Dwelltime: technology, travel and consumption

This essay speculates on the changing forms through which "traveler's space" is materially constituted within the fabric of everyday life. The author first provides a history of traveler's space as a non-place, via the writings of Le Corbusier, Boorstin, and Augé. Second, through an examination of the recent public work of celebrity architects such as Norman Foster, the author suggests that rather than displaying a tendency to an overarching "supermodernity" dictating flow and movement, contemporary technospaces work toward a new experience of waiting as pleasurable. This hybrid and remixed modernity invites a different kind of engagement between technology and travel that affects our ways of being in place. Finally, in a case study of the recent renovation of Sydney Airport, the author draws some distinctions between the scales of travel (local, regional, global), which affect such spatial performances.