Abstract

Defined space – be it in the realm of installation art, film/tv/stage/photography sets, architecture or urban/non-urban space – has a particular location in cultural physiognomy, played out in the question of the extent to which it provides a setting and “spielraum” for other activities (choreography, performance, the “Alltägliche”) and thus remains unthematised; and the extent to which via an intensified gaze these physiognoms become a theme - for media, cartography or a theoretical discourse. It has been argued (cf the work of H-G Gadamer) that an effective discussion of these phenomena can only occur outside the western metaphysical concept of aesthetics and outside the associated problematic of “meaning” – especially meaning considered in literary mode. This implies, simultaneously, a rethinking of meaning in terms of something akin to process, a concept which in turn would be deconstructed alongside that of figure/representation. This paper will investigate such an affirmative deconstruction of space.