The more people around, the less people around

It has been discussed lately that human beings in nowadays society are not considered substance anymore, but a function. Human 'role' in life has become more important than his personality. How does it affect our perceptions of (public) space - space that we share with others? And the way we tend to think and name activities, spaces, people around us?

Man-is-not a tool by Paavo Piik

Man is not a tool.
He may not be.
He is not a tool for pleasure or intimacy

or respect or lightness or boredom
tool for making your work.


He is not for making money,
filling emptiness, teaching, viewing
for self-esteem and self-defence tool.
Because man is not a function.


He has no confessor or a prostitute
or a handhold or a domestic animal
or a wallet or a clown
or a workhorse or a babysitter,
non-critical role of a critic.
At least in it's own mind.


The more people around you,
the less they resemble the people
and the more they resemble functions.


Ergo,
The more people around you,
the less people around you.

source: free translation from Paavo Piik's poetry

Physical mementoes?

Here is a story of an artist Jasper Joffe...

"... last Christmas my girlfriend broke up with me. It was one of those times in life when you wake up 5am, wondering what are you going to do next; above anything else, you feel out of control... at almost exactly at the same time, I left the gallery where I´d been working as an artist for many years. It was going to be my 34th birthday two weeks later too, I suddenly realised that my entire personal and professional life was completely up in the air; it felt like I´ve reached an emotional Ground Zero...
I decided to gather together every single possession I owned - without exception - and place these all together in order to see how everything stood. I then planned to put on an exhibition of everything I had, inviting guests to come in, root around my belongings and buy whatever they wanted. Over the course of a few days, I enlisted a few friends who helped me work through my stuff - my clothes, my old toys, letters from friends at primary school and ex-girlfriends... Once we´d cleaned the place out, my flat was totally empty: no television, no kettle, no soap. The only things I had kept hold of were the clothes I am wearing now - a pair of trousers, a shirt, a jumper, some pants and a pair of flip flops - plus my wallet, house keys and passport. It was quite terrifying moment realising that this was all I had left to my name...
Finally I am free and unencumbered by my past. Now that the sale has just come to an end and I have nothing left, I´m going to head off travelling, somewhere I don´t need to think about things. From there, I will start to build my future, piece by piece. Any memories that I have, I hold in my head. I don´t need physical mementoes to remind me of me..."