Title: Between the Shards: The Poetics of Non-Places in the Post-Socialist Urban Space

Mediums: Video and Sound, Installation, Performance

Abstract / Conceptual Framework

This project tracks the actions of a select group operating under the designation of Urban Exploration (URBEX), turning its gaze toward the abandoned, closed, marginal, and unusual zones within the post-socialist urban landscape the so-called “places of nowhere. ” Through a synthesis of first-person video footage, immersive field-recorded soundscapes, physical installation, and performative interventions, the work re-examines anthropologist Marc Augé’s concept of the “non-place” (non-lieu). Rather than treating these sites as empty or void of meaning, the project illuminates them as deeply layered, historically charged, and inherently contradictory spaces.

Philosophical Foundations

1. Reimagining the Non-Place & Spatial Tactics (Marc Augé & Michel de Certeau)

While Augé originally defined “non-places” as the homogenous, transitional spaces of super modernity (e.g., airports, highways, shopping malls), the post-socialist context radically shifts this definition. Here, non-places consist of ruined factories, forgotten military bunkers, decaying theatres, and brutalist residential structures that lost their original functions following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc.

Philosopher Michel de Certeau posited that space is produced through human practice walking and occupying abstract geometric space turns it into a living “place.” Urban explorers exercise de Certeau’s concept of “tactics”: by physically trespassing into forbidden and forgotten zones, they subvert planned urban design, derive new meanings from architectural debris, and reintroduce human agency into the void.

1. Hauntology and the Post-Socialist Ghost (Jacques Derrida & Mark Fisher)

These derelict environments are far from meaningless; they are saturated with hauntology a term coined by Jacques Derrida and expanded by cultural theorist Mark Fisher. The abandoned post-socialist landscape is haunted by the lost futures and unfulfilled promises of modernist and Soviet ideologies. The meaning of these spaces remains deeply conflicted: they serve simultaneously as historical ruins witnessing socio-political collapse, and as liminal zones where nature reclaims concrete, blurring the boundaries between private memory and collective history.

Artistic Expression and Mediums

The project translates these spatial and philosophical dynamics into the exhibition space through three interconnected mediums:

Video: First-person view (FPV) footage captures the physical acts of climbing, crawling, and infiltrating restricted areas. Rather than merely documenting decaying architecture, the camera reflects the active, reclaiming gaze of the explorer.

Sound: Ambient soundscapes composed of site-specific field recordings echoing footsteps, dripping water, wind through shattered windows, and electrical hums reintroduce the site’s “hauntological echo,” imbuing the gallery with palpable tension.

Installation & Performance: The physical installation incorporates spatial barriers such as fences, warnings, rust, and concrete textures. During the performance, active movement and testimonial narratives reactivate the space, transforming passive viewers into active participants in the experience of entry, boundary-crossing, and discovery.

By reframing the “places of nowhere” within the post-socialist city, the project demonstrates that even within urban decay and marginalization lies a complex, layered tapestry of human memory, identity, and poetic resonance.