All systems of representation spatialize and thereby distort lived experience

Evidence

Aesthetic theory, on the other hand, seeks out the rules that allow eternal and immutable truths to be conveyed in the midst of the maelstrom of flux and change. The architect, to take the most obvious case, tries to communicate certain values through the construction of a spatial form. Painters, sculptors, poets, and writers of all sorts do no less. Even the written word abstracts properties from the flux of experience and fixes them in spatial form. … Any system of representation, in fact, is a spatialization of sorts which automatically freezes the flow of experience and in so doing distorts what it strives to represent. — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1293

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the core claim that representation-systems, from writing to painting, are spatializations that freeze experiential flux.
• XREF: connects to: When quantification destroys qualitative perception, bare sensation replaces experience. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 257; Computers fail at the rich texture of ordinary lived experience — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 1023; Fixed spatial representations inevitably distort the fluid practical spaces they depict — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 1608 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Cognitive mapping cancels out its own intended transcendence by re-spatializing. #exemplifies (0.92)
• Conceptual art’s operation spatializes lived experience #exemplifies (0.85)
• All thought about the mind requires speaking in fictional spatial terms #exemplifies (0.85) — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 408
• Shared reality is woven from irreducibly perspectival individual experience #corroborates (0.82) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 988
• Representing a pre-colonial past is impossible within the metaphysic of representation #exemplifies (0.80) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 44