Public Space and Public Sphere

Publics need space. And while this might be a truism—everything that exists needs space, be it the mental space of the imagination—it is especially true for publics, which have to create the space they need in order to exist. My talk takes as its starting point the assumption that publics exist in and through social relations to explore how concrete and particular spatial forms make these relations public. Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s idea of public space as a space of appearances, I show how Arendt’s ocular, theatrical model of public space can elucidate our understanding of the public sphere as a social space; and how retrieving the lost geography of this space can help us gain a firmer grasp on the possibilities for political action within it.