How has technology transformed places? Discuss with reference to films, artworks and your own experience. Do you see any problems with these transformations? 300 words.
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Govinder
30/03/2010
The idea of place is something that is specific in terms of vernacular of architecture, community, and culture. However there is also this idea of a non-place. Possibly being a place without these certain qualities, mentioned previously or transitional places of travel and transportation. An excellent example of a non-place is an airport. While in an airport you are not actually considered to be in the country of its location. This idea is demonstrated in the film adaptation “The Terminal”. Based on a true story, the film focuses on the life of a particular man who can neither leave the airport, nor return to his own country. Therefore because he is trapped, in between two places, you could say that he is nowhere.
However as there are airports worldwide, what separates these airports from one another. Essentially nothing, all follow similar rules, similar layouts, practically the same blank structures. This is due to standardisation. Without standardisation capitalism would not work, because they need their products compatible worldwide in order to make the most capital. Some other examples of standardisation and non-place are supermarkets and stores like IKEA. All designed the same.
Due to the significance of these stores, people eat the same food, and buy generally the same things. I think this mass distribution causes people to unknowingly lose their freedom of choice.
However despite technology removing conventional notions of space, ultimately it is the individual’s connections and thoughts which can make a place, because different places have different connotations created by the individual.
lama
30/03/2010
Technology transformed the concept of places. The style of holidays changed when more people had cars, flights became cheaper and people started going abroad for holidays. The positive way that technology has made travelling become faster. You can change places around the world within few hours. However. Sometimes transformation places could be a problem for some people like the one in The Terminal film in 2004. The film is said to be inspired by the 18 years stay of the Iranian Mehran Karimi Nasseri in the Charles de Gaulle international airport terminal 1 in Paris, France from 1988 when his refugee papers were stolen until 2006when he was hospitalised for unspecified ailments. The terminal film is about a man trapped in a terminal at JFK international airport when he is denied entry into the United States and at the same time cannot return to his native country due to a revolution. Only to discover that during the flight rebels, invalidating his passport and thus leaving him, have overthrown his Eastern Bloc country’s government stranded and stateless so he is forced to live in the terminal building. In a similar event, Ghanaian football player Ayi Nii Aryee was forced to live for six weeks as his passport lacked the necessary immigration stamp from the country (Singapore) he previously flew to and his student permit there was denied. SO we noticed that the transformation in thus cases forced people to live in these places that they didn’t chose to stay in.
My personal experience was in 2006 when I went to Lebanon. After the 4th day , the war started between Lebanon and Israel .To add insult to injury, Israel bombed the Beirut international airport and all the bridges, that means I can’t fly back to England and I end up inside a shelter in Beirut. After 10 days Israel let in the evacuation of the Nationals. I was relieved that I am coming back to see my parents. When I got inside the British Navy Ship, there were lots of people. The ship sailed to Cyprus, then we went to the Nicosia international airport, I was trapped in a terminal for 24 hours waiting for an aeroplane to take us back to London. It was the worst experience I ever had in my life.
alex
30/03/2010
The old conventional idea of what a place is, was defined by the culture and the geographical location where said culture and had been developed. The product of global capitalism has nearly destroyed development of cultures by standardizing the way the modern person lives by replacing old traditions with new conventions designed purely in the interest in gaining the greatest amount of capital as possible. Culture is the single greatest threat for capitalism, as technology needs to transform these by introducing standardization in equipment and goods. This is to create an ease of transfer between the workers and the equipment.
With the development standardisation, ‘non-places’ have cropped up wherever capitalism has laid hands on. Chain restaurants across the globe, such as Mc Donald’s, for example, are designed on the same basis as one another, making it difficult to determine the exact location of the individual restaurant without a clear defining landmark. Another popular example is the airport. They are all designed to function in the exact same way as the counterparts, creating a non-place in a greater scale. These former places are now replaced by meta-places, as these grounds are no longer connected to any geographical location, making different parts of the location linked by planes.
As mentioned, capitalism brings many negatives to cultural backgrounds and traditional ways of living, alienating societies not capable of adapting to changes of such proportions. With the introduction of mass production, most things designed are of simplistic, and of lesser quality. There are positives, I believe, that can be found in this new world. As things become similar, such as airports and supermarkets, It becomes easier for the consumer to manage, though it is obvious, it is not intended for our own advantage.
John Watson
31/03/2010
Modern technology has transformed the convention idea of what a place is and replaced it with a meta place or a non place. New place has no identifiable architecture, no ties to its location or its geographical place in the world. Whereas before, place was defined by its people, culture, architecture and its geographical place in the world. An example of this new type of place is modern airports, which are non places and transitional places today. They has no identifiable architecture; the layouts are the same and have no people that inhabit it. And only reason you would go there is to transit to your next location in the world. This also creates a transitional space between the airports, as when you’re flying you’re nowhere, you’re in transit between places.
This transformation of place has happened because of the standardization of movement. Capitalism is dependent upon a standardized form of movement of goods and people to function. Without this dependency upon standardization it would be hard to make easy capital with tough movement. An example of this would be a big global restaurant like Burger King, with the same building layouts and foods across the world.
The transformation of place is both positive and negative. One positive is it is very easy for goods and people to transit between locations thanks to standardization. The biggest negative is as a person you lose touch with the place around you. This is because standardization has stripped places of their identity to make easy transitions of movement. Now most places you travel through you lose attachment to your surroundings as you can’t identify them.