The Augmented Meta-Public Space. Interpreting emerging transductive territories in enhanced centres of consumption

Abstract

Recent socioeconomic and technological advancements are transforming the routines of consumption into post-consumerist practices. From a socio-spatial perspective, this is primarily driven by the augmentation of two main processes: prosumption and transduction. Addressing the condition of public space in rapidly developing cities in East Asia and Australasia, this paper discusses how these two forces have contributed to a novel spatial dimension: meta-publicness. The discussion is theoretically framed by two main streams of the research on public space: the one that approaches it as the irreducible realm of agonistic pluralism and the one which sees it as crucial to socio-spatial ontogenetic processes. The major recent concept adopted in the new civic mall planning and management, experientiality, is discussed considering two main aspects: the role of eventful spectacularised environments in these hyper-mediated depoliticised spaces, and the re-politicising agency of their hyper-mediated connectedness. This paper concludes that if a democratisation of the spectacle has introduced relevant antagonistic decommodification forces, there is an internal weakness of the system that exposes these places to an even higher hegemonic dominance.