Vague Spaces

Strange Spaces

Explorations into Mediated Obscurity;

Certain bizarre spaces, where disruption or disarray rule, leave us estranged and 'out of place'. This book examines such spaces, highlighting the emotional and mediated geographies of uncertainty and in-betweeness; of cognitive displacement, loss, fear, or exhilaration. It expands on why space is sometimes estranging and for whom it is strange. Overlapping with affections evoked by otherness, such as the 'exile', the 'obscene', the 'deviant', or the 'queer', strange spaces also call for a separate discussion ranging from decadence or disorder to spaces glowing with celebrification and wonder. Strange spaces in this book are conceived of in terms of change; involving processes when the consciousness registers a form of loss or difference as the habitual suddenly, or by degrees, is transformed into the site of exile, discomfort and sometimes novelty, astonishment and awe. While literature exists which covers both strangeness and spatial production, as well as empirical explorations of strange spaces, these have previously been dispersed and most often non-explicit. This book is the first to link such work within a profound theoretical discussion of 'what is strange about strange spaces' and how they evolve in a modern media age.