The tyranny of space
It’s a peculiar condition of the 21st century. Space, I mean. Or the lack thereof.
As I type this, I have my five-year-old, 8 GB, Sandisk Cruzer USB plugged in; a warning notice flashing on my screen saying I don’t have enough disk space to transfer any more files. And like the perfectly normal, contemporary human being that I am, I’m going to fidget, fret and furrow my brows over it — heedless of the fact that all this can easily simmer down with a click of the delete button.
I’m not alone; my sister is across the room lamenting the deteriorating storage space of her laptop, while my brother is busy assessing the state of his Xbox’s memory card and how many more games it can hold. Downstairs, heaps of Xeroxed readings lay claim to every available nook and cranny, competing with dust mites and my dad’s golf bags for an inconspicuous place in the house. And just recently, a whole stack of my mother’s unframed paintings have invaded the guest room; temporary shelter from the two artwork-eating mice downstairs.
The long and short of it? We’re beholden to space. So much so that our everyday lives completely revolve around this, produced and reproduced by the simple arrangement of living quarters. Indeed, the interior of a home is often an expression of oneself, becoming more and more pronounced the more abstract and immaterial that particular space becomes. Think of the music libraries on your laptops, or even the kind of photo albums you have posted on Facebook.
The upside is there’s room for clutter. It’s your own private space, after all. But outside? Not so much. The public sphere is slave to the dictates of city planning, which works under the illusion that a deft manipulation of space can produce order. Or a semblance of it, at least.
Case in point, the infamous Commonwealth Avenue. Driving through this thoroughfare the other week, I was surprised to see the fruition of all the road work they’ve been doing since summer: five newly asphalted lanes for the exclusive use of private cars, with partitions separating them from the two older lanes reserved for public transport. The idea is to improve safety and lessen the amount of traffic in the area. So what do we do? We limit the space of the congestion causers, particularly buses. Put them in old, unkempt lanes, because the rationale is that asphalting their space would only be a waste. The weight of trucks and buses would only wear the asphalt down in record time.
The intent is laudable, sure. But raise your hand if you can spot the double standard. Public vehicles aren’t the only ones causing road accidents. And by confining said vehicles to their itty-bitty lanes, well, it’s social stratification at its finest; using space as a means of control. The whole set-up is a wonderful tribute to the allegory of class — entitling those in the upper echelons to come and go as they please, with the rest of the common folk being quite literally confined to their stations.
In other news, let’s talk television. Specifically, those makeover reality shows that have been such a hit on the lifestyle channel. Earlier this year, the Philippine version of the American reality show, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, aired its first season to moderate success. Basically, the show picks a family with a life story à la Maalaala Mo Kaya (flooded house, father suffering from illness, a single mom with five kids), gives them hope in the form of a brand new house (which magically turns up in the span of one week), and then milks it on camera for all its worth.
Cue the violins and sweeping crescendos.
And while I won’t delve into the matter of how a poor family from the slums can possibly maintain a new two-story house for any reasonable amount of time, I think it’s safe to assume that they can’t. In most cases, the family is simply given an extra P300,000 — off you go, all’s well that ends well. As for the matter of space, well, it’s interesting how much the dynamics of communal space are disrupted whenever an old house (read: shack made out of galvanized iron sheet) is torn down and rebuilt. In one episode, the newly rebuilt house stands in the middle of a sea of crumbling one-story shacks, its corrugated cement roof basking in the sun. Suffice it to say, the thing sticks out like a sore thumb amidst all the poverty to its immediate right and left.
I’m not saying the makeover is a bad thing. By the cultural mandate known as pakikisama, I’m sure the rest of the community must be celebrating a fellow neighbor’s good fortune.
However, that’s besides the point. In a shared social space such as this, the pretty house stands for so much more than a “new life.” It’s a jarring reminder to the rest of what they don’t have; symbolic violence (and power) engendered by one compact strip of space.
The best part is, we can never escape it. Space, I mean. Or the excess thereof.
