Where is the space of democracy for the modern society?

The world is not safe anymore.
There is terrorism/vandalism/crime.

These are the common arguments of any state or society for the need of a much controlled environment.

We start recognizing more of social, physical and/or economical fragmentations through the society. These fragments are pushing their citizens to demand secured zones of activities. Gated residential areas, secured entries, checkpoints, visible and invisible borders, permissions, social barriers and etc. We are all forced out from our active outdoor public spaces towards new controlled indoors or interactive screens. New forms of architecture supports more and more zones for this socio-economical segregation.

Where is the space of democracy for the modern society?

Modern society is attached to the global economy. Therefore searching for the space of democracy is becoming very negotiable through the permitted acts of politics and society. Society creates its own gated community. Security through entrances, 24/7 surveillances, web controls, besides traditional and social control mechanisms forces us to accept the discipline and behave for acceptance by the society.

Privatization of public space
Public spaces of the global economy developed its own version that is rather secured, cosy, indoor leisure atmosphere serving for the modern society’s needs of consumption, culture and leisure. These generated public areas created the pivotal turn from the use of outdoor public spaces into the shopping malls.

This transformed meaning brought out the fact that the shopping mall is the privatized public space of today’s society. Nowadays families prefer to spend their weekends at a shopping center. Through the center’s secure indoor to stroll around with indoor greenery to please the users -from plastic flowers to short trees growing in a large pots-, various cultural activities – concerts, mini exhibitions, pocket theaters organized by the mall management and/or the cinema corner- for the ones that are interested, playgrounds for the children, market for the house needs and the powerful addiction of consumption, malls are the final public spaces.

This text is written by Demet Mutman for the Agora Project's Final Exhibition, Marseille 2015, March 12. 

source: http://agoraproject.fr/2015/03/where-is-the-space-of-democracy-for-the-modern-society-demet-mutman/