Sensory Paradoxes of Space: Reading a Pandemic through the Film 'Blindness '

Abstract

The concept of paradox, which is formed by the combination of the words opposite and thought, and carries the meanings of logical contradiction, conflict, has become one of the concepts that has settled in the center of our lives with the changes and transformations brought by the pandemic epidemic. Like many epidemics and infectious diseases that people have had to struggle with in the historical process, the corona virus (COVID-19) epidemic has brought along various difficulties and obligations. It is one of the most obvious examples of paradoxical situations that with the pandemic epidemic, humanity saw that the familiarities that were ignored while signing the breakthroughs in technology and science turned into opportunities that are not easy to reach. Pandemic today; It becomes a paradox that conditions human-human, human-nature, human-space relations and reshapes existing knowledge, perception, understanding and habits. The fact that the relationship that people establish with space has to update itself and the establishment of this relationship through existing spaces brings along some contradictions in itself. Pandemic conditions created by the quarantine, restriction and stuckness that are added to the life that has to continue, cause many functions and actions to take place in a single place at the same time; the emergence of new ergonomic needs and definitions in communication and interaction; changes in the function and usage patterns of the space; causes the necessity of sensory, perceptual and spatial transformations. The new pandemic conditions, on the one hand, highlight the visual and auditory virtual spaces, on the other hand, open the door to an ironic uncertainty and the pandemic paradoxes caused by this uncertainty, with spatial experiences that push many senses such as touching and smelling to the background, leading to sensory blindness. In this context, the differences brought about by the effects of the pandemic process in the perception and sensuality of the space is an important area of ​​research and discussion. Cinema, which is shaped and shaped by society, presents the effects of pandemic possibilities on the relationship changes between humans and the areas in which humans are in contact, through various examples, with its fictional products that contain all these and similar paradoxes. In this context, the main aim of the study is; It includes the ontological and spatial analysis of the epidemics and their effects, which have been the subject of many films in the past and today, and the revealing of paradoxical situations. Pandemic paradoxes; In the study, which deals with the sub-themes of "pandemic period new space perception" and "new forms of communication", the relationship between people and places with the work "Blindness" is examined as a global epidemic analysis through a different pandemic epidemic example. In the light of this information, in the study, human-space relations in the epidemic situation by using conceptual analysis and visual content analysis method; It is opened to discussion with the paradoxical concepts of "sense-sensation-perception", "change-transformation", "harmony-contradiction" through new people and new spaces emerging. Possible future pandemic human-space definitions and designs; The new lives, compatible with or opposed to the epidemic, which the epidemic necessitated, are presented by exemplifying the change and transformation of the balances between strong and weak senses, sensations and perceptions.