The Phenomenon of the Home in Modern Culture: Transcendental Homelessness and Escape Fantasy at the Intersection of Art and Design

Abstract

Fragmented perception of the city; the oppressiveness of the capitalist system; the psychological conditions of the metropolis comprised integral aspects of Modernity which overwhelmed the nerves of modern urbanite. While the metropolis, the exterior, has been the source of fear and anxiety, the home, the interior, has been pointed out as the venue of escape from the outside. To the extent that the home is idealized as counterpart of the metropolis and social life, as the site of the heimlich and as one of the means of the capitalist system, becomes too a place where alienation has come to be overtly observed. The impossible desire to return to the home links up with transcendental homelessness and the escape fantasy and coalesces with the notion that .in the modern world one can only dwell in one.s body..This study focuses on the discourse that renders the modern individual in the image of the traumatic due to the pathological relationship between the modern individual and home. The research method consists of the implementation of .discourse analysis. as developed by Michel Foucault. Through this method, the argument is presented through art works/objects taken as critical spatial practices. In the context of this method, five fields are determined as constituting the positivity of the discourse: .Enterprises., .Actions., .Dialectics., .Critical Discourses., and .Critical Practices.. Through these five fields, the study analyzes such modern phenomena as individualization and alienation of the modern individual, transcendental homelessness, nostalgia, homesickness, isolation, and escape fantasy.Key Words: Modern individual, modernity, metropolis/megalopolis, modern dwelling, modernist architecture, standardization, mobility, trauma, home, domesticity, nostalgia, homesickness, uncanny, transcendental homelessness, alienation, anxiety, individualization, escape fantasy, discourse, statement, discursive formation, positivity.