O Em Busca do Espaço Perdido

Abstract

This article reflects on the contemporary transformations of the experience of time and space in a society shaped by technological acceleration, the culture of permanent connectivity, and the attention economy. Drawing from observations of everyday urban life, it discusses how the capitalist logic of productivity and efficiency turns time into a commodity, reducing opportunities for contemplation, presence, and social interaction. Engaging with thinkers such as Paul Virilio, Jorge Larrosa, Milton Santos, Francesco Careri, Paola Berenstein Jacques, and the Taoist philosophical tradition, the text argues that the increasing speed of information, image, and stimulus circulation has produced a crisis of experience, characterized by the replacement of direct lived experience with representations mediated by screens. Concepts such as “street time,” “slow men,” “non-action” (Wu Wei), and “screen-flatism” (telaplanismo) are explored, the latter referring to the central role that screens have assumed in shaping contemporary perception. The article contends that informational and visual overload undermines attention, fosters anxiety, and impoverishes individuals’ relationships with urban space and with themselves. As a counterpoint, it proposes practices of deceleration, pause, walking, meditation, and the occupation of public space as ways of recovering experience, deepening presence, and rebuilding collective bonds. It concludes that the central crisis of contemporary life is not the scarcity of time, but the loss of the space necessary for something meaningful to truly happen to us.