Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Public to Private






You know, when I began to do this assignment I really didn't know where to begin. But then I began thinking about what is private in my own public display of life and vice versa. Though not exactly a space, I believe this is best illustrated through the iPod and its uncanny ability to complete block out the outside world, allowing each and every user thier own unique experience completely tailored to thier own wants and needs. Never before in history has their ever been a device so capable of alienizing the entire world into complete isolation and silence. Take this one man on the Metro in Rome: plugged in to his iPod he is completely shut out from the world, his own music kept private from the public sphere of the Metro. Through two small little white ear buds, the transition between the public arena with all its noises and chatter is completely privitized.
In a similar respect, the Police station on the busy corner street does the same thing. Among the chaos and traffic of the every day hustle, four little walls transform this space in to a completely different place. It is as if on the public sidewalk, this little station serves as an embassy on foreign soil.

Within the payphone, the customer is promised reclusivity from the outside world allowing him to disclose secretes and private information to someone on the other line while the public world continues to shuffle about on the outside. Once the door is pressed shut, the box becomes a privite space for only the paying customer, reducing the outside world to sheer background noise to the central conversation.
The secret is perhaps the most common transition between the public sphere and private sphere in that it is - by definition - just that. Whether we whisper romances in the other person's ear or merely gossip about another, a secret is the transition between information meant to be heard by a limited number rather than for the masses. I think in my own life just how many times I have whispered something so quietly the other person could barely hear, sometimes not quiet enough like when we discussed our roomates here in Rome while they were in the room next door.
Yet, more blatent than anything else, these signs clearly distinguish the transition from public to private and private to public. Though I can't read what the signs say, they clearly are not inviting and make clear that no one should enter the private property.

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