Harvey's Time-Space Compression Theroy And The Contemporary Cultural Critique

Time and space, are basic forms in humanity production practice. In recent years, with the rise of spatial turn, many western scholars, such as Michel Foucault, Henry Lefebvre, David Harvey and Edward Soja, etc., had engaged in cultural studies from space perspective. David Harvey put cultural studies into Marxism and activated Marxism. He discussed the change of social production system between modernity and post-modernity. Time-space compression theory was constructed in the background.The first chapter reviews the time-space concepts before David Harvey. This chapter displays the notion of the time-space concepts in the history mainly from Philosophy of Science. Whether the time-space concepts of rationalism or empiricism, which fell into the abstract and conceptual barriers inevitably. In modern society, capitalism developed rapidly with a high level on science and technology. The objective quality of space and time were changed, they are not metaphysics any more. Until Marxism was set up, the original time-space consciousness wasn't waken up.In the second chapter, I discussed David Harvey's time-space compression in the context of the spatial turn. David Harvey thought over the character of space dialectically in the existential-practice terms, and portrayed Modernism and Post-modernism meticulously. He revealed the changes of capitalist society through the transition of culture, then he found that there was no clear boundary between modernism and post-modernism, and post-modernism are another round of violent influences, that time-space compression exert on social culture.The third chapter started the aesthetic criticism to the contemporary capitalist culture on the basis of time-space compression theory. With the time acceleration and the collapse of space barriers, new difficulties and changes had emerged in the feelings and expressions of people in capitalism society. Many art forms, such as films, literature, paintings, and architecture, tried to break the single linear narrative structures, so that the narrative space like a collage and fragmentation. Dimension of time and space in the works had dispelled, and became a chaotic state. In short, the post-modern culture and arts were expressions of experiences and characterizations of time-space compression society. The Conclusion evaluated Harvey's time-space compression theory objectively, and illuminated the aesthetic significance and shortcomings of the theory.