#aspatiality

Annual and seasonal not so long ago, weekly and daily after that, this truly historic rhythmics was to be given a fatal blow by the cybernetic information revolution. For, the acceleration of common reality swiftly makes practical life, everyday life and not just social or family life, impossible. This has recently resulted in the atomization, the sudden 'fractalization' of social units which, beyond the risks of 'communitarianism', entails the incomparably more serious risks of an emotional synchronization that will lead to a 'communism of affects' on the scale of a planet reduced to nothing, where the real time of 'cyber' instantaneity will, this time, finally overtake the real space of the time differences and time distances involved in our indispensable relationship with the world. Desocialization will thereby extend people's current mental and emotional disorientation.

The whole visible world is only an imperceptible atom in the ample bosom of nature. No idea approaches it. We may enlarge our conceptions beyond all imaginable space; we only produce atoms in comparison with the reality of things. It is an infinite sphere, the center of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere.

But this local city is now only a district, one borough among others of the invisible world meta-city whose 'centre is everywhere and whose circumference nowhere' (Pascal).

Consider again the story of the Shard. This is a high-rise that has been imposed on London Bridge despite protests from residents, conservation groups and a warning from Unesco that it may compromise the world-heritage status of the nearby Tower of London. What's more, its owners and occupiers will have very little to do with the area, which for all its centrality is also home to some of the worst deprivation and unemployment in the entire city. The building is 95% owned by the government of Qatar and its developer, Irvine Sellar, talks of it as a "virtual town", comprising a five-star hotel and Michelin-starred restaurants.