In present pluralistic society consumptive sociality is one possibility of ‘re-embedding’ for individualised people. An as reciprocal assumed awareness of belonging arises from specific competencies and collective practices of consumption. The branded product is the connective element as it is realised as an emblem, icon and a symbol of sense. By that, products are a culture building force.
Our history is infused with human movement – a phenomenon that has given rise to an imperative relationship between the subject, the environment, and the journeys that unfold while moving. Passing through space is therefore one of the oldest and most practiced forms of human movement. One of our great challenges, however, is the communication and documentation of that experience. This article explores the unfolding of place through the act of mapping by employing storytelling as a means of recording our movements.
Similar to the warehouse in the 19th century the so called “consuming city” receives a building boom since the end of the 20th century. But its urban character is only virtual, because there are neither public or municipal buildings nor appartments. No one lives in this city, and every evening it is hermeticly closed until the morning. The design of every house is based on an expressive façade, influenced by historicism, and an indifferent building volume. This specific forming derives from Robert Venturi’s concept of a “decorated shed”, explained in his publication “Learning from Las Vegas” of 1972. The ability of postmodern architecture to communicate with the recipient was the reason to elect this architectural language. Finally the visitor of this city shall primary be encouraged to consume. Therefore the contemporary consuming city is an example of the continuity of postmodern architecture at the millennium, closely combined with the current idea of urban virtuality.
The history of human communities in terms of their “border regime” can be considered tripartite. At first, societies saw themselves as unique, and their edges were the end of their world, surrounded by “barbarians”. Under the influence of ever-increasing trade and equalisation of human beings and populations on either side of the edges, the latter have been transformed into national boundaries. This second era is currently in transition to a third epoch, as the continuous globalisation of societies is going along with their atomisation and liquefaction.
As entrepreneurs of ourselves, we are more and more supposed to manage our solitary existence ourselves. Law, clock and money are a tempting basis for this, because they do not prescribe nor prohibit any activity, but simply – and all the more relentlessly – establish a framework for individual action. Their limits progressively supplement collective delineations of human life (birth and residence, gender, religion, profession, etc.).
The consideration of the history of the Third Reich from an approach concerning waste industry dues not only touch aspects of National Socialist economic policy, but also essential elements of social policy. Besides government agencies, representatives from economy and sciences, also the general public is concerned with waste management, and thus mainly with the transformation of formerly unused waste products into exploitable raw resources. In the following, it is attempted to deserche the areas of the waste industry (collection, handling/transport, sorting, reutilisation, treatment, accumulation) in the context of general National Socialist structures. The main focus is on a selection of material flows in the light of the extraction of secondary raw resources. Finally, it is also examined to which extent the system of National Socialist waste management resulted from a systemically conditioned necessity, whether it was due to the specific circumstances of the time, or if its peculiarity can be considered as a characteristic of totalitarian political systems.
The European process of integration – from a housewife’s point of view.
The public has received substantial interpretation pursuant to its function as counterpart to the political development. Following the speaker’s projection, the parliament and the public sphere form an alliance. Literature has been understood all the time as its mediation and realization alike. What remains open, is the very question how the “focus of the public” (Ch.Taylor) is created and to be maintained. In four steps it is explained according to the primary hypothesis that human consciousness relies upon a polar foundation. The first introduces both parts of literary consciousness, the individual and the collective, in relation to truth capability. The second exhibits in an empirical sense the intricacies of polar consciousness as related to varieties of manifestation and peripeteian emphasis. The third relies upon poetological theory in order to explain how collective consciousness and the text are interconnected. Finally the fourth takes novel theory and interpretation (N.Miller) as point of departure for final application and overall summary.
Nowadays technical devices are used for communication between humans. Communicating by using tech-nical devices effects the way people are co-existing. Does that convey the experience of community, does it maybe lead us to new forms of communities? Or as we rely on technology and the opportunities offered thereby, do we lose the possibility to find people sharing our lives? The article offers the chance to find points of reference framing these essential questions.
In this topic, intensifying the one of a Posthuman Age, we want to investigate new forms of the social which emerged since the onset of a so-called Internet age, and unfold in the present. Since the onset of that age, our basic understanding of what it means to be social has changed profoundly. To cite McLuhan, being a cultural animal first and foremost means to be a social one. And since the onset of that age, not just some new forms of communicating had evolved, but new ones of being social as such. Since that starting point, in both real and mythical terms a new era begun.
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