Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

SOME FRAGMENTED FORMS OF SPACE

1977; American Association of Geographers; Volume: 67; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1467-8306.1977.tb01161.x

1467-8306

Brian Robinson,

French Literature and Critical Theory

ABSTRACT The theme of spatial fragmentation as a perspective on the world, although it may not have been admitted into the canon of a positivist-scientific approach, has been a common aspect of twentieth century literature and art. As a concept it is related to that of chaos and chance happenings. It is also associated with the experiences of being lost and disoriented in noncultural landscapes which are conceived as wildernesses. Even for those who wish to control this disorder by, for example, placing it in a framework, a repository, there remains the possibility of the container being shattered. The method of containment may involve either the special environments of environmental determinacy (Jean Bodin) or the establishment of sealed places in a form of over-determinism (Marcel Proust) but in both cases there is the world of remains which have not as yet been cultured or controlled. These remains may consist of either empty or potent spaces. If the remains are not sealed off then there is the possibility of chance (indeterminism) becoming the total environment. The difference between the controlled and the uncontrolled will evaporate and the observer (John Cage) will have chanced upon a space of total sameness. If the observer sees no way out (as in some of the novels of Michel Butor) then the world becomes one of total determinism, that is to say, it is malevolent and demonic and every coincidence is interpreted as a paranoid-critical event spilling over with meaning.