“The space in which we live, which draws us out of ourselves, in which the erosion of our lives. our time and our history occurs, the space that claws and gnaws at us, is also, in itself, a heterogeneous space.”
In thinking about Foucault and Of Other Spaces, I have begun to realize the importance of the many spaces I have occupied. These six principles have in a way created relevance to my past and formed an understanding and an inquiry of who I have become.
Foucault gives us many examples; I will share like wise from a personal point of view. I grew up in a dysfunctional family, which in return made it possible to move more than 25 times before I left permantly at the age of 17. Never had I experienced “home” or “place.” Constantly I was directed to uproot which gave me the sense and desire of travel. It enabled me to never direct myself to call a “place” or “space” home. When the opportunity came to leave, I moved once again to a temporal space, in habiting a small bedroom. I paid 200 dollars a month. The constant recycling of ideas about movement made me unpleasant in one place. Before long, I was traveling, living out of my car and moving from one place to another. I had no set destination I had no set rules. I was, in fact, placeless. And the moment it became a place, became the moment I left.
I have continued throughout my life to live this way, and yet at a very constant I carried a desire to have “place.” To be able to create home and something I could possibly root myself in. I married a few years back and can now see the desires coming to life; however, my constant to move is still within me.
These spaces, and places I have been created my history, it has helped me to gain a larger perspective about my practice as an artist and about the concepts I wish to act upon. My current work is the derivative of this fascination of place, of space that is left behind. Not like the fairgrounds that Foucault speaks of, or the forest that hosts the annual Rainbow family gathering, but the space that wants to be known, a place that I can begin to call home.
Foucault has a wonderful way of examining these intricate ideologies about the heterotopias. “The ship is the heterotopias par excellence. In civilizations without boats, dreams dry up, espionage takes the place of adventure, and the police take the place of pirates.”
1 comment:
Thank you Herb for sharing with us your personal experience. I find it fascinating that you seem to be in this lifetime search to experience what others call "place" or "home", but in the process you seem to be closer to Foucalt's "heterotopia" than most other people who have a concrete "place" or "home". You are able to project yourself into your own "Herb Zone", one of which you allowed yourself to be "placeless". The lack of place created your heterotopia. I think of Foucault's Fifth Principle and the statement "in general the heterotopic site is not freely accessible". You have entered a heterotopic place that only others who have similar experiences are invited.
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