Sculpting the Space, or the Retorts at Play

Abstract

The argument behind my initial assumptions is that spatial and temporal structures and relationships are the basic way in which individuals and whole societies both shape and comprehend the world around them. One should add that these structures and relationships may be of a dual nature: physical, that is, belonging to the empirical world, and mental, that is, belonging to imaginary, fictional or metaphysical realms. There can be no doubt that in everyday experience we perceive space thanks to the possibility of movement. Since it is people who move in space, and not the other way round, they become responsible for the appearance of a temporal dimension in their cognition of the world around them. Even if this sometimes happens against our will, it does not change the general principle: it is not the new space which comes to us but we who go to it. The space which is available to our senses remains static, stable and invariable, and, not being in motion, is amorphous and ahistorical. Natural space is a scalar, which means that it is directionless. Also, it is not grounded in some concrete time (I omit here the spaces created by man), since space is historical only when it has orientation or a privileged perspective; in other words, space gains a temporal dimension when it is modelled. Natural space has no orientation (it is not intentionally shaped for our reception) and at most people can define the place from which it is perceived, where the fundamental points of reference are our eyes and bodies (and our deixis).