The general issue of relations between sociality and spatiality, until recently profoundly ignored outside spatial studies, has become a focus of great theoretical attention in a number of disciplines – what has been called, remarkably, the “spatial turn” in social and cultural theory. The thesis wishes to address a central problem in that debate: the connection of practice and space. It does so emphasising a dimension that has not been previously explored to a significant degree: the conditions of sociation of practice, or a material account of how action becomes social action and practice social practice. In other words, it investigates the place of space in semantically mediated interactions that constitute the knots in (spatialised) networks of sociation – or communication. The thesis explores the spatiality of practice and communication as a problem worth of theoretical attention, suggesting that precisely the absence of this dimension has led theory to fail to spot the spatial traces of relations between our daily acts – traces active in the very moment of sociation of practice, indeed constitutive of the very possibility of any sociation; traces produced and performed through the interpenetration of communication and space. The question the thesis addresses is the possibility of space not just as contingent location but also in itself encapsulating an essential constituent of the communicative condition of the social. The aim of this thesis is to focus on this theoretical deficit in a number of ways. First, existing theories of society and space relations as found in social theory, architecture and human geography are reviewed in order to assess how far they provide compelling answers to the problem of the communicative constitution of practice, and from this analysis, to set areas where further progress is needed. Second, an attempt is made to build an alternative frame to the sociality-spatiality relation as a relation between practice, communication and space, drawing on a number of diverse sources, mainly the theory of self-referentiality of Niklas Luhmann, the theory of communicative action of Jürgen Habermas, the post-modern questioning of notions like “meaning” and “structure,” and new approaches in human geography and architecture. Thirdly, the implications of this unconventional approach to the spatiality of the social world are discussed, and a concept, the duality of meaning is proposed as a means to address the multiple relations between space and social practice. Fourth, the thesis suggests the possibility that the spatial emergence of practice as a communicative process requires, in order to come into being, some structuring of the space in which it occurs – a mutual, referential structuration beyond the contingency of practice and space. Developing the idea of space as referential to communication, the thesis shows how space becomes the unconscious but referential substrate which provides a certain form of available organisation to the semantic field where communication networks are performed, and social structures constantly emerge and fade away in connections of linguistic acts and spaces. It suggests that a new and active role for space may be identified in the sociality-spatiality relation: a “semanticised space” as a key dimension of (1) the “communicability of practice,” i.e. the informational connections that mediate the passage from the individual act into the socialised act that takes part in unfolding social events; and (2) the very possibility of ontological relatedness, seeing space as a dimension of the “strings of reference” that produce the sense of “world-relationality” or structure, inform socialities of possibilities of acts, and constitute the very possibility of actualisation of acts through the referentiality of practice, communication and space. Disclosing a “material referentiality” at the heart of practice, as the crisscrossing of communication, language, and space, it finally suggests the possibility of space as a counterpart to the elusiveness of forms of communication and relationality in the social world, such as those semiotic fluxes based on spoken and written language, and electronic and visual media. In building such a conceptual scheme, the thesis lays down the aims of a “referential approach” to the materiality of the social world: clarifying space itself in the communicability of practice; clarifying its role for socialities by showing a referential space as a means to the sociation of acts; and clarifying socialities themselves by showing how profoundly and pervasively they rely on the referentiality of space.

During the last twenty-five years of research and real-world studies accomplished all over the globe, space syntax has consistently shown that movement patterns in cities and buildings tend to be strongly related to configurational properties of their respective spatial layouts. It has also been shown that individuals’ trajectories in virtual worlds are affected by the syntactic properties of these environments, and that the resulting emergent patterns may explain the detected correlations between configurational properties of space and movement patterns in real-world scenarios. However, none of these studies have so far attempted to elicit why these regularities occur at a more fundamental, cognitive level. In other words, they have not yet answered how the idea of spatial configuration shapes a person’s qualitative assessments and subsequent usage of spatial networks. This is the topic of this thesis. What kind of information do people extract from spatial configurations? How is this information used when assessing a spatial network qualitatively? How is this information used when one has to use such a network? These are some of the questions that this thesis will attempt to answer. This thesis will focus on map usage. By analysing how people interact with maps, this thesis will attempt to shed light on the processes by which people internalise configurational information and are able to define qualitative judgements that may be use in real-world scenarios. As a result, this thesis aims to be a further step in the ongoing process of linking space syntax with cognitive theory and therefore to contribute in the search of the cognitive roots of space syntax.

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In this dissertation, I argue that there can and should be an aspiration among those involved in art and architecture for ideological engagement and historical awareness. In the first chapter, I provide critical reflections on the exhibition Into the Open, the official representation in the US Pavilion at the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale, based on my own experience as organizer. This section is essentially a case study that further explores ideological engagement in contemporary curatorial practice, and is motivated by a desire to render visible some of the questions and tensions that defined that exhibition after the fact. A similar archaeological impulse informs the subsequent Chapter, which offers historical perspectives on the United States' uneven engagement with cultural diplomacy. I do so in order to demonstrate that culture is never an incidental act, and that culture always carries ideological and political ramifications. This is particularly evident at the Venice Architecture Biennale, and for this reason a core component of this project is a working archive, which is found in chapter three. It contains a living history of that institution which seeks to recover its origins and historical trajectory through a series of interviews with past curators. It is accompanied by a dossier on cultural administration, which attempts to render visible the messy politics of the cultural production of Into the Open through a compilation of administrative and financial traces and residues. Throughout, I attempt to produce not just formal documentation or critical analysis but a series of particular performative interventions into our understanding of curatorial practice and the institutional compromises it inevitably entails. A persistent theme throughout these pages is that of entanglement, which is a theoretical concept as well as a practice of engagement. Accordingly, I conclude by offering a series of philosophical meditations. It is my hope that this research will serve as a starting point for a renewed discourse concerning the realities and possibilities surrounding contemporary curatorial practice

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The central message of this thesis is that architecture is made by use and by design. To use a building is to alter it, by for example physically transforming it, using it in unexpected ways, or conceiving of it anew. The user can be passive, reactive or creative, whatever the character of the space he or she inhabits, but space can affect use, and each design suggests a certain user. Questioning the binary opposition of the architect and the user this thesis proposes a third entity: the creative user who can also be an 'illegal architect'. As a design strategy which recognises the creative role of the user in formulating architecture, it proposes a theory of montage in which the gaps are as important as the fragments. In contrast to traditional theories of montage, the 'montage of gaps' aims not to shock but to remain unresolved, to be remade by each user.

This thesis is an investigation into the role that public(ly accessible) space plays in contemporary society. Exploring how these locations can be utilised as a platform to better understand the relationship between citizens and their representatives. The social, political and economically motivated activity which engages with this spatial potential is protest . This thesis will research the way in which locations which are recognised as spaces of congregation such as squares, markets, plaza and parks are intrinsically political, both in the way these locations come into being and the way that their presence is utilised by a politically active user group. In tandem, the thesis will also research locations with a more temporary association with socialisation, but are utilised by activists for their spatial significance when pertaining to a particular cause, complaint or agenda which sparks an idealistic conflict. These are spaces which, as inhabitants of the city we all transgress; such as streets, thoroughfares and intersections. They often come into tension with existing boundaries within the city, such as lines of ownership, and other tools used to subtly control the structure of urban territories which are shared through the necessities of urban life.

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Arakawa and Gins, radical philosophers of the future, desire to construct life beyond the human condition. Their unique and original contribution to philosophy can be discerned most evidently in their concept of reversible destiny, an innovative response to our mortal condition. ‘We have decided not to die’, their ultimate declaration, is a testament not only to their architecture – an architecture predicated on the notion that death must be combated – but also, and perhaps most importantly, to its ability to teach us to think differently about the future. Even, and perhaps especially, the most fundamental and basic assumptions of our species are deliberately and evocatively called into question. It is this resistance to the present – in learning how not to die, in educating life differently – that will be addressed in this dissertation. The claim made here is that the highly instructive architectural philosophy of Arakawa and Gins produces a positive and useful philosophy of life, which orients us towards a new century of philosophy that operates beyond the human condition.