Dungeon As Heterotopia
Our theater set is a covert basement in a mid-town high-rise. From the street, nothing, another awning with another number on another street. Its anonymity boasts its appeal. At the end of the winding staircase, hundreds, no thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of square feet of theater are opened up. The anxiety of our time has to do with space says Foucault. Several micro stages are curated into themes, from dark to light. Things are painted in hyper color or not at all. This the realm of the unreal. They form a labyrinth set to the sound track of staccato heels and whispered tones. The quasi dilapidated condition makes it special, antidotal to change, slowing things down. We do not want to spend time in a real dungeon, just a practiced reconstructed memory of it. It serves us to be under-real. Hetero meaning other and topia meaning space, this other kind of space, other to the rapidly increasing assumption and myth of staying connected, staying ‘in touch’ while never being touched at all.
I have been thinking about spaces & kink & BDSM. The dungeon, as a heterotopic space as outlined by Foucault’s essay Of Other Spaces where he boldly contests that the anxiety of our time has to do with space. I have simultaneously been thinking about anxiety as a key to kink & BDSM but I will save that for another thread. The French theorist outlines six criteria by which a heterotopia is defined and the dungeon space dodges and weaves between them. The heterotopia follows the template established by the notions of utopia and dystopia. The prefix hetero- is from Ancient Greek ἕτερος (héteros, “other, another, different”) and is combined with the Greek morpheme for “place” and means “other place”. A utopia is an idea or an image that is not real but represents a perfected version of society, such as Thomas More’s book or Le Corbusier’s drawings. As Walter Russell Mead has written, “Utopia is a place where everything is good; dystopia is a place where everything is bad; heterotopia is where things are different — that is, a collection whose members have few or no intelligible connections with one another.
Places of ‘other’ are counter sites that resist the notion of utopia, because utopia is not a real place, just like fantasy, it cannot exist outside the mind. Utopias present society in idealized form, hence unreal, fundamentally. Fantasy projects the impossible. If the reflection of the mirror is a utopia (that space does not exist) the space between you and the mirror is the ‘space of other’. The mirror enables me to see myself where I am absent. I discover my absence from the place where I see myself over there. I come back toward myself and redirect my eyes toward myself and reconstitute myself, there, where I am. There you are. Here we are, together.
I have spent the last two years traveling the world, from the mountains of Indonesia to deep Americana and her old spooky old cities, Italian villas, German theaters turned into hotels, warm shores, cold canals, and so many airports and hotels throughout. Each time I have dropped into a new space. I have created temporary abodes that seduce me with their fleeting moments that allow me to invent and re-invent myself. The world has so many playgrounds. And so naturally, I have been considering my own fantasy play space, a hybrid of all the things I loved about all my travels. A space is an extension of ethos, of vision, of magic and aesthetic. A space is a living idea, malleable to the energetic of its inhabitants but also reflective of its creators. We all know this and feel this, tacitly or consciously when we simply walk into a room.
The anxiety of our time has to do with space I have found myself asking the question “Why are BDSM spaces so rigid? So angular? So severe?” I have found it curious the lack of that diversity I have experienced in play spaces. I have come to realize that the aesthetic that we are exposed to through media and commerce is such a small iota of the rich landscape that sexual power dynamic play actually covers. Is this an extension of market forces and media? Initially, I thought so. But now I am beginning to understand another important factor for the rigid nature of the BDSM space. It has so much to do with the psychological implications of aesthetics and the ways in which rigidity, stark color (or absence) reflection, right angles, polished surfaces remind us of the critical presence of boundaries. They serve a specific purpose, and in the absence of other more subtle capacities are fool proof. They are as much symbolic as they are representational.
Dungeon As Heterotopia
Our theater set is a covert basement in a mid-town high-rise. From the street, nothing, another awning with another number on another street. Its anonymity boasts its appeal. At the end of the winding staircase, hundreds, no thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of square feet of theater are opened up. The anxiety of our time has to do with space says Foucault. Several micro stages are curated into themes, from dark to light. Things are painted in hyper color or not at all. This the realm of the unreal. They form a labyrinth set to the sound track of staccato heels and whispered tones. The quasi dilapidated condition makes it special, antidotal to change, slowing things down. We do not want to spend time in a real dungeon, just a practiced reconstructed memory of it. It serves us to be under-real. Hetero meaning other and topia meaning space, this other kind of space, other to the rapidly increasing assumption and myth of staying connected, staying ‘in touch’ while never being touched at all.
I have been thinking about spaces & kink & BDSM. The dungeon, as a heterotopic space as outlined by Foucault’s essay Of Other Spaces where he boldly contests that the anxiety of our time has to do with space. I have simultaneously been thinking about anxiety as a key to kink & BDSM but I will save that for another thread. The French theorist outlines six criteria by which a heterotopia is defined and the dungeon space dodges and weaves between them. The heterotopia follows the template established by the notions of utopia and dystopia. The prefix hetero- is from Ancient Greek ἕτερος (héteros, “other, another, different”) and is combined with the Greek morpheme for “place” and means “other place”. A utopia is an idea or an image that is not real but represents a perfected version of society, such as Thomas More’s book or Le Corbusier’s drawings. As Walter Russell Mead has written, “Utopia is a place where everything is good; dystopia is a place where everything is bad; heterotopia is where things are different — that is, a collection whose members have few or no intelligible connections with one another.
Places of ‘other’ are counter sites that resist the notion of utopia, because utopia is not a real place, just like fantasy, it cannot exist outside the mind. Utopias present society in idealized form, hence unreal, fundamentally. Fantasy projects the impossible. If the reflection of the mirror is a utopia (that space does not exist) the space between you and the mirror is the ‘space of other’. The mirror enables me to see myself where I am absent. I discover my absence from the place where I see myself over there. I come back toward myself and redirect my eyes toward myself and reconstitute myself, there, where I am. There you are. Here we are, together.
I have spent the last two years traveling the world, from the mountains of Indonesia to deep Americana and her old spooky old cities, Italian villas, German theaters turned into hotels, warm shores, cold canals, and so many airports and hotels throughout. Each time I have dropped into a new space. I have created temporary abodes that seduce me with their fleeting moments that allow me to invent and re-invent myself. The world has so many playgrounds. And so naturally, I have been considering my own fantasy play space, a hybrid of all the things I loved about all my travels. A space is an extension of ethos, of vision, of magic and aesthetic. A space is a living idea, malleable to the energetic of its inhabitants but also reflective of its creators. We all know this and feel this, tacitly or consciously when we simply walk into a room.
The anxiety of our time has to do with space I have found myself asking the question “Why are BDSM spaces so rigid? So angular? So severe?” I have found it curious the lack of that diversity I have experienced in play spaces. I have come to realize that the aesthetic that we are exposed to through media and commerce is such a small iota of the rich landscape that sexual power dynamic play actually covers. Is this an extension of market forces and media? Initially, I thought so. But now I am beginning to understand another important factor for the rigid nature of the BDSM space. It has so much to do with the psychological implications of aesthetics and the ways in which rigidity, stark color (or absence) reflection, right angles, polished surfaces remind us of the critical presence of boundaries. They serve a specific purpose, and in the absence of other more subtle capacities are fool proof. They are as much symbolic as they are representational.
EPB
EPB is a writer, visual artist, performer & researcher who plays in the space between theory and practice. In her writing, she parallels her observations of the art world with academic discourse and the politics of sex work.