So, I waited to write this post until I had completed the movie, Lost in Translation. I think that this was a very good artifact to choose, especially as a critique of Auge's article.
After comparing the two together in class today, I am reminded of an old quote, something that we've probably all have already heard: Sometimes a crowded room feels the most alone. I think that this is a good distinction that Auge clearly makes when describing a non-place. Even though it's an area as busy as a train station or airport terminal....elevator, we still feel like we're alone. Even as indicated in the movie, we may pass the same people everyday in these same exact places, we might even smile at them, but we don't know who they are and we rarely ever converse with them.
But something that the movie suggests, which goes a little further than Auge's article, is the fact that maybe some people feel less alone in a non-place than a space that they would more readily call as a place. For example, Mr. Harris and the girl felt more comfortable around each other in the hotel bar than they did in their own hotel rooms. Furthermore, Mr. Harris felt more "at home" or in Tokyo than he did at his own house, with his own wife, and his own children, who were "used to him not being there."
So I think that the movie made a good example of how a place and non-place is greatly interchangeable. Furthermore, I think that an argument can be made (straying slightly from Auge) that a place is something more than relational, historical, but emphasize it's connection with identity. I think that it's this psychological connection that we have is what truly can define something between a place and non-place. For example, my old bedroom at my parent's house. I can relate to this place and it does have history (for sure), but I don't connect the old bedroom (which has since been re-modeled and all my stuff has been taken out) with my identity anymore, making it a non-place for me. This is the same as in the movie, when Mr. Harris is used to being away from his house, not caring about the carpet color or a shelfing unit (because he no longer associates it with identity-his identity).
All in all, I think that it's easier to interchange a place to a non-place and vice versa. Although Auge agrees with the interchangeability, I think that it is just more easy than he makes it out to be.
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- Staci
- This is my first blog, set-up in my English class. I am in my last semester of college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, majoring in Political Science and Philosophy. Within the next few months, I hope to be a member of Teach For America or at least have some job lined up.
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5 comments:
I agree with you on all the points you brought up. In fact, as I'm writing this comment, I'm in a computer lab with many other people, but I feel very alone and not connected to any of them. I like the example of the bedroom, it definitely shows how places can revert to non-places since it is often easier to think of the other way around.
it struck me, too, that both Charlotte and mr. Harris felt more at home in the hotel with each other than they would have in their true home. However, i was thinking that this might just be an escape from what they don't want to face or don't want to face yet. what do you think?
I really like the part of your blog that describes how we see the same people every day and yet we may not know anything about them. There is a few people on campus that I have been aware of since freshmen year, and here, 4 years later, I still remember them from my dorm. But, I don't know anything else about them other than they lived in my dorm 4 years ago!
I agree with you on most of your post. However, I would argue that the relations and history you have in a place are what give you your identity. If you don't have any relationships or history in one space, than no one knows you, and you don't have an identity, which makes in a non-place.
I agree with you in some aspects. This topic is so confusing that I feel like one person can't be exatly right. I think more that if you have a history in a place then it is a place and not a non-place, even if you don't live there anymore.
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