Amid times of the city: space-time conflicts and processes of absorption

Abstract

How contemporary forms of space-time apprehension are shaping our cities? The evolution and consolidation of ICTs and transport networks have affected global flows, making them increasingly faster and space-time experiences more instantaneous; Capitalism, flexible in time and space, expanded its power of domination through political alliances, shaping a-geographical territorialities. In the light of these phenomena, the contemporary subject has adapted his behaviors and ways of relating to the urban, by increasing the degree of volatility and disposability of his/her ties (spatial, professional and personal) - something valued by neoliberal thinking - and consolidating them as a lifestyle. The difficulty in establishing future projections (time control) reinforced the search for momentary (immediate, of present-day) experiences and pleasures, which would be causing a spread of consumer relations into other spheres of human life. Therefore, urban space, as a product of social relations (space of conflict and multiplicity), would be transmuting itself to better fit these new temporal patterns of the contemporary subject. Recently, it is possible to observe an increase in the creation and application of representative urban spatial forms, more instantaneous and punctual, where the subjective relations take place on contracts with pre-defined expiration dates. Temporary urban interventions are becoming part of the everyday life of the cities, coming from the fields of art, design, architecture and urbanism (performances, happenings, actions of tactical urbanism), with more insurgent and political characteristics, and from the urban marketing (live and streetmarketing), with more neutralizing and rentier characteristics. Although opposed in their intentions of action, both of them question and articulate the accelerated and ephemeral temporalities of the contemporary, moreover, reinforcing their perception. Based on the hypothesis that these interventions are going through processes of absorption (capture, adaptation and legitimation) on their form, discourse and strategy of action, and becoming a territory of dispute between hegemonic forces (state and capital) and sectors of civil society - in which "urban time" is being used as an object of negotiation -, this work seeks to better understand the socio-cultural and political context of temporary interventions arising from both tactical urbanism and live and streetmarketing, analyzing their recent historical evolution, approaches and digressions, and impacts on the space of our cities. (AU)