Sanitised spaces

“Shopping centres and arcades share some of the dichotomies at the heart of capitalism. They are simultaneously positioned as both public and private, accessible to all. Whilst in this space, there is an accent on permissiveness combined with prohibition. […] These smooth spaces of capitalism, temporarily sanitised and spatially manicured to within an inch of their life, do not allow the “other” to be present unless there is a marked benefit to the contactless, cool consumerism where human relationships are no longer laboured, but detached and divorced from the other, from the human.”

Alex Wade, 'The Pac-Man Principle', Zero Books