RESEARCH
Bodies on the Move
Exploring the Effects of Speed in the Body-Space Relationship
Conference proceedings
Riga, D. (2024). Bodies on the Move. Exploring the Effects of Speed in the Body-Space Relationship. In Bovati, M., Moro, A., Villa, D. (Eds.). In Presence / The Body and the Space. Proceedings of the European Research on Architecture and Urbanism Conference 2024 (pp. 321-323). Publica. ISBN: 9788899586409
The person-environment relationship has received researchers’ undivided attention throughout the years, with insights spanning multiple disciplinary fields: from environmental psychology, sociology and geography to urban planning, architecture and neuroscience. Scholars studying the complex body-space interaction regard both components as a system, in which the person is part of the environment [Rapoport 1977; Ingold 2022]. Multiple factors mediate the way humans perceive the environment: physical features and environmental properties, perceptual-cognitive and affective judgements, purposes, preferences, and culture. Since the 1970s, scholars have been stressing the role of human corporeal movement in environmental perception. Visual perception and sensory experience of space are not static processes [Rapoport 1977]; instead, the human body plays an active role in interpreting reality through movement [Gibson 1979].
The new mobilities paradigm advocates for “the recentering of the corporeal body as an affective vehicle through which we sense place and movement and construct emotional geographies” [Sheller & Urry 2006, p. 216]. Humans are mobile beings that experience emotions while on the move [Rapoport 1982; Cresswell 2006; Metz 2008; Spinney 2015]. Yet, it is crucial to address the following questions: What happens when the concept of speed is added to the equation? How does speed condition movement through and within space? The present contribution aims to provide a theoretical reflection on environmental perception and affective experience of bodies on the move, drawing from the hypothesis that different forms of movement, and thus different speeds, give rise to different sensory and affective experiences [Johansson et al., 2016]. Regarding the body as both a physical structure and as a lived, experiential structure [Merleau-Ponty, 2002], we will challenge the concept of speed and explore potential reconciliations for embodied movement in space. Finally, we will present empirical insights from a study on environmental perception and affective experience of being on the move at different speeds.
Dafni Riga 