Extract

In this chapter we examine and discuss the concept of the experience economy as an indicator of the need for spaces (in-between) that allow for an aesthetic, sensuous and poetic mode of being in the midst of everyday life. This approach is rooted in critical theory and a phenomenological understanding of experience. The production of surplus value is viewed as the continuous dominating principle of current Western society. This principle leads, as emphasized by Weber and the early Frankfurt School, to a fundamental de-enchantment of the life-world of modern man and to the dominance of the premises of the economic rationality. However, the French sociologist and phenomenologist Maffesoli supplements this viewpoint when he argues that we are currently witnessing a re-enchantment of the world where the aesthetic mode of being is activated in everyday life (2007). In our opinion the experience spaces amplified by the experience economy can be seen to encourage such re-enchantment, and it is the unfolding of the aesthetic dimension (Baumgarten, 1750–58 [1986]; Guillet de Monthoux, 2004; Kirkeby, 2007) within these spaces that can be understood to contribute to the deep and full quality of the spaces.