Thick time, thin places

Abstract

Visuo-spatial or time-space synaesthetes visualise and position abstract units of time as mappings in the virtual space of their mind, effectively sensing time in space. In Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation, Brian Massumi identifies a “liminal nonplace” that “lies at the border of what we think of as internal, personal space and external, public space.”(1) Rather than nonplace, a more apt description might be a thin place, where two dimensions touch and bleed freely into one another.(2) This paper explores the correspondence between the mental, inner spaces of time-space synaesthetes and the physical spaces in the “real” world around them, examining the ways in which these different dimensions overlap, inhabit one another, and ultimately collapse into the unified and unique experience of human perception. The journey starts from my own experience, describing my personal spatial configurations for time and memory and how I rely on these to situate myself and navigate a path through life. Along the way I connect with other stories – including from friends and family, the Indigenous Australian concept of the Dreaming, the Irish topographic and toponymic tradition of dinnseanchas, Minkowski and Einstein’s theory of spacetime, Wolfgang Tillman’s Time Mirrored, and Tim Robinson’s “deep mapping” – to illustrate how lived experience takes place in a space that is simultaneously tangible and intangible, flowing freely between inner and outer worlds and combining multiple senses, tenses, and dimensions. (1) Brian Massumi, Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation (London: Duke University Press, 2002), 186. (2) Laura Béres, “A Thin Place: Narratives of Space and Place, Celtic Spirituality and Meaning,” Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Social Work 31, no. 4 (October 2012): 394-413.