends.

E Relph
Brent Cross, London
Oklahoma City
‘Little Italy’, New York New York, Las Vegas
What is ‘non-place’?

Can ‘non-place’ be a place?

Marc Augé,
Non-Places:
Introduction to an
Anthropology of
Supermodernity, 1995

Willie Doherty 2000

Hong Kong
Airport
Heathrow Airport
Stuttgart Airport
Kansai Airport,
Germany
Osaka Japan

I suspect that the airport will be the true city of the 21st
century. The great airports of the planet are already suburbs of
an invisible world capital … a centripetal city whose population
forever circles its notional centre, and will never need to gain
access to its dark heart

JG Ballard
Untitled (Tokyo)
Peter Fischli / David Weiss, 1990/2003
Placelessness

Carol Rhodes
Service Station, 1998
Oliver Bomberg, Concrete Bridge, 1997
Willie Doherty 2000
Placelessness

Oliver Bomberg, City

Tunnel, 1998
Mass communication appears to result
in a growing uniformity of landscape
and a lessening diversity of places by
encouraging and transmitting general
and standardised tastes and fashions

E Relph
Elvira Hufschmid
Highway Poem, 2004
Jennie Pineus, Head Cocoons and Cocoonchair, 2000
Lucy Orta
Refuge Wear, 2001
Perhaps all this movement blurs our
surroundings, like a view from a train window,
separating ‘us’ from ‘them’.

…is place becoming increasingly dissolved by

the developments of the modern world? Is the
local vernacular being replaced by
international conformity? Are we losing
distinct places and places of distinction? Are
our most powerful relationships with other
places mediated by the screen?

Tacita Dean / Jeremy Millar - Place

 The real voyage
of discovery
consists in not
seeking new
landscapes, but
in having new
Map Rock eyes
Snake River, Idaho
Artist and date unknown
Marcel Proust
For the Seminar:

• Choose an image which you feel represents

the concept of ‘placelessness’ or ‘non-place’
• How does this image challenge ideas of ‘place’
discussed earlier in the programme?
• Can ‘nowhere’ also be somewhere?

Bring your Critical Notebook and come

prepared to discuss your ideas for your
essay!