DM3013-INTERACTIVE SPACES (TUT)

I like your summary about transitioning from "physical space" to observing/communicating "emotional space" between people and how language can be used to describe this space.  Considering that our sense of emotional space has had to shift during the pandemic, what have you found or observed has changed in the way people understand "emotional space"?

I think the whole concept of emotional space has become such an important topic during this time of crisis, especially with the work from home scheme. Families and couples now stay at home for 24 hours, and see each other more times in a day than when they go out physically from work. This somewhat affects their "personal space", which correlates with "emotional space". I realised that some of my friends, who used to stay in hall more during the semester, had a hard time adapting to their family routines when they had to shift back home for circuit breaker. Having many people evade your 'personal space' many times in a day makes one 'emotional space' become smaller, and sometimes even fights happen. In a more positive perspective, people have also begun to understand the capacity of each person's 'emotional space', as they themselves have felt the impact on their own 'emotional space' due to long hours of staying at home. This leads to better understandings between people and slightly less conflicts when people type messages such as: 'i'm tired' or 'i'm sorry, I can't meet you right now' In such trying times, people are impacted physically (uncomfort of new norms) and emotionally (the tiredness of working from home - the inability to distinguish a workspace and homespace), but it definitely showed a silver lining in terms of how people react to other people, and also the tone of communication.

I personally feel that the concept of not being able to distinguish between a 'workspace' and a 'homespace' due to the circuit breaker is very interesting and it may be a good topic to explore

I think the blurring boundary between 'workspace' and 'homespace' could be an interesting topic to explore further too.  What would be necessary conditions be for each to be (in ideal situation) and what has had to happen during circuit breaker? What were the ways in which you (and others) has to adjust, tweak and accommodate this new blurring of spaces? Also to keep in mind that for many of us, having alternative spaces to work and live is a privilege that not everyone has access too (pre-Covid also).  Perhaps this was something that we are all forced to see and experience for the first time especially during the circuit breaker period.  How did this change our attitudes towards these spaces?

Interesting points Yixue regarding "units of measurement" in everyday speech and how the understanding of these have changed over time.  Authentic communication in terms of speech is one thing (and it would be interesting to know what forms this can take) but how can people communicate authentically using body language? What are the unspoken gestures that people use (this differs in different cultures) to communicate without speaking?