Troubled Spaces: Time, Affections and Memories in Territorial Identity Processes

Troubled Spaces

Massimo Schinco, ITALYpsychotherapist

Sara Schinco, ITALYmaster in architecture

in territorial identity processes

time affections and memories

Memory: Forgetting and CreatingInterdisciplinary Conference in Gdańsk - 11th – 12th September 2014

Troubled Spaces - S. Schinco - M. Schinco

Memory: Forgetting and Creating - Interdisciplinary Conference in Gdańsk - 11th – 12th September 2014

what happens when things we cannot usually see become visible?

what happens when questions often considered as metaphysical and sometimes ambiguous like time affections memories become explicit in space?

just as a scenographic environment, space can reveal and show different

functionsvalues meanings

depending on how we look at it, move inside it, how we touch it, how we relate to it, being us audience and actors at one time



the qualities of space are revealed by our interaction among a

“profusion of connections”(Arnheim 1981)

in which our mind gives and finds meaning and relevance



we make a choice

we find order (take something out)

we give order

(put something in)



we establish a hierarchy

all this is a process

it is related to identity

it is carried out during time

not only our time and our identity

we relate also to other people and memories of the past

in this sense the process of building an identity is collective, partially unconscious and continuously ongoing



theorists and professionals are not concordant on a definition of restoration but they all agree on some aspects:

it is a complex and time related operation



branches of knowledge and operations which are intended to build, ordinate and organize spaces

territorial planning restorationarchitecture

it includes many different aspects, some of which hidden and troubled

it has to guarantee and respect the temporal

continuity - flow of time



what is a monument?

identitymonument vs contest



what is original (authentic)?

timeconservation vs renovation



vs / & ?

all these are problems related to

multidimensionality implicate orders

how to translate complex identities into physical and detectable space and to convey the stream of time into a solid framework?

what happens when multidimensionality and those implicate orders are forgotten, not recognized or denied?

Ernest Hemingway used to say about narrative process:

“… I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it underwater for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg. It is the part that doesn’t show. If a writer omits something because he does not know it then there is a hole in the story.” (the underlining is ours)



before considering some practical examples, can we connect the observations above in a consistent and sharp-cut theoretical framework?

we are persuaded that soon we’ll be able to answer a full “yes” but

as for now the work is still in progress



the process started between the end of the 19th century and the first half of 20th

the basic assumptions of Western Culture went into a radical crisis

a need of a new foundation was felt in all fields of human creativity:

arts, philosophy, sciences …



in consequence of what was started then we are now leaving at our back views based on

reductionismmaterialism separation

perspectives founded on strict determinism seem to be replaced by explanations not pretending to be complete

whose outcomes are not fully predictable



the role of

the human responsible choice

and of the affections

are taken into account

much more than before



intuitions from philosophers and scholars like Edmund Husserl

Henri Bergson

William James

Edith Stein

seem to make a comeback through new paradigms of consciousness



several Authors (e.g. Manousakis, 2006)

depict individual consciousness as

a subsystem, just relatively autonomous

into an infinite stream of global consciousness



in a frame as such, where a separation between “inner” and “outer” reality is no longer accepted,the hypothesis of

the continuity between different states of consciousness

(Hartmann 2011, 2012)

acquires a larger scope with a huge fallout on the choices of individuals and groups about their environment



in this bias



individual and group’s behaviors

dreams, myths, artistic products, religious systems

the collective recollection or avoidance of memories and feelings shared by entire

communities

show themselves as phenomena reapproaching us to the collective foundations of our identity

one of the most authoritative representative of this cultural trend

is the psychoanalist and dream researcher Montague Ullmann (1932 – 2008)



Ullmann emphasizes that

“we are much less separate than we think we are”

“…that part of us which is linked to others through feeling is more real, more enduring and more significant than other dimensions of our existence. It compels belief. It dissolves distances, creates unity and links us to the real world. This is the stuff of reality”



from a theoretical point of view Ullmann roots his statements in the contribute of the physicist David Bohm

following Bohm, reality “explicates” and “implicates” itself in an endless

“holomovement”

the movement of the whole Memory: Forgetting and Creating - Interdisciplinary Conference in Gdańsk - 11th – 12th September 2014


in consequence of this

all conceptions considering

individual vs collective, psychological vs “material”

past, present and future as ultimately separated

are no longer accepted



“changing a physiognomy [of a space]… [we construct] new social, functional and symbolic geographies” (Secchi 2006)

is that enough?

3 “troubled spaces” related to identity and time

“Visually […] the balance of a project can only rely on what is detectable to the eye” (Arnheim 1981) (the translation is ours)Memory: Forgetting and Creating - Interdisciplinary Conference in Gdańsk - 11th – 12th September 2014


Dresden



Dresden



Dresden



reconstructionstrong reaffirmation of the lost identity signs of the flow of time in the use of material

Dresden



reviving old identity? new identity?

Berlin



Berlin



frozen time?



new constructionreconsideration of compositive models & materials



layering

Küstrin/Kostrzyn



Küstrin/Kostrzyn



Küstrin/Kostrzyn



Küstrin/Kostrzyn



Prussian identity – removed

Küstrin/Kostrzyn



Küstrin/Kostrzyn



Soviet identity – removed

2007

2009

2014

Küstrin/Kostrzyn



revitalisation?

Küstrin/Kostrzyn



nowadays or no-days identity?

Küstrin/Kostrzyn



as a final remark

things can be destroyed

sceneries can be upset

maps can go lost

affections and memories can be removed

but the implicate orders they convey always remain and shall be taken into account



just as a final disclaimer

issues about the ultimate nature of the individual “I” operating in the stream of contents and processes of consciousness

where there is not a general consensus among scholars

have not been taken into account in this presentation, since they go beyond its focus and scope



Thank You!

Presentations & Public Speaking

Troubled Spaces: Time, Affections and Memories in Territorial Identity Processes