Reversing the {Im}material Sense of a Nonplace

Introduction

Interdisciplinary research of people with disabilities have taken various forms, including, for example, focusing on understanding and changing the lives of others through theorizing and people with disabilities reflecting on their own capabilities and conditions. This article takes a third approach that includes working on the ground, alongside and with people who have disabilities (Callon & Rabeharisoa, 2003) in order to reconfigure and design a more accessible transport system. Ethnography serves as the backdrop for this article, which first includes observation of daily travel on the Brussels metro to understand the general characteristics of the metro system within the context of human interactions and performance. Second, over a period of two decades, observation and documentation of a group of disability advocates, care workers, and educators, designers, and planners who worked together to create a more accessible metro system for people who are blind and visually impaired (Strickfaden & Devlieger, 2011b). Several key assumptions are taken in this approach: first, that people are the central users of metro (including those with visual impairments and blindness) and that they hold considerable expertise about daily living and routine experiences (and subsequent needs; Strickfaden & Devlieger, 2011a). From this, it is clear that by tapping into this accumulated and compiled knowledge, complex spaces (such as the metro) can be managed and therefore used by people in more effective ways. Another assumption, in line with Kirsch (1996), is that environments or places need to be adapted for better use rather than people needing to adapt to them. Consequently, by considering the real time, lived experiences and needs of people in situ, and by shifting agents (human and nonhuman) within a system, transformations occur that encourage alternate interactions. Further to this, these (sometimes very small) shifts are not purely technical or purely social (Latour, 1999) but represent a conjoined {im}material sense of place. In summary, our analysis is informed by a posthumanist approach, in that “humans are neither pure cause nor pure effect but part of the world in open-ended becoming” (Barad, 2003, p. 821). Possibilities are offered that “describe the enactment of materially and discursively heterogeneous relations that reproduce and reshuffle all kinds of actors, including objects, subjects, human beings, machines, animals, ‘nature,’ ideas, organizations, inequalities, scale and sizes, and geographical arrangements” (Law, 2007) as material semiotics.

Our central objectives of the research herein are to consider the relationship between a spatial environment (through the concrete case of the Brussels metro) and blindness, with particular attention to examining how the qualities of nonplace can be reversed. The focus is on the relational and performative dialogue between blindness and the (nonplace) metro.

This article is organized into four major sections. First, we define the central concepts of this exploration: immateriality, disability, and nonplace. This becomes an anchor to contain our work within a specific context and to make explicit our situated perspective, namely within a cultural perspective of disability that explores the possibility of transformative potential. Following this, we investigate the qualities of the Brussels metro as nonplace as a particular instance of the immaterial evolving of the metro. In this, we identify how the investment of particular agents makes the metro space more malleable. In other words, we look into the confluence of {im}materiality within the Brussels metro, specifically, how the metro as place is situated between the material and the immaterial. It is the boundaries between the often concretized and oppositional notions of material and immaterial that is of interest here where it can be understood as a result of history and in comparison with other systems. In understanding how this history could have shaped the metro into a nonplace (defined by time and space and characteristics of anticipation, emptiness, and social experience of loneliness), we then consider how disability can act as a juxtaposed system and eventually a transformer of the confluence of {im}materiality in the Brussels metro. By focusing on various actors, such as “blindness” and the particular relationship between disability and the Brussels metro, we examine the impact of surfaces and the embodiment of space as well as pertinent social and cultural issues on the material characteristics of the metro. Continuing from this, we consider blindness as an actor and performative agent that has significant potential to shift the network of the metro from the representation and performance of one worldview to another; in other words a reversal that we call posthuman. Through an examination of some parts of the history of this dialogue, we begin to understand how the factor of blindness and people’s use of the metro result in a specific enacted {im}materiality. We conclude that {im}materiality itself should not be considered as a uniform current state of interface between the material and immaterial, but rather as an open-ended and organic development in which multiple types of {im}materiality operate, one of them but not the only one being the result of the insertion of blindness.

Immateriality, Disability, and Nonplace

Immateriality, disability, and nonplace are not concepts that seem to have natural connections to one another. On the contrary, juxtapositions of these concepts allow for deepening enquiries into issues regarding human experience and interactions within spatial environments. Even so, one of the common aspects among these concepts is that they each represent complexities that are socially, culturally, and historically situated. Additionally, each of these concepts involves theoretical and applied positioning that is multidisciplinary in nature. This article draws on literature in a cross-disciplinary way by, for example, looking to the fields of geography, social psychology, and artificial intelligence, while remaining grounded in the discipline of anthropology. To illustrate our position and make it explicit, we now turn to defining the three core concepts of our exploration: immaterial, disability, and nonplace.

The classic example that describes the conjunction of material/immaterial is explored in Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton’s (1981) seminal book The Meaning of Things: Domestic Symbols and the Self. Continuing from this and asserting a pragmatic approach, Hill (2006) describes the materiality of the built environment as the “stability and solidity of architecture” and the abstract concept of immateriality as a “formless phenomenon” with the “absence of matter.” Although some researchers describe immateriality as that which is virtual, it is the notion that the immaterial is intangible and involves those things that are abstracted, such as rites, rituals, social convention, manners, and more (Shields, 2006, p. 285) that is of particular interest within this article. Furthermore, the reading of material and immaterial articulated as relational and inseparable is significant to this work. Therefore, characteristics of immateriality, as a conjoined concept, are the result of deep reflections on the presence and values of people within specific contexts. For example, materials are tangible representations of immaterial activities, experiences, and sensations that are deeply rooted in particular value and belief systems. This article takes the position that the confluence of material and immaterial reveals complexities of human systems that involve interactions, affordances, and performances between human and nonhuman entities. Furthermore, we follow Ingold (2011) in searching more for explanations in the material substance and quality side of the immateriality of the metro. This allows us to conceptualize a space such as the metro as not only the result of the material and immaterial but also to see it as composed of different types of immateriality. We see blindness as one instance of immateriality that could influence, intersect, and transform with other instances of immateriality.

The notion of disability has been situated and defined in a variety of different ways, which includes it as a medical condition, and as a social and/or cultural construct. These three key moments in the perception of disability are represented in Figure 1.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Three key moments in the perception of disability adapted from Lamb (2001) and Devlieger, Rusch, and Pfeiffer (2003)

According to Pfeiffer (2003), the focus “on the difference (the deficit) . . . forgets the sameness”. This view of disability is directly in line with the medical model of disability, as outlined by Devlieger et al. (2003), who indicate that the medical model is understood as a medical issue that can be “fixed” or “managed” by modifying an individual’s physical or mental condition. That is, disability as a medical condition is seen as “a condition that needs to be treated” and is the “effect of a bodily impairment caused by damage or disease” (Llewellyn & Hogan, 2000, p. 158). Disability as socially and/or culturally constructed according to Priestley (1998, pp. 81-82) “. . . [is] a politically, economically structurally, materially and patriarchically created collective phenomenon that is constructed under the influence of social values and cultural views.” Furthermore, according to Galis (2006, p. 42), disability is conceived of and imposed on by able-bodied people against a socially and culturally normative context. Golledge (1993) echoes this by indicating that disability “. . . [is] those situations where an individual is prevented wholly or partially from performing the full range of actions and activities usually performed by members of the society or culture in which the person lives” (p. 63). The evolving perception of disability in contemporary disability studies highlights the latter two concepts of disability being socially and culturally situated and involving the “experience of disability” as an interactive and dynamic performative series of events. That is, disability is not simply a physical or mental impairment of an individual’s body, it also involves the interactions of the body with the material aspects of the built environment (Galis, 2006), whereby “. . . the way that the built environment is configured and the way that human bodies interact with it attributes ability or disability” (p. 30). Therefore, disability and ability are a matter of attribution of agency and actorship depending on the actor-networks a person is part of (Moser, 2000, pp. 224-225). Having identified the foundational aspects of disability, it is important to note that disability is not an integrated concept containing homogenous values (Albrecht, 2003, pp. 34-37). Specific disabilities may have some common characteristics; for example, sightlessness experienced by people who are blind while at the same time blindness is experienced in a myriad of different ways for each individual. This means that although there appears to be a type of cohesion around the notion of disability, it cannot be defined narrowly because of the complex and deeply subjective nature of humanity.

Although numerous researchers and philosophers have explored the concept of nonplace (see Bosteels, 2003 for a summary including, e.g., Foucault, de Certeau, Derrida), the article herein acknowledges French anthropologist and ethnologist Marc Augé’s (1995) pragmatic definition of nonplace. In his book Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, Augé presents the anthropology of the nonplace, also called the ethnology of solitude. In so doing, he presents the promise of experiencing freedoms within urban spaces that include more and more anonymity and solitary pursuits (Bosteels, 2003, p. 136) and through places that are devoid of relational aspects, historical detail, and have no concern with the identities of individuals (Augé, 1995). Such places are characterized by a lack of meaning, an overarching experience of anticipation rather than living-in-the-moment, a lack of communication and exchange, and a sense of isolation and alienation. Nonplaces are “. . . space[s] completely emptied out of eventfulness or, which is but the other side of the same coin, a world saturated by an overabundance of utterly meaningless events” (Bosteels, 2003, p. 136). Furthermore, Augé indicates that “certain places only exist through the words that evoke them and in this sense they are non-places, or rather, imaginary places: banal utopias, clichés” (Augé, 1995, p. 95). Places that qualify as nonplaces, to mention a few, are highways, airport terminals, supermarkets, service stations, shopping malls, and ATMs. Furthermore, Augé argues that anthropologists who study such places are doing so to go through the process of reconciling with the realities of lived modernity (Collins, 1996). Accordingly, this widespread experience of nonplaces appears to be a characteristic of what has been called super- or hyper-modern societies. The Brussels metro, in its historical form can be examined within Augé’s definition of nonplace, and thus as a particular type of culturally and historically formed conjoining of the material and immaterial. It is a concrete place where people are passengers who immerse themselves in anonymity within relatively empty spaces devoid of history, as if they are trapped and immobilized with few opportunities for interaction and experiences (Bosteels, 2003, p. 119).

The Brussels Metro: A Nonplace?

The historical situatedness of the Brussels metro is significant to considering whether and how the metro can be considered a nonplace. To begin, the Brussels metro was conceived and created within the modernist era, which is characterized by many of the attributes that Augé identifies as nonplace. Even so, the realization of the Brussels metro took place gradually as a result of the incremental transformations of an above-ground tram system that was developed into underground tunnels (also called premetro tunnels) in the early 20th-century. ¹ In 1976, the Brussels metro system was finally named as such, including the present-day premetro lines that are essentially underground tram lines. ² It is clear that Brussels was influenced by other European metro systems that had proven to be efficient ways to transport people throughout the city. To this day, Brussels is the only city in Belgium with a hybrid metro/premetro system even though other large cities in Belgium, such as Antwerp and Charleroi, have premetro systems that were never developed into full-fledged metro systems.

In a premetro system, the relation between inside and outside, between above ground and underground, and between stations and city places remain somewhat blurred as the semiotics of underground and above ground intermingle, both through visual cues and terminology. In a metro system, the underground semiotics achieve full independence: Underground stations are meaningful because they refer to other stations and the names of the stations have minimal or no reference to above ground of underground reference. For example, a station may be named “Eddy Merckx” (the famous Belgian cyclist) but has no reference to the particular place. There is an arbitrariness found in the Brussels metro, as a result, in terms of a lack of correspondence between inside and outside. The translation gap between the semiotics of the streets and parks and the metro stations is larger than between the semiotics of the city and the tram. This characteristic of “translation” involved between two semiotic systems is an argument for further qualifying the metro as a nonplace.

As a place, the metro station is an inside space that forms a junction with itself, other metro stations and lines, and with the outside world, in particular other transportation systems, such as a bus or a train. In many instances, the Brussels metro stations connect to shopping malls, busy streets and viaducts, and high-rise office buildings, which have the potential to extend feelings of alienation. Metro stations are not resting or stopping places since the material conditions (e.g., light, air, sound) are not particularly conducive to these activities. There are, however, some exceptions where food is sold in the metro, which slows down the passing-through pace typical to metro stations and where works of art are displayed. Furthermore, the social conditions of metro stations can be full of people but also abandoned and empty, creating very different (and contrasting) acoustic experiences. The coming and going of trains usually creates considerable noise, movement of air, and can provoke the experience of looming danger. The trains contrast and even threaten the fragility of human bodies while the station spaces also threaten due to apparent vandalism, the potential of robbery, and marginal activities, such as drinking, drug use/sales, or begging. Metro stations are public and can be very large, with few points of reference. Different from other public areas in the city, such as parks or city squares, the ambiance of metro stations does not change much with varying natural light or temperature. Because of these alienating qualities and the metro effectively being distanced from “natural” environments, the spatial characteristics qualify it in terms of a nonplace. ³

Other characteristics that qualify the Brussels metro as nonplace are related to the sheer number of people that are transported daily. The Brussels metro transports 500,000 people per day between 5:30 in the morning and 12:30 at night. Four lines are connected with 59 stations that are less than 700 meters apart. One can therefore say that a plethora of people use the metro for short periods of time, thus minimizing opportunities for extended interactions among people. The sheer scale of the metro system in Brussels and the volume of people using it indicate that it is likely that people predominantly have experiences devoid of meaning and that the human experience is one of solitude and alone-time. ⁴

The materiality of the metro system is further understood through the material use of the space, that is, interfaces with and between people, and from experiences of time spent in the metro. That is, materials that make up spaces and physical artifacts within those spaces afford different kinds of experiences for different people. The materiality of the metro can be described in terms of its physical entrances, the materials in the construction of the stations, and the materials of the metro trains. In addition, further materiality is experienced in terms of various forms of lighting and light transitions (artificial and natural) when moving from outside to inside and when transitioning from station to train and within various parts of the metro. Materiality is also expressed in the sounds and smells of people, machinery, food, and more that are present inside the stations and in the trains. Finally, airflow and temperature also play a role in the material experience of the metro. Moving dynamically through the spaces is amplified by transitions that include gusts of air, giving a feeling of being both cool and warm, contrasted with areas that are stagnant and give the sensation of complete stillness. These characteristics work as agents in the experience of the spatial environment and come together with the experience of time. Although the complexity of material characteristics have the potential to create a vast number of permutations and combinations in terms of human experience, this complexity also has the potential to be overwhelming because of the extreme nature of the aesthetic experiences (smells that carry negative associations, unbearable temperatures, etc.) that push people inward toward solitude in order to disassociate with the material conditions they are facing. As a result, although the materiality of the Brussels metro can potentially support associations with place, we speculate that on the most part the modernistic approach to the design of the metro (in terms of materials) deepens people’s sensation of isolation and alienation. That is, the Brussels metro entrances and stations are built from durable materials considered to be “noble” (i.e., expensive and hardwearing such as marble) to create the impressions of luxury and modernity. ⁵

In terms of the production of time, Augé postulates that in nonplaces, the dominant experience is one of solitary waiting and anticipation. The experience is also deemed to dominate in airports that are characterized by routines that involve controlled management of people and luggage. The experience is one of considerable waiting and lack of authentic communication, thus inducing people to be self-absorbed rather than engaged in social exchange. These characteristics are easily applied to time spent in metro stations. Perhaps not to the same extreme; based on observation, the Brussels metro waiting times are rather short even though access to parts of the station is controlled through ticketing, security personnel, and cameras. When comparing airports and the metro, time management is routine in both cases but truncated with the latter; as a result there is clearly less waiting time in the metro. Furthermore, exiting and entering metro trains and stations is punctuated by electronic information, air compression sounds of opening and closing doors, people moving for access to the escalators while maintaining acceptable distances from one another.

In summary, the Brussels metro (and possibly generalized to other metro systems in the Western world) embodies numerous attributes illustrating a correlation with Augé’s definition of nonplace. That is, the particular historical, social, and cultural experiences associated with the Brussels metro lean toward a particular kind of place. By considering the characteristics of nonplace in relation to the Brussels metro, we establish a foundation for understanding how one particular worldview may be influenced by introducing different {im}material characteristics. This provides us with a starting point to analyze the metro–blindness dialogue as a generator to reversing the {im}material nonplace qualities; we call this the real impact of blindness-as-vulnerability into nonplace.

Blindness as Actor and Performer

In previous work, we have considered the dialogue between blindness and the city as a particular history of worldmaking (see Devlieger, Renders, Froyen, & Wildiers, 2006). We can now extend this argument with a focus on the phenomenal qualities of blindness and those of the Brussels metro. To begin, blindness is not isolated from human experience; however, it can be considered a particular agent that affords different kinds of experiences for people who are blind and also those who are witness to, or encounter others who are blind. John Hull (1997), an author who is blind, has convincingly shown that becoming blind means entering into a new world. He begins his story by writing that he first thought that becoming blind would mean that he would no longer be able to see, assuming that the rest of his life would remain intact. Hull describes his progression as gradually becoming aware of his social relations changing and ultimately entering a new world. Hull describes his experience as a transformation whereby his blindness became a tool for addressing the world in an alternate or different way from before. The performative agency of blindness, therefore, enables alternate interactions with spaces than typically performed. That is, people are spatially located creatures simply because we have bodies (Kirsch, 1995, p. 31). Space is “managed” and is an integral part of how people think; for instance, people face certain directions to view things or to reach particular items. To add to this, experience (in general) within spaces often appears as a set of occurrences (activities, tasks) that need to be performed dynamically in a specific sequence (Kirsch, 1995, 1996). Blindness can be defined as specific spatial experiences, which in most cases, involves magnified efforts (often many times beyond the norm) where spaces are wildly distorted for a variety of reasons (Golledge, 1993, p. 64). That is, spaces are distorted because of incomplete or inequitable human knowledge or understanding of spaces (e.g., inability to read signage or maps). Blindness, therefore, is a particular experience of disability because the normative way of doing involves amplifying or completing a set of occurrences to enable performance of specific activities and tasks.

Hull’s experience is also important for his involvement with the material side of his environment. For example, he writes that his involvement with the sea changed dramatically as he learned to appreciate the sea in a nonvisual way; listening to the waves and experiencing them as music in which different registers can be distinguished. Equally, he speaks of his interest in the experience of rain, so much so that he asked his contractor to help him evaluate roofing material for his house so as to maximize his enjoyment of listening to falling rain. ⁶ What is interesting in Hull’s account is that the phenomenal is a starting point of a change in the way that the material is conjoined with the immaterial. From the perspective of a system such as the metro, one may then ask how it becomes affected while it goes into a dialogue with blindness. It is clear that by addressing the material characteristics of the metro, one should be sensitive to the possible interactions that can be supported within the system, and how this further affects all agents within that system. Furthermore, the dialogue with blindness appeals to the way the material and the immaterial are conjoined into patterns that qualify it as a nonplace (against the characteristics of a place, i.e., a space that is infused by ideas and practices of people). Questions arise about how the material characteristics of place are affected by blindness, namely the way that blindness impacts on surfaces (especially floors as the primary point of contact but also other material points of contact, such as tactile and auditory signs). More generally, questions arise about how the material characteristics need to be shaped to meet the specifics of the (visually impaired) body; in other words, how does the metro embody blindness? Does the metro allow for blindness to reveal itself in certain performances, such as orientation and navigation, which require certain understandings between people with and without visual impairments in the metro and between blind people and the physical environment?

Metro–Blindness Dialogue

The remainder of the article focuses on what we call a dialogue between the metro and blindness, which is situated in the context of many possible or existing relationships. Namely, we speculate that the metro as place switches between nonplace and real place, thus becoming a third kind of place that is public and private, dangerous and safe, inside and outside. This approach differs from historical dialogues with blindness, which have been understood in terms of compassion with people who are blind or, following Diderot, exploring the spiritual worlds of people who are blind (see Barasch, 2001). Discursive practices (i.e., what is being done) are boundary-making practices. In other words, the phenomenon of blindness has led toward actions that propose change. Barasch (2001) clarifies that historical dialogues with blindness include acts of compassion, whereby people who are blind are given compensation for their sight being taken away. Certainly, a sense of compassion has played in the development of the dialogue with blindness in the Brussels metro. However, such compassion should be understood as a transformed charity (Stiker, 1982) in which public responsibility, solidarity, professionalism, and the centrality of employment as a measurement of value have replaced older forms of charity (such as almsgiving). Perhaps it is telling that in the start-up phase of the dialogue between blindness and the Brussels metro, there was a prominent role for civic organizations that supported and sponsored the early system.

In modern societies it is often argued that people who are disabled are devalued, as much of value-creation lies in securing and maintaining employment. In order to participate in employment, secure transportation therefore appears to be a necessity for people with disabilities. Blindness invades the Brussels metro in the first instance, conceptually, through the realization that people who are blind and visually impaired likely have few options but to use public transportation.

In exploring the metro–blindness dialogue, we consider the initial meeting of, metro, with, blindness, as a kind of aversion of two actors. This aversion is due to the conflict of what it means to transform a relatively homogeneous system into one that includes nonnormative features. This includes, first, the different world in which people who are blind live (following Hull) suggesting the invasion of “another world” into a nonspace. Second is the enhanced embodied experience for everyone that is created by adding new material agents (physical and structural features, such as information panels and metal knobs) to create alternate semiotic systems and new pathways within the metro system. The metro–blindness dialogue can also be described as one of intra-action, whereby the metro-as-thing is informed by blindness-as-thing. In other words, blindness provides agency to the metro-as-thing. It is through blindness that it becomes clearer (and even emphasized) that the metro in its materiality is dark, noisy, disorienting, and potentially dangerous. Moreover, it becomes clear that the predominantly visual organization of information of the Brussels metro system is limited and requires a different “material” semiotics where embodiment can take a more prominent role.

Actors Acting as an Actor

To engage in the metro–blindness dialogue, the metro authorities recognized that there needed to be an understanding of blindness. Although it seems obvious that people who are blind or visually impaired should act as experts in reconfiguring the Brussels metro into a more accessible system, there were not clear precedents on how to do this. Indeed, disabled people are now an important part of the network process when creating changes in the metro, but it did not begin this way. In fact, involving people with disabilities in the reconfiguration of the Brussels metro began as relatively superficial participation and evolved into a shift in the idea that these people held a significant expertise (see Strickfaden & Devlieger, 2011a, 2011b, for more detail). A brief summary of this process follows.

A conscious effort to understand and engage with blindness dates back to the Belgian governmental ordinance of 1990 where the right to mobility was recognized. Afterward, a working group, consisting of the metro company, the Brussels region, and representatives of people with blindness and visual impairments began to work together to delineate dangerous situations and orientation possibilities within the Brussels metro. A first prototype installation was completed at one metro station in 1992, consisting of schematic maps for people who are blind and visually impaired, and tactile guiding and danger zone indicators on floor surfaces. Yet it took another 10 years of testing and evaluation to develop a semiotic system for blind and visually impaired users in order to fully meet the requirements of users. During this process, the representatives of blindness became the experts; it was recognized that they had the compiled knowledge to cope with the normal contingencies of using the metro blindly. According to Callon (2003, p. 56), these representatives are “concerned groups,” which assert their existence and identity by formulating their demands. These concerned groups work within “hybrid forums” that are public spaces (the metro system in this case) where the concerned groups act on behalf of a broader collective. Thus began the process of actors (people who are blind or visually impaired) acting as an actor (blindness) toward reconfiguring the metro space to help reverse some of the nonplace characteristics inherent to the original system. Over the span of approximately two decades, a concerned group engaged metro officials and professionals, in focus groups in which blind users and professionals show how the system works. They used informal talks, “demonstration walks” and observations of the metro to illustrate spatial requirements and ways of engaging with the task of getting from one place to another. They took part in a collaborative process that allowed the users to explain and evaluate the various reconfiguration efforts that were taking place. These revolved around examining zones of danger, adapting surfaces (making them more tactile), and installing information panels that could be used by people with visual impairments. Most significant was how certain characteristics of the body (e.g., the length of a step, the walking orientation of the body) were used to develop measurements for guidance and for orienting materials and placements of specific artifacts, such as information panels.

It is crucial to understand here how the fundamental changes in the physical environment of the metro took place which in motion the possibility of reversing the metro as nonplace as experienced through blindness. First, it ties into the importance of what Ingold (2011, p. 33) calls “culture on the ground and the way the world is perceived through the feet” leading to the formation of the metro landscape through the adaptation of surfaces; That is, the selection of materials that are needed to accomplish a tactile enhancement. While Ingold (2011, p. 37) speaks of an overall evolution of the mechanization of footwork as part and parcel of the onset of modernization, the adaptations of the metro induce a reversal of this trend, not only for people with visual impairments but for everyone. Second, through a series of adaptations put in place, all actors began to understand that some of the interventions were not workable because they did not sufficiently take into account the logic of the body. Certain types of surfaces needed to be placed so that the body could detect them and could understand them. The metro as a dangerous place for people who are blind thus had to take in some of the logic of the body. The body imposing itself onto the metro can be understood as a process leading to embodying the metro: measures through which the metro space affords itself to the requirements of the body. Third, the dialogue that had been initiated stopped short of coming to the conclusion that only installing surface adaptation and a system of information panels could suffice. It was made clear that the system could not work without continued collaborative work in a sort of open-ended laboratory with people who are blind working together with designers and planners.

Blindness as an Actor of Change, Disability as Transformer

The metro–blindness dialogue provides an alternative way for people to experience a spatial environment that had a dominant sense of nonplace. This dialogue involves shifting some of the nonhuman actors to enable the performance of actions in very different ways. This is accomplished by including a more heterogeneous group of human actors with various abilities and by involving a different set of nonhuman actors, which therefore shifted the patterns, pathways, and the dynamics of interactions. In general, relational context is dependent on the kinds of activities that people engage in and, typically speaking, there is an assumption that there is no stable essence of the functionality of a place (Moser & Law, 2003). Consequently, we are safe in assuming that the dynamic nature of spaces and ever changing combinations of people will result in different interactions. At the same time, however, when dealing with a system so embedded with complexities and specific “exclusive” affordances (in which vision is needed to function), the addition of features around blindness can have enormous impact. That is, according to Kirsch (1995), when unusual features are added to a context this opens up possibilities for deep and prompt reflection.

The redesign of the Brussels metro can be seen as a reconfiguration of the “taskscape” (Ingold, 1993), which means that the entire ensemble of tasks that are mutually interlocking are reconfigured so that agents act back in a different way. It is clear that taskscapes are constantly under construction and dynamic; however, to consider all the agents within a system means that it is decluttered and the cues on how to accomplish certain tasks are changed. In the case of the Brussels metro, this meant that there was a significant “informational and physical jigging” (Kirsch, 1995, pp. 38-39). Informational cues were created as arrangements to draw people’s attention (in this case people who are blind) to the steps that need to be taken to perform the task of using the metro. These are physical artifacts, arranged in a convenient way (mentally and physically) so as to restrict actions to reduce the cost of searching by making tasks easier to notice, identify, and remember (Kirsch, 1995, p. 41). These were, for instance, material installations, such as guidance lines with good tactile and visual characteristics, information panels placed on walls or centrally placed in hallways, and metal tactile knobs installed on floors to indicate directions and dangers. The organization of the information takes into account the position of the body to facilitate orientation and provides textual information in Braille and large text in Dutch and French (following the official bilingual status of Brussels). Placement and ordering within this system is extremely important, since it is the simplification of a space that is needed to filter out undesirable choice points that human agents face when making choices within a task (Kirsch, 1996, pp. 428-429). That is, affordance is an action available for choice (Kirsch, 1995, p. 43), and, if choices are limited, the degrees of actions or freedoms are eliminated by blocking or restricting affordances (Kirsch, 1995, p. 45). This reconfiguration of taskscape, in the case of the metro–blindness dialogue, manifested into a conceptual dividing of the space within stations so that the actions required to get from one point to another were smaller. Actions were broken down to manageable tasks marked with check-in points. These check-in points act not only as markers in specific locations to navigate by but also as cues or reminders along a particular trajectory. In essence, the informational and physical jigging of the space can be considered a set of “tools” (Kirsch, 1996, p. 438) used to aid people in their task of moving from A to B.

According to Kirsch (1995, p. 435), another key feature of handling taskscapes is to engage in “scouting ahead.” Naturally, scouting ahead occurred in the process of including people who are blind and visually impaired in the redesign process, whereby the task of getting from point A to B was deconstructed to reconfigure it to include essential cues beyond the visual ones inherent to the system. However, another type of scouting ahead continues to occur, which involves training sessions for people who are blind and visually impaired on how and where to find the cues within the newly configured metro system. Because of the nature of blindness, finding these cues would ordinarily be like searching for a needle in a haystack. Furthermore, people who are blind or visually impaired are accustomed to scouting ahead with sighted people in order to gain a lay of the land. Polymer tactile training maps were produced by the Brussels Capital City Region and training is provided free of charge for those who wish to learn and use the Brussels metro system. Various trajectories have been developed with accompanying cues whereby the goal is for people who are blind or visually impaired to use the system completely independently.

The primary goal of reconfiguring the Brussels metro was to make the existing metro system accessible (by keeping it intact) and by adding minor cues to aid people with various abilities to use the system. At the same time, the act of adding blindness as an actor afforded change for everyone who uses the metro. To begin, the sheer presence of people who are blind and visually impaired within the space changes the character of the place. That is, observing people navigating a space with a cane as an aid and dealing with obstacles is an agent unto itself. This performed actor of blindness is a strong representation of an alternate view of a more heterogeneous world that is a generator for {im}material place-making qualities. Furthermore, by drawing attention to “otherness,” the scale of the metro space is altered. Rather than being a space that supports introspection, isolation, and aloneness, it becomes a space where the potential for deep reflection about the human condition (self and other) is emphasized through seeing others and being confronted by them.

This altering of space was further enhanced by the addition of other nonhuman agents. This included the installation of contemporary artwork that was installed in the platforms, counter halls, and hallways, which gives the impression of a living museum. It includes paintings, sculptures, and photographs made of different materials, such as canvas, bronze, wood, glass, and steel. Although exploration of the relation between the metro and art is beyond this article, this is significant because informational and physical cues are being considered that relate to people in different ways other than being purely functional (such as maps and tactile floor knobs). That is, the reconfigured Brussels metro system facilitates orientation and guidance while at the same time reflects relationships between people with and without disabilities.

Metro–Blindness Dialogue Reversing the Sense of Nonplace

The particular history, social, and cultural identity of the Brussels metro links it to modernity, a time period where it was important to standardize and create a homogeneous experience for people in order to emphasize perceived efficiency and practicality. We have argued that the original manifestation of the Brussels metro has a sense of nonplace as a result of these values and have indicated that by incorporating blindness as an actor into the system that some of the characteristics may be reversed. At the core of this work is an enquiry into whether dialogue between blindness and public space has the potential to reverse the {im}material sense of a nonplace or whether instead disenchantment is further deepened. Echoed in the research of other scholars cited in this article and through the exploration herein, new relationships, interactions, and possibilities are created by adding differently placed artifacts. The implications of this does not simply have a material result but an {im}material one as well. The {im}material as a conjoined concept, is as much about the affordance of performed values as it is about the specific tasks that are performed through using specific material tools as cues.

This article began by considering to what extent the metro can be thought of as a nonplace and questioning to what extent blindness as disability can creatively reverse the way the material and immaterial are conjoined in a place such as the Brussels metro. In considering the nonplace characteristics of the metro, not only experiences of time (anticipation) and place (alone-together) but perhaps also other sensory characteristics influence the experience of metro travel and further influence the time–space characteristics. Could the relationship of metro/blindness reverse some of the metro’s nonplace qualities, particularly when considering the concrete case of the Brussels metro? We have considered in this article that this is possible. Inserting blindness as a kind of difference into the Brussels metro ties into our view of disability in a cultural sense, namely as a condition that can be understood for its potential to actualize a transformation of places. ⁷ Specifically, we pointed out the particular ways in which blindness-as-difference can work by informing surfaces, and more generally, works as a process of embodying the metro. Of course, it is clear that blindness not only has the potential to reverse the {im}materiality of the metro but that it also works together with many other types of difference that equally work into the metro as nonplace, most notably ethnicity and gender. It would require additional research to see how different types of {im}materiality work into each other.

Conclusion: Place, Space, and the Human Condition

A place owes its character to the experiences it affords to those who spend time there—to sights, sounds and indeed smells that constitute its specific ambience. (Ingold, 1993, p. 155)

Including the factor of blindness as actor in the Brussels metro system created a chain of reflections and interventions that enabled the complexities of space and place to be examined in a very different way. The resulting reconfiguration is considered to have, to varying degrees, reversed the effects of nonplace that were present. The potential of blindness in reversing the metro’s nonplace qualities stems from the articulation of a sensory vulnerability in a time where vision has achieved a dominant position. Blindness-as-vulnerability is a significant agent for intra-action in the Brussels metro system, making it a safer environment, a more tactile environment, and one where information is added not only for the benefit of a particular group but in fact extending to all people. This is the real impact of blindness-as-vulnerability into the nonplace characteristics of the metro. Rather than affecting the social aspects that are emphasized in Augé’s (1995) definition of nonplaces, perhaps the more important aspect is the influence of the values inherent to material conditions. Blindness induces a deepened interaction with the {im}material aspects of the metro, such as danger, navigation, and sensorial experiences. We would argue that the metro–blindness relationship makes the space less dangerous, easier to navigate, and a more multisensorial place where tactile and body dimensions are developed for all. In particular, we explored the notion of how blindness, informed by disability, enables possible transitions between the material and the immaterial. In this way, we focus on how blindness facilitates the metro to reverse the qualities of nonplace that are considered to be inherent to such spaces. In other words, we look here at blindness as a phenomenon that affects a particular place.

While Benjamin (1968) considers how technologies change peoples’ perception of the world, our speculations begin to consider how disability has the potential to change perceptions and intra-activity among different groups. The metro as a (non)place may involve short periods of waiting and anticipation; however, it also involves communication on a multitude of levels, including bodily involvement with the material environment and with communication systems less common within such places. To consider blindness-as-actor in the development and use of the Brussels metro illustrates an alternate perspective on the complexity involved in the {im}materiality of place and space. This leaves us with our final questions: By striving for deepening connections with nonplaces, such as the Brussels metro, can these ever become real? Or have the spaces always been real with layers of humanity hidden beneath the materials? Material and immaterial are forever bound together, forming places and spaces connected to the values, beliefs, and vision of the time/s these were produced.