On Transportation
Humans are becoming one bloating organism with a technosocial heartbeat, constantly updating in order to compress time and space closer and closer together. The world itself is exists in a liminal state 'betwixt and between' humanity and technology. A new liminal 'communitas' is emerging with technology as the framework for all social interaction and communication. When this liminality is resolved technology will be free to colonize all human interaction.
"The compression of space and time allows the subject to travel more quickly, but the actuality of time and space is sacrificed to speed. When the subject, unaccompanied, utilizes the vehicle, the experience of the motorized journey is one of isolation" (Bauman 2000:37).
Manufactured Environments
The vehicle in transit exists in a liminal state of time/space compression. The inner space of the machine is an area where the experience of time and space is altered. The outside existence of three dimensional reality scenery or 'reality' is compressed into two dimensions as it whizzes by the observer.
In walking, the original form of human transit, scenery is not compressed at all, but directly experienced. Natural phenomena such as the sun and the rain are all experienced. A car, in contrast, blocks out all of these things and substitutes a regulated environment in its place. It is a manufacturer of virtual ‘nature’, virtual ‘space’. A moving living room, complete with a manufactured atmosphere, with temperature regulated by heat controls.
