While walking, I passed a couple, each one talked on a cell phone; and I joked to myself, “I wonder if they are talking to each other”. What interested me was the implausibility of that scenario — although they shared a physical closeness they were certainly elsewhere. Coincidentally, I had just been reading about Robert Sommer’s Personal Space: The Behavioral Basis of Design. This confluence of events sent me off on a thought exercise of how we create the illusion, if only to ourselves, of being in an independent space. Where Sommer was concerned with levels of comfort in relation to physical proximity and its influence on environmental design, I am considering instead, the desire for internal exclusivity — to perceive oneself as an island instead of a parcel of land amid a continent. The series Alone Together explores this theme.
© All rights reserved. Do not duplicate in any form without express permission.