The Poetics of sensory-spatial experience in varieties of leisure consumption and the diversity of cultural ecology.

Abstract

This thesis attempts to 'map' the dimensions of selected sensory-spatial leisure consumption varieties in support of humanistic drives, or will, towards inner self-development and societal well-being. The investigative focus is primarily upon leisure domains of a liminal or transitional nature, between cultural and commercial consumption; these being of presumed importance in the promotion of increased leisure activities of a cultural and artistic nature as a social 'good' or utopian ideal. Such an orientation, prevalent in post-industrial cultures, confers worth to understanding the dimensions of cultural diversity required, and benefits being sought from variously extant leisure realms. The contribution of the work is reviewed in a 'synthesis' that forms the full 'thesis' in conjunction with the published works themselves. Within the synthesis a poetics methodology is proposed to have emerged towards enhancing meaningful exploration across four broad varieties of culturalcommercial leisure consumption spaces - tourist domains, museum/gallery visits, indulgent/leisure food 'dreamscapes' and music/mobile consumption zones. The findings can be encapsulated within three broad headings, namely that:- (i) Leisure spaces create heightened, personally and/or socially selfenhancing forms of dreamscape consumption than more everyday spaces - as exemplified by differential consumption processes within 'limited risk' environments, artistic-subjective consumer orientations and co-creative consumption spaces that are further related to the concept of 'flow' in human experience; (ii) The attributes of physical varieties of leisure spaces feature qualitatively 'sensed' differences, relative to supporting an effective immersion process within them - having variable mixes of specific, defined contributory characteristics in 'active' or out-in-the-world realms, associated with models derived primarily from the field of environmental geography; and, (iii) There is a threat of a reduced variety of potentially beneficial outin- the-world leisure spaces due to technological substitution by virtual ('passive') alternatives - raising questions of consumer consent over a reduced diversity of cultural ecology in terms of losses in retail and social capital, particularly within localised environments.