Spirit (identity, genius loci) of place and sense (ability to appreciate) of place
- Psychical setting – buildings, streets, trees, hills etc
- Activities that occur – working, shopping, walking, studying and all other daily routines
- Meanings – the arise from the experiences of the activities and create a sense of belonging and identity, which is irrevocably tied to those landscapes and activities
Spirit of place is both – inherent and emergent property. Some of its elements are present in form of landscape, colours, architecture and some are the acumulated physical changes and associacions that can chane with time.
According to Edward Relph, the terms spirit of place and sense of places are often (mistakenly) used interchangably. In his opinion, sense of place is synaesthetic and combines the qualities that belong to the spirit of place and the personal perception of it. It varies widely between individuals, becasue it is a mix of personal impressions of smell, touch, movement, anticipation, memories and so on. From this point of view, the sense of belonging to a certain space, comunal and personal responsibility for it, pride and commitment to the improvement of this place is a resultant of all of the above factors.
ELECTRONIC MEDIA AND SENSE OF PLACE
SOP depends on the cultural context and the prevailing medium of communication. The sense of place has changed diametrically with the emergence of internet and motor vehicles, that enabled people to travel around the world and exchamge the information in a fraction of few secends, regardless how far away the receiver and the sender are from each other. The world has “shrunk” and what used to be alien and unknown now is somehow familiar.
“We live in an age when feelings are in the foreground and reason is in the background”
Thye use of electronic media has had a huge impact on philosophy, art, science, architecure etc, moving from the rationalist, uniform perspective to the view that accedes the validity of many perspective (I think London’s archotecture and its governors philosophy are sadly moving away from this approach). In conclusion, cosidering all the modern movements that are protecting the heritage and a global tendency to retreat from destroying the old and rather, preserving it, we can argue that a sense of place informed by electronic media, has a cosmopolitan character and involves an acknowledgement of diversity and nostalgia.
The paradox of this situation is that, what created the spirit of a place back in the days (and is admired these days) was a result of the geographic constraints, like the use of building materials that could only be sourced locally. Modernist approach in response to that was to focuse on designs and use of materials that could work anywhere. Postmodernity sees the come back of locality and tries to bring back the sense of community and celebration of diversity.
“The electronic age presents a deep paradox for place design – electronic and modern communications enhance appreciation of distinctiveness yet simultaneously undermine the factors that have always been instrumental in creating distinctive places.” (Spirit of Place and Sense of Place in Virtual Realities).
needs provide constraints – forms follow function.
Virtual world engages other senses rather than only the isight and imagination like books or paintings. The aspects of reality being reproduces in VR are dependant on the purpose of it.
Authencity is a key concept in creating VR. Assuming that authenticity has to do with originality and, in its philosophical and phenomenological sense, reflecting of the existential realities of being, VR can not (according to …) bw authentic because it is’t real. It is rather a reproduction of the real places. He’s suggesting to create new types of real places, that will create their own authenticity by encouraging the emergence of new activities, and applies similar rule for building VR. Creating space with some framework and enabling the modification of it through participation, which results in creating a strong spirit of space in virtual world.
VR is a place where the imagination of the creators of those spaces meets the imagination of the participant (rather than viewers or readers) and require different sort of imagination and is unlike the real space. I think that it’s resembling an event more that just a perception of something.
Take from the slides of this lecture:
When discussing music cues in movies, the source and underscore of the term are used in place of diegetic and non-diegetic. Diegetic (heard by the film characters )sound promotes the implied reality of a scene.Principle dialogue, hard effects, and source music are all examples of diegetic sound. In
contrast, the non-diegetic (heard by only the audience) components of a soundtrack promote a sense of fantasy. Examplesof non-diegetic sound include narration, laugh tracks, and underscore. The cinematic
boundaries of diegesis are often broken or combined to meet the narrative intent at any
given moment.
In VR, we are both the audience and the character, which changes how we encounter these categories, diegetic and non-diegetic sounds meet and exist in the same space. I would not say, however, that they become the sea category. We have sounds that are a background, we don’t have any influence on them, they are just there, maybe their dynamics slightly change. And the there are sounds that depends on our action, like when we move or grab or hit something, the sound occurs.
One of the audio files I am creating is a sound of a sound visualiser. The player can hear it while getting closer, although has no control over it.