From the non-place to chronotopes, through the lobby of the Atocha station.

Abstract

The Atocha station, by the mere fact of being a train station, is theoretically characterized by Marc Auge (1992/2000) as a non-place. Auge characterizes these non-places as spaces devoid of any history or stories, impossible to appropriate, and that arise from supermodernity, a period that began at the end of the last century and is characterized by an acceleration and excess of events, spaces, and a shrinking of the planet. Through photography, according to Joan Fontcuberta’s (1990, 2009) point of view, we have tried to find sufficient indicators in order to understand the relationship between a supposed “non-place” and the people that pass through it. However, this relationship goes beyond just a simple category. We have used the notion of cronotope, a concept introduced by Mikhail Bakhtin (1975/1989), in order to offer another point of view for the many configurations that can be established between people and spaces. We have developed a table of Types of Space-Time Configurations in a Specific Space, in which Cronotopoi (stable vs. ephermal) and Significance (non-place vs. place) are brought into play. From this table, we discuss some of the results found during the nearly five months that we were taking pictures of the Atocha station lobby, and we have found that people are located in spaces in different ways, appropriating in many peculiar ways, of course, beyond our categories of analysis.