CS213 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Block Party, Henri Lefebvre, Ikea
Self Checkout Example
● Convenience
● Don’t have to make small talk with cashier
● Notion of efficiency
Received View
● Checkout machines just appear
● Cause a number of “effects”
○ Unemployment for store workers
○ New jobs for those trained to service machines
○ Varied states of satisfaction and dissatisfaction
○ Increased or decreased profits
Articulation and Assemblage
● Can’t stop at the invention, design, and distribution of machines
● An arrangement of machines, practices, habits, dispositions, attitudes, ideas, beliefs, etc
○ Not just down to desire for profits and automation
○ Need to consider idea of self-service
○ How it is articulated to other ideas such as convenience and progress, and dyi
practices such as pumping gas, pouring drinks, self bussing, banking, even
investing? (interesting bc we perceive ourselves at out of control but there are
things that people like to do themselves - home depot, etc)
■ Why do we do these things?
■ Employees but also customers trained in new habits, attitudes, and
practices (customers become trained as unpaid employees)
● Must get away of idea of things being caused by a thing… but how they are realizations
of different constellations of processes going on in society
NEW
The Social Production of Space and Time
→ block party in times square (sitting in lawn chairs in street), hosted by city, feels
rebellious/different because they are using the space in a way they are not normally supposed
to use it, interrupting daily routine, use the space in alternative fashion, break from the normal
everyday… different kind of time space… we have norms for spaces (what we can do there,
who can be there)
→ malls designed to keep people moving, food court seats designed to become uncomfortable
after sitting for awhile (to stop people from lingering)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Don"t have to make small talk with cashier. New jobs for those trained to service machines. Can"t stop at the invention, design, and distribution of machines. An arrangement of machines, practices, habits, dispositions, attitudes, ideas, beliefs, etc. Not just down to desire for profits and automation. Employees but also customers trained in new habits, attitudes, and. Must get away of idea of things being caused by a thing but how they are realizations practices (customers become trained as unpaid employees) of different constellations of processes going on in society. Malls designed to keep people moving, food court seats designed to become uncomfortable after sitting for awhile (to stop people from lingering) Eg airport display screens create area where people slow down (screen causes change in the way people move thru) temporality in this one space is different than in the rest of the airport. The consequences of these processes shaping spaces affect people differentially .
