Abstract not found

As Walter ONG has observed in his Orality & Liter-acy: The Technologizing of the Word (1982), "Tech-nologies are not mere exterior aids but also interior transformations of consciousness " (1982): they heighten awareness and understanding precisely by introducing distance between the mind and a natu-ral milieu, thus enabling new ways of perceiving and knowing. The central aspect of the mediation process is thus space itself and the ways in which space is modulated to convey not only information proper, but also information about how we relate to the content and medium of the message. Looking at the evidence of early maps and print texts, the dra-ma associated with the interiorization of their sym-metrically displayed information fields unfolds lar-gely outside these fields, on the border, on the edge. Architecture, perhaps the premier arena for the concretization of perceived spatial relations, offers ample testimony to the reality and symbolic power of inside-outside spatial divisions: witness, for ex-ample, the grotesqueries which adorn the exterior, the wicked realm beyond, of Gothic cathedrals. Pre-cisely by portraying bizarre hybrids of incongruous elements, these grotesque figures and symbols in-corporate, embody the cognitive tension unfolding and being assimilated at the interface of diverse se-miotic domains. As Tuan concludes in his mono-graph Space and Place: The Perspective of Experi-ence (1977), "The built environment, like language, has the power to define and refine sensibility. It can sharpen and enlarge consciousness. Without archi-tecture feelings about space must remain diffuse and fleeting " (107). It is the objective of this investigati-on to examine, specifically, these 'feelings about

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