THE THIRD SPACE
I am there and yet I am not

FOUCAULT MICHEL. OF OTHER SPACES 1967, HETEROTOPIAS

Heterotopia is a term Foucault borrowed from medical discourse. It is defined as tissue that is not normal where it is located, or an organ that has been dislocated. Abnormal location rather then internal composition is the focus in Foucault’s appropriation. A Heterotopia can therefore not be described as the place between a Utopian earthly paradise and a Dystopian impoverished society, but as a place which contests the normal order of things. A real site that can be found within a culture, which is simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted, resulting in a counter-space.

Utopias are sites with no real place. They present society itself in a perfected form which is fundamentally an unreal space. The space between this Non-Place of Utopian ideals, and the counter-spaces of a Heterotopia are where my interests lie. This is where Foucault erects the third space - The Mirror. Foucault describes the mirror as the mixed joint experience. This space ‘in between’ the Heterotopia and Utopia exists as an illusory threshold, which divides and classifies each quantity. The mirror is a utopia as it is placeless, but the mirror is also a Heterotopia, as it really exists. It is the reflection of something really existing.

The mirror is the space of comparison between the actual image in the mirror and the image of the self. It draws comparison between the past and the present, the outline over there and the details up close. I am over there, there where I am not.1, the ghost of the ‘other’. The mirror reflects the context in which the viewer stands yet contests it, in the mirror, the viewer sees themselves where they are not. I believe ‘The Mirror’ in Foucault’s theory exists as a conundrum as it can be defined as both Utopian and Heterotopian the mirror acts as an intersection of opposing worlds.

Endnotes.

1.Foucault, Michel. Of other spaces, Heterotopia’s. Retrived 11.03.09 from http://foucault.info/documents/hetrotopia/foucault.com. p3

References.

Dehaene, M & De Cauter, Lieven. 'Heterotopia and the city.' New York: Routledge, 2008.

Fig 1. Tenniel, John. Through the looking glass.