Space and place as substrates of culture

Anti Randviir - Space and place as substrates of culture. KOHT ja PAIK / PLACE and LOCATION II. Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Arts 10, 2002. lk 140–154

Kokkuvõte:

Otsustasin korralikult süveneda selle õppejõu vanemasse kirjutisse. Midagi lühikest ja kokkuvõttlikku, aga selle mehe kirjutamisstiili tõttu tähendust tihedasti täis pakitud. Taoline kirjatükk, mille 14t lehekülge loed aru saamiseks kauem kui 340leheküljelist teost, sest sõnu peab mõistmiseks veerima. Sellistel puhkudel ma nõustun Corringtoni mööduva märkusega, et semiootika on teadus ja kunst. Pärast mitmekordset lugemist oskan kokkuvõtteks öelda vaid seda, et ruum mõjutab kultuuri (Randviir) ja kultuur mõjutab käitumist (Kluckhohn). Artikli saab alla laadida siit.

Sõnavara:
substrate - substraat, alusmaterjal, põhimik
congeniality - kongeniaalsus, kokkusobivus
delimit - piiritlema, piirama, eristama
oscillate - võnkuma
Weltanschauung - maailmapilt, maailmavaade
fervent - tulihingeline, innukas, aval
demarcation - demarkeerima, eraldusjooned
juxtapose - kõrvutama, kõrvuti paigutama
enunciation - diktsioon, kõne selgus
imbibe - imama, immutama, nina täis tõmbama
metalevel - The level of discourse that concerns an object itself
chronotope - The Russian philologist and literary philosopher M.M. Bakhtin used the term chronotope to designate the spatio-temporal matrix, which governs the base condition of all narratives and other linguistic acts
noosphere - noosfäär; Noosphere (; sometimes noösphere), according to the thought of Vladimir Vernadsky and Teilhard de Chardin, denotes the "sphere of human thought". The word is derived from the Greek νοῦς (nous "mind") + σφαῖρα (sphaira "sphere"), in lexical analogy to "atmosphere" and "biosphere".
Umwelt - omailm; One's surroundings or environment; the outer world as perceived by organisms within it

Väljendeid:
semiotic routine
semiotic value
semiotic unit
semiotic phenomena
semiotic intensity
semiotic space
semiotic capacity
semiotic reality
semiotic environment
semiotic dimension
semiotic order
semiotic system
semiotic technique
semiotic content
semiotic sense
semiotic behaviour
integral perspective
descriptive techniques
necessary distinctive features
representational text or discourse
minus device
conceptual reality
comparable notions
terminological content
univocal interpretation
descriptive metacultures
evergreen dynamism
reflective knowledge
conceptual dimension
theoretical inferences
sociocultural anxiety
utopian consciousness
conditional enlargement

Katkendeid:

The immanently meaningful nature of space is closely connected with the semiotic essence of a human being, beginning, on the one hand, from the dependence of the physical well-being of an individual on her/his ability to handle the surrounding space, and, on the other hand, from philosophical discussions on the true nature and aim of human existence as connected with movement of semiotic structures in spatial configurations.

The semiotic aspects are not limited to overtly meaningful characteristics of space (e.g. the much discussed structure of settlement space), but also include routine spatial practices (e.g. proxemics, movement), common concepts used in everyday communication (e.g. cultural space, political landscape), and mythic, philosophical and scientific interpretation of the origin, history, evolution and status of the human species

However, it seems to be important to stress that in order to displace a physical or cultural unit, it has to be placed firsthand. It is through placement of a semiotic unit into a system that provides it with the necessary distinctive features as compared with other elements of the systems.

When turning back to the hierarchy of spatial units, we may conclude that culture is imprinted in landscape and places, while the nature of their semiotic content depends on the general understanding of spatial reality, or the meaningful dimensions of space in both geographic and semiotic perspective.

As known, one of the most popular pairs of spatial notions involves space and place that have usually been regarded as explicitly dissimilar and incongruent.

Of course, space and place coming into the focus of cultural attention has usually been in very evident and strong connection with the abilities, development and possibilities of man's capacity to use space. Such usage can also be split into two, and thus we can make a distinction between the different epochs, keeping in mind which aspects of space have gained importance at the relevant era. The roughly two uses of space are of course physical, material on the one hand, and spiritual on the other.

Culture, man's invented unnecessary luxury, if approaching from such a viewpoint as man as a biological organism whose primary goal is satisfying the needs of physical existence, has been dependent on its ability to adjust to spatial realities.

Kluckhohn's treatments of culture as an abstraction and culture as a theory assume a relevant difference between the object level (including, e.g. individuals' interpretation of "correct" behaviour) and the metalevel (including, e.g. what kind of data is collected by the given researcher). However, just like in a historical perspective (a work classified as scientific comes into a "normal" cultural text to be analysed alongside with other cultural production), similar intricacies also emerge at defining the metalevel of contemporary chronotopes.

Space is a substrate for culture that can imbibe new knowledge, new domains of knowledge from it in both physical and purely conceptual terms. Places are shaped within the geographic space and the semiotic reality to be used for organising these structures and for framing both physical and semiotic human activity. By discovering new physical spaces, culture also has to adjust its conceptual realm to the new situation, extending thereby its conceptual space.

Both creative, interactive and purely semiotic behaviour, norms for its structure and other guidelines for both overt and covert behaviour are, in turn, embedded in geographic space and places as cultural traces resulted from enacting what constitutes cultural space.