Finisterra - Revista Portuguesa de Geografia (Jun 2006)
Consumactor: da condição do indivíduo na cidade pós-moderna
Abstract
CONSUMACTOR: ON THE CONDITION OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN THE POSTMODERN CITY. In this short essay on the consumer in the postmodern city we sought to develop three ideas. Firstly, we tried to show that today’s metropolis can be regarded as a centre of consumption. This consumption is raised to “spectacle” status by different urban stakeholders. Being a centre of consumption, the postmodern metropolis nourishes two kinds of landscapes: the cityscape, the built environment or the physical architecture of the city, and the mindscape, the inner landscapes or landscapes of the soul, resulting from the spatial nature of daily practices. The former set the stages and the scenes necessary for consumers’ performances, whereas the latter write the scripts that guide these performances. Secondly, we argue that, in the postmodern urban society, consumers have become both spectators and actors. Combining the flâneur attitude, that of a contemplative traveller, with the persona involved in the acting and experiences of consumption, consumers have assumed their roles as consumactors. In order to capture this multidimensionality of the postmodern consumer, we propose to move beyond the traditional segmentation in multiple market niches and to recognise the individual in a holistic way, respecting our complex biological, psychological and social structures that make us who we are. In the last point of this essay we argue that, in order to peer into the soul of the consumactor, he/she must be observed in his/her habitat. With a nomadic soul derived from the status of “contemplative traveller” and committed to finding aesthetic pleasure in the surface-deep experience of intensities and in the flow of images, the consumactor moves through, wanders, walks on multiple stages but feels a particular draw to shopping malls. Composed of simulacra, arranged scenery, games of seduction and possibilities, shopping malls construct an ideal ambiance for tribal communication, performance and acting. In the eyes of the consumactor no other place in the city seems to better sublimate his/her acting, and that is why shopping malls become their residence, meeting point and place of celebration.
