Shrinking of Space / Jet Lag

I've been taking a moment or rather several, to reconsider the “shrinking of space” a concept presented within the third chapter of Schivelbusch's The Railway Journey.  Even without my reconsiderations, the idea itself is incredibly engaging; that the advent and subsequent proliferation of locomotive as well as other forms of mechanized high speed travel, has transformed and continues to alter our spatial perceptions of time and space, namely individuals living within societies heavily dependent on such technologies.  As Schivelbusch further explores this notion within the text, his arguments focus primarily on the temporal/spatial disorientation of travel as experienced through the socio/cultural relationships between individuals and geographic locations.  Physical people and physical places, there is much attention paid to the external geography.  Conversely, my curiosity and reconsiderations lie within this concept, the “shrinking of space” as imagined through the perspective of internal geography.  As we travel through physical/external/geographic space, is there a possibility that our internal/emotional/psychic selves are undergoing a similar transformation, a reorientation of time and space. What is it to travel between geographic and emotional plot points simultaneously?  If this is the case, how do we accommodate this transformation?  Does the experience of traveling a great distance over a shorter time- period affect our processes of acceptance and resolution?  At this point, there are more questions than definitive answers. 

However, in these ever expanding moments I am reminded of a very physical (as well as potentially psychological) consequence or reaction to the experience known as the “shrinkage of space”, Jet Lag (desynchronosis).  How ironic that our bodies, our physical selves would rebel and defy our quest for locomotive expediency, forcing us to embody and literally carry the extra time gained through rapid long-distance travel.  I’d now like to offer the multimedia performance piece Jet lag by Diller Scofidio (1998) as example of a piece of multimedia/multichannel/conceptual/performance art which deals with this specific subject as well as also our experiences of “space time consciousness”.  <3