NO-space is the journal of suburban theory, based in the world center of sprawl - san diego. NO-space traces its origins to power to the peoplemover an early electronic publication that focused on bus riding and long walks through pedestrian unfriendly environments. like 'peoplemover' NO-space emphasizes data collection through long tedious walks, what the situationists called "dérives".
"walking gives the observer a greater 'sampling rate' than motorized transportation. only through much higher data collection rates can topography, desire, and economics be delineated"erik hans knutzen editor, NO-space
while the editor is at a loss for words to explain stratagems, NO-space theorist patrick kelly clearly delineates our theoretical borders.
"i believe the use of a metaphor regarding "non-stationarity" would be nice. "stationarity" describes a random process (and what is the history of intellectual production if not a random process?) for which the statistics (at least 1st and 2nd order) stay constant over time. i believe we could make the argument that the "statistics" of theoretical endeavor are not constant, despite attempts to model them as such. as a result, we must develop a hermeneutic which is conscious of its own statistical variation w/ time. we can call it a non-stationary hermeneutic or something like that....towards a non-stationary hermeneutic perhaps."patrick kelly NO-space theorist
the sub-urban urge pervades every level of the American cultural and literal landscape. The sub-urban urge is the escape from entrenched problems, ambiguity, and complexity towards release. It is the desire to spread out from the inner city to as yet undeveloped land. it is the urge to get onboard a space station and leave the earth behind. it is the movement from reality to simulation. in short it is getting out of the kitchen when you can't stand the heat.
the real question is where doesn't the sub-urban urge dominate.
the boundaries of urban areas, the endless sub-divisions, minimalls,
maximalls, and office campuses provide the most obvious
manifestations of the "urge", but this horizontal growth impulse
manifests in less obvious forms such as space exploration, radio and
television syndication, food distribution, and even the sprawling
internet in which you as a "user" are now participating.
the sub-urban urge replaces the local with the economy of scale, trading joe's diner for dennys. the sub-urban urge replaces architecture with the possibility of architecture, trading masonry, history and artifice, for stucco boxes that facilitate the easy flow of vehicular traffic. the sub-urban urge replaces the "real" for the simulated, trading los angeles for universal city walk thus simplifying enforcement and control through the elimination of public space.
it's unintended result is the transition from the ordered - row houses on city blocks with numbered streets - to the stochastic - condos, shopping malls and office complexes plopped down from the heavens into irrational configurations. this stochastic sprawl results from the topography of one reality - real estate economics and zoning - being superimposed upon the topography of "nature". the completely unpredictable and jarring contradictions at the intersections of these topographies are what we call "NO-space".
"and what better place to start such a project than san diego. a town which constantly offers itself up for interpretation and which i believe is characterized by socio-topographic fluctuations which can be at best, described favorably as random. in a sense, w/out thought."patrick kelly NO-space theorist
NO-space is horizontal not vertical.
unlike previous attempts at landscape analysis NO-space will not limit itself to condescending analysis of suburban yokels who live in track homes, although of course this will be an important part of our strategy. NO-space will create "interventions" wherever conflicting topographies intersect, wherever the signifier outstrips the sign, wherever non-stationary hermeneutics "fit", to deliver quality analysis and photographic surveys.
join NO-space for our mission valley photo survey, retrace our route and let us know what you think.
for a list of other resources check out the NO-space resource page
