Non-Place
Miles Barretto
In an era of fast-paced globalization and corporate internationalization, there has been a rise in the number of sterile, homogenous spaces—which Marc Auge refers to as “non-places”—in which individual identity is subsumed and behavior is ritualized and codified. The increasingly frequent appearance of these spaces in almost every urban area contributes to the erosion of local culture. In order to examine this further, I carried out a series of non-place “visual interruptions”: blurring the lines between non-places and places to interrogate the function, purpose, and impact of non-places in our lives. The process of my project focused on three commonly found “non-places” in New York: ATM Vestibules, Parking Lots and Supermarkets. I collected the common visual elements that people interact in these locations, after which the collection translated into the form of stickers. This puts the visual elements out of their usual context and allows the user to place new meanings and interactions that are different from the daily routine. This creates a disassociation from the “non-places” as well as individualized interpretations. The final project consists of a booklet and posters of stickers and a website which documents the photos of where the participants placed their stickers.