Smartphones and the Perception of Space

Introduction

The smartphone, used both as a screen and as a camera, has invaded the urban sphere. In the contemporary moment, virtual representations of space are collectively produced by the public and massively consumed through smartphone screens. Physical space, or the city's lived experience, has become overlaid with an extra digital layer of information that is accessible on the move. Users have the freedom to produce new representations of space that add or remove symbolism in the places they inhabit. These representations shape desires of mobility and produce specific consumption scenarios that can only be fulfilled after arriving in a certain destination. Upon arrival, the user produces a representation of the moment in the place he experiences and shares it with his networks, who will sooner or later, in one form or another, seek to fulfill the desire shaped by their network. Destinations are not merely architectural objects and structures; additional layers of symbolism have been placed upon them through mediated representations and myths that structure the idea of place. The following essay explores the reciprocal interaction between physical space, the human body, and the collective production of media.

The research question discussed here is how does the smartphone affect the perception of space. The research methodology used to construct this paper was multidisciplinary. First, the researcher conducted a literature review, then produced an ethnographic study that took the shape of creative film project, then the observations that resulted from the creative film-making process influenced and impacted the reading and media analysis of the texts explored. In the film Homo Extendus (2017), the filmmaker/researcher observes through the camera lens the rituals and choreographies tourists perform with their cameras and smartphones as they navigate in the touristic sights of Athens, Greece. This observational study that led into a creative output is then enriched through a reading of Lefebvre’s The Production of Space (1991). This article explores the practice of mediated walking with the smartphone, using theory to understand how simple changes in everyday life can have a big effect in shaping urban spheres.

Lefebvre was a Marxist sociologist, theorist, and philosopher who was interested in the effects that everyday movements and behaviors have on the production of space. I use Lefebvre’s The Production of Space (1991) as a tool to deconstruct the contemporary intersections between the human body, the smartphone, and the urban fabric. I examine space as a product of multiple moments and layers that, one after the other, generation after generation, have left traces in the city, together producing the urban fabric experienced by city dwellers today. I read Lefebvre alongside the work of Michel de Certeau, who sees everyday practices as revolutionary acts that shape the social construction of the city. By bringing the ideas of Lefebvre and de Certeau into conversation with the contemporary augmented experience of the city, this article theorizes how the engagement with the production of representations of place re-shapes the virtual layers of the city.

Although the collective public can produce a multitude of images and videos and share them with their networks, those images are scattered across the globe, bombarding us with information that we are unable to decode. Vilém Flusser (2000) writes: