Conceptualizing New Global Space

Fredric Jameson concerns himself with the issue of postmodern space in his articles "Cognitive Mapping" and "The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism". In both articles, he proposes that "our now postmodern bodies are bereft of spatial coordinates and practically (let alone theoretically) incapable of distantiation" (48). The postmodern space that he speaks of "not merely a cultural ideology or fantasy but has genuine historical (and socioeconomic) reality as a third great original expansion of capitalism around the globe" and has developed out of a need to represent a new reality characterized a new depthlessness, the weakening of historicity, the waning of affect and in which simulacra has become our primary method of viewing the world. To accommodate these new conceptualizations of time and space, we have turned to postmodernism.

For Jameson, the process in which we attempt to situate ourselves in this global space is cognitive mapping. However, cognitive mapping runs up against the problem of representation and authenticity in a world that is dominated by simulacra and is almost always mediated in some form. The current postmodern conceptualizations of space, abstract or literal, figures us as fragmented, alienated individuals. To move beyond that, we must find new modes of representation.

This concern over our alienation and disengagement is reflected in science, evident from the articles on diffusion and social networks, but also in the theoretical concepts of space and time. Einstein's theory of special relativity succeeded in getting us to rethink our notions of space and time, with great consequence across all academic disciplines, including postmodernism. The concept that time and space are relative, as well as the relativeness of simultaneity, revolutionized the way we perceived the linear progression of time. Since then, physicists have struggled to come up with new ways of viewing the universe in a coherent, harmonious way. These theories include string theory, loop quantum gravity and M-theory, which all attempt to explain all phenomena in the world through a single unifying theory, largely by reconceptualizing how we view space and time. These theories of unification (or theories of everything) is the scientist's efforts to cognitively map our universe, and are driven by the desire to comprehend how our world works and where we, as individuals, stand within it. However, the problem of representation remains; if there are no "true maps" as Jameson suggests, then will we be forever unable to accurately cognitively map ourselves? Are our efforts to do so futile?


jeanine