nonplace

plural nonplaces · alternative non-place

1. human sciencesAn anthropological space of transience where human beings remain anonymous, such as an airport or shopping mall.

   And so the followers of Seferis, although they inherit a method, practice an unmethod, a methodological void. Or, to put it more precisely: although not forced to travel fleetingly from place to place, they travel anyway—to nonplaces, […]

   2021, Stathis Gourgouris, Dream Nation

   2 more examples

   Marc Auge identifies the nonplace as both a symptom and product of supermodernity. Auge's designation of the nonplace is neither prescriptive nor apocalyptic, realizing that the differential relation between place and nonplace is never absolute. The proliferation of nonplaces, however, is directly related to transnational capital and "supermodernity"; indeed, the nonplace is one of its products and mechanisms. Accordingly, the nonplace "designates two complementary but distinct […]

   2000, Erika Suderburg, Space, Site, Intervention: Situating Installation Art, U of Minnesota Press, →ISBN, page 205

   Nonplace does not mean no place, nor does it mean a nonexistent place. It just lacks certain conditions that a place should have, such as a name and a referential reality. Commonsense tells us that to have a name but no referential reality, or to have referential reality but no name, does not count as a “place” in the strict sense. Yet, for a cartographer, so long as it is included in the area of a map, even though it does not have a name or a referential reality, no twodimensional space at […]

   2012, Kai-cheung Dung, Atlas: The Archaeology of an Imaginary City, Columbia University Press, →ISBN

2. That which is not a place but has some aspects of one, such as cyberspace.