[Reading Response: Michel de Certeau]

In Chapter Four of Spatial Stories written by Michel de Certeau, he identifies the differences and connections between the concepts of “places” and “spaces”, the distinction between “maps” and “tours”, and he describes the process of marking out boundaries. From my perspective, a place in the writer’s article is a physical location in which things are ordered by a certain rule. It turns in to spaces when travelers or walkers give special meaning to this place. To be more exact, when people are acting in a certain place, the place could be called “anthropological spaces”. As for “maps” and “tours”,

Continue reading[Reading Response: Michel de Certeau]

Reading Response: Pamela Wojcik

This reading highlighted the cycle of the “apartment plot” appearing in numerous films, televisions or fiction since the rise of urbanism and modernism. It is interesting how the apartment plot is effective in reflecting the qualities of urban domesticity, for example its porousness, privacy, simultaneity and encounter. Meanwhile, different genres of film could interpret such quality in extremes: porousness could be the ideal quality of apartment for romance, while the least ideal in horror. Besides, the apartment plot is also versatile in implementing narratives and messages of cultural, social or political context that we as audience might subtly digest from

Continue readingReading Response: Pamela Wojcik

[Reading Response: Michel de Certeau]

Michel De Certeua– The Practice of everyday life Yielding readers an inspiring vision on the city, Michel De Certeua raises the distinction between ‘place’ and ‘space’. The former one, as he suggests, is ‘an instantaneous configuration of positions’ that ‘implies an indication of stability’, which the later one ‘exists when one takes into consideration vectors of direction, velocities, and time variable’. For Certeua, a space is a practiced place, however, they are interchangeable. It is stories that make the two do not necessarily be consistent. Spatial stories and city strollers map the city into spaces, with so much fantasies, offering

Continue reading[Reading Response: Michel de Certeau]

[Reading Response: Michel de Certeau]

Michel de Certeau shows us the relationship between place and space, defining how they are different from each other. “Places” have physical meaning, like different locations, being fixed points on a map, whereas “spaces”, according to de Certeau are ‘practiced places’, being defined by their function and users’ perception of the places. In other words,when one single ‘place’ is used in 2 different ways by 2 different users, who have different perceptions of the place, two distinct spaces are formed. Hence, compared with the physical and objective ‘place’, ‘space’ has a more subjective meaning. Regarding ‘stories’, a single place can hold

Continue reading[Reading Response: Michel de Certeau]

[Reading Response: Michel de Certeau]

He Yifu I believe that Certeau is an idealist. He makes a distinction between space and place. In his words, the place exists as an objective reality, while space is the place when human effort put into it. Throughout his arguments, he cannot emphasize the importance of labor effort more. According to him, everything is only meaningful when human action takes place. His idea of stories is also inspiring. He said, “stories carry out labor that constantly transforms places into spaces or spaces into places.” This sentence seems abstruse, yet it is more understandable given his perception of space and

Continue reading[Reading Response: Michel de Certeau]

[Reading Response: Pamela Wojcik]

I love the interesting topic of the apartment plot, and I find the article very compelling. I would agree with the author that the apartment can be a central device to a story and not merely a setting, and the theory applies in different places, countries, contexts and societies. The reading reminds me of the recent Oscar winner Parasite, where the apartment is also key to the story and the shaping of characters. In the film, the poor family lives in a semi-basement apartment. The family’s decision to leave their window open when fumigation comes near their apartment, their reaction

Continue reading[Reading Response: Pamela Wojcik]

[Reading Response: Michel de Certeau]

The readings emphasize that ‘Space is a practiced place’ that in my opinion, spaces are more defined by the practice or how the place is used rather than the physical elements. No matter what kind of facilities are provided, it is only meaningful when it is used by the user. Taking the Instagram pier near HKU as an example, even it is prohibited from entry and there are no facilities for social interaction, it is still popular leisure and gathering space, while the promenade that is designed for social interaction, it seems that it is not as popular as the

Continue reading[Reading Response: Michel de Certeau]

[Reading Response: Pamela Wojcik]

The interaction between film and architecture is a way to display the relationship between city and home, public and private lives. Architecture is a key perspective to understand films. According to Wojcik (2018), the apartment is more than a setting but stimulates or shapes the narrative in some way. Apartment plots are narratives. It gives information about race, class, sexuality, nation, religion, capital and so on about elements of the film. And all these help to interpret the events, to define the characters for the audience. Architecture—the apartment, is shaped with urban subjects like sophistication, contact, porousness, and encounter in.

Continue reading[Reading Response: Pamela Wojcik]

[Reading response: Michel de Certeau]

The concept of how “spaces” are distinct from “places” are defined by Michel de Certeau. “Places” are more like different points and locations on a map, such as the coffee shop on street X, the commercial building on street Y, the big highway linking city A to city B, in which these are all stable destinations, they just stay there. On the other hand, “spaces” is suggested to be a practiced place, like how it is described in the book that the “walkers (people walking on the routes in the city)” define what the space is. Furthermore, the route that

Continue reading[Reading response: Michel de Certeau]