11379 Spatial Discontinuities: Visualizing Hidden Geographies of Consumption

Description

Improvements in transport and communication or ‘the annihilation of space through time’, as Karl Marx puts it, would lead inevitably to globalisation. Undoubtedly, especially in the Western cities, the shift from production to consumption-based economy has transformed our cities and the nature of everyday life. As much as we have (seemingly) become hyper-connected, we are just as obscure (if not lost) of our place within the complex web of consumption. By supplying us with plentiful consumables (be it energy, food, fashion, the leftovers) most efficiently, this annihilation of space through time has satisfied our most basic needs, while making those needs appear inconsequential. We rarely stop to wonder how they reach us nor their afterlife.

To see the world through consumption is to see it with lateral vision: to understand how apparently disparate phenomena are in fact connected. Using various visual techniques such as mapping, photography and cinematography, the course aims to analyse and illuminate the crucial relationship between our cities and practices of consumption to better understand the invisible impact it has on our lives.