The tuning of place, sociable spaces and pervasive digital media

Wading to a leather seat in my local Starbucks, an iced coffee in my hand, I find myself matching the pace of a goateed “barista.” It's an awkward encounter. We begin to converge and he flashes me a quick glance, unsure if our paths will straighten themselves or whether we’ll crash near the condiment table in a burst of froth and sugar. I quicken my pace, nearly without conscious thought; he slows his, allowing me the right of way. Our paths diverge without as much as a jitter. The micromoment is a dance of adjustment, an incremental communication of tiny actions; it's common courtesy. I sit down and look out the glass door and the metal ballet of traffic outside. A new logo has been affixed to this coffee shop, a would-be “third place” in my life: “Take Comfort in Rituals.” I know that Richard Coyne, Professor of Architectural Computing at the University of Edinburgh and a keen observer of rituals and the places that embody them, would appreciate the scene

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• A Sense of Ambient Entrapment in Hito Steyerl’s Factory of the Sun

  Open Access•Karen Louise Grova Søilen•Surveillance & Society•2023

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