In this text I would like to present the self-defined term of a transmorphic space and my approach to exploring it.
The concept of a transmorphic space is a newly developed term to describe a space, that is transforming itself in a vacuum created by the withdrawal of meaning. It builds upon the following anthropological and philosophical concepts on classifying spaces, where the experience is in some way "different" :
Liminal spaces.
The term Liminality is shaped by the ethnologist Victor Turner. It describes the state of surpassing a threshold. Anthropologically it is often connected to the concept of the right of passage and the performative nature of rituals. In the physical world the term is used to describe spaces of transitioning, spaces in between and spaces that only find meaning through their destination. Examples for Liminal spaces are: Airports, waiting areas, stairways, corridors, or light-houses.
Heterotropia.
This term was used by Michel Foucault, briefly in his early phase in the late 1960s. It describes places that implement their societal norms only partly or not completely. As well as places, that function by their own rules. For him these places play an important role, because they reflect the society that made them in a special way. Either because they represent, negate or subvert society. Examples for Heterotropias are: ships, cemeteries, bars, brothels, prisons and gardens.
Non-place (non-lieu).
This neologism was coined by the French anthropologist Marc Augé, to describe a place meant for a transient function. In such a space, writes Augé, a human remains anonymous and a non-space does not hold enough significants to be regarded as a “place” in the anthropological definition. Michele De Certeau adds to this concept to factor of Dynamics. For him a non-place is characterised by the movement and restlessness. “To move means, to miss the place” he writes to describe the phenomena, that in a non-place no-one ever really arrives. Examples for non-places are: train stations, motel rooms, highways and shopping centres.
Concept
Loosely based upon these existing concepts I would like to offer the term transmorphic space (trans: to go beyond, to change; morph: shape, form, structure). I would like to use it to describe a space that transforms in a vacuum, created by the withdraw of meaning. It defines a space by the performative state of redefining itself. This state of redefinition is the process of finding a new meaning.
I am not defining spaces through their current relation to the human actors in it, nor through their shape or dynamics - as Augé, Foucault or Turner did. I am using their quality of transformation and their non-human actors to characterise them. In these transmophic spaces, there are actors that perform the act of transmorphing. These actors could be seen separated from the space, as outside influences. For me they are what makes up the space. A transmorphic space in the entangled net of actors transforming each other and by doing that, transforming the space.
The key example for a transmorphic space is a house whose owner moved away, no new humans are coming to settle in and it is taken back by nature. By the act of moving away, the intended meaning for the space was revoked from it. This creates a vacuum, which manifests itself in a search for new meaning. Now the actors fill the vacuum. Insects, animals, plants, moles, fungi and bacteria start to shape the space. They transform it into something new.
In this transformation the relationship between decay and reanimation is becoming important. The acts of transforming are almost always an interplay between destruction and construction, between dying and becoming alive, between falling apart and forming something new.
transmorphic spaces are post-human spaces. Spaces that where torn from their anthropocentric purpose. Exploring these spaces can give us an idea of what can happen after humans have disappeared from this planet.
Understanding this process is not meant to understand the new meaning of the space, but only to observe the state of change.The vacuum and its relationship to spatiality, the human perspective of what is meaningful, meaningless and what is filled and empty. The question of meaning, emptiness and most other relative, human, descriptive terms, are purely subjective. Firstly subjective to the human species and secondly subjective to every individual. Exploring these seemingly absolute states, loosens our hardened understanding of reality and our accompanying expectations.
This way of exploring a space is, to me, the fundamental form of an aesthetic experiences - when following the definition of Erika Fischer-Lichte. She describes an aesthetic experience as an experience where you perceive an object, while you perceive yourself. Exploring the space is exploring your self. You are becoming an actor of transformation, you are becoming part of the space, you are becoming space. You can experience how you influence the process of transmorphing and you can experience how you are being changed by the space. The process of exploration is perceiving the feedback between you and the world around you.
Project Realization
In the artistic research project resonances of the abandoned I am exploring the concept of transmorphic spaces. I am choosing a space and try to understand to actors of change. I am documenting with photos and video. I am taking samples to investigate in the Lab and try to make sense out of what is happening. Who is doing what and who is influencing whom.
In the end I would like to develop a technique, so that explorations like this could be adapted to workshop-like, collectively performative formats. Excursions with adults and children, that find ways to enter and explore a space not for finding concrete answers, but for the performative and transformational qualities of exploring. Because through exploring these spaces, we can learn how to explore ourselves. We can learn to understand what our own role in this world is. How we influence our surroundings and how our surroundings influence us.
Example picture of a transmorphic space found in Portugal in the environment of the Quarry Sonnet program.
