I take space to be the central fact to man born in America, from Folsom Cave to now.
Space in America
Instantaneous time also means that the time-space paths of individuals are often desynchronized. There is a greatly increased variation in different people’s times that spread, if not over 24 hours, over much longer periods. People’s activities are less collectively organized and structured as mass consumption patterns are replaced by more varied and segmented patterns
John Urry and the notion of instantaneous time
In the mechanical age now receding, many actions could be taken without too much concern. Slow movements insured that the reactions were delayed for considerable periods of time. Today the action and the reaction occur almost at the same time. We actually live mythically and integrally, as it were, but we continue to think in the old, fragmented space and time patterns of the pre-electrical age.
Understanding media – The Extentions of Man
We are thus confronted by an indefinite multitudes of spaces, each one piled upon, or perhaps contained within, the next: geographical, economic, demographic, sociological, ecological, political, commercial, national, continental, global. Not to mention nature’s (physical) space, the space of (energy) flows, and so on.
