Paper short abstract:

Psychopathic Space captures a predisposition to psychical-spatial violence found on the dynamic urban edge where “city meets fringe.” It makes legible the psychopathic clues inscribed in discourses used by London mega-projects to mark spaces of impending violence and reshape urban imaginaries.

Paper long abstract:

Psychopathic Space captures a predisposition to psychical-spatial violence found on the dynamic urban edge where "city meets fringe." Here the tectonic collision of the corporate-class (w)edge of neoliberal urban mega-projects disrupts the fabric of older neighborhoods. Such spaces epitomize the vertiginous, (trans)formative urbanism now reshaping not only London's materiality and sociality, but also its residents' urban imaginary.

Psychologists diagnose psychopaths as opportunistic and impulsive; lacking in affect, empathy or remorse, they live a parasitic lifestyle, propped up by superficial charm; they possess a grandiose sense of self worth and uninhibited disregard for others' rights. Importantly here, they tend to leave clues to the violence they are about to inflict—clues their victims refuse to take literally.

This project makes legible the clues inscribed in discourses employed by London mega-project developers to mark the spaces of impending psychical-spatial violence to be inflicted upon transitioning cityscapes. Critically reading the glib, psychopathic language embedded in signage, architectural form, and jarring juxtapositions imposed upon the built environment, discloses developers' compulsive-repetitive efforts to interpellate sublime subjects who readily envision themselves at home in elevated, brave new urban landscapes. Clues on hoardings surrounding construction sites exhort entitled subjects to "set their sights higher" and aspire to spectacular vistas of skyscraper living. More subtly, this same meritocratic discourse conveys that luxury condo/office projects inevitably will decant the area's subaltern denizens; subjects caught in between are consigned to the trauma of status anxiety. Psychopathic Space employs interpretive, photographic ethnographics to map emergent edges of uneven urban development.