Severance- Separation from Space
The representation of space in the Apple TV+ series Severance mirrors the strange relationship we have with our 21st century territory, which is split between the real and digital worlds and split between Modernist and Postmodern thinking.
When we are in the grand, brutalist space of the Perpetuity Wing of Lumon’s severed floor, we feel the enclosure of a Disciplinary space [1]Foucault, M., 1995. Discipline and Punish. 2nd ed. Translated by Sheridan, A. New York: Vintage Books.. It’s a high ceiling, but it’s still a ceiling and we are underground a couple stories, at least. That isn’t daylight coming in from above.
We never see daylight there.
In the large Macro Data Refinement office, there are four desks lumped together with partitions between them.
Even in the office, the four workers are both bound together and kept apart- all encouraged to observe one another and keep each other behaving by the rules… much like reporting people online for behaviour we individually don’t like in our online communities.
Lumon also operates as a Controlled space [2]Deleuze, G., 1992. Postscript on the Societies of Control. October, [online] 59 (Winter, 1992), pp.3-7. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/778828 . The Innies are seemingly free to walk in the maze-like hallways, but can only access spaces that are opened by their key cards.
They are under constant and total surveillance both on cameras…
and via the extensive security system that knows the exact location of everyone on the severed floor…
This mirrors our Digital Self’s experience online where we need passwords and codes to access various spaces and we leave a trail of data that knows everything about us.
