VILHENA, Junia de    NOVAES, Joana de Vilhena. Places and non-places in the virtual world: Notes on creativity and territories of existence in the Web. []. , 50, 2, pp.143-161. ISSN 0101-4838.

Based on Marc Augé's concept of places and non-places, and borrowing from Geography and Anthropology, we shall discuss the use of virtual space as a possibility of different forms of subjectivity. The importance that physical and virtual territories have acquired in the way we are made, the uses we make of both and how we navigate these spaces will be analyzed in the light of Pierre Lévy's and Donald Winnicott's contributions. Taking Winnicott as an interlocutor in the psychoanalytic field, in his postulations about the perspective and the location of cultural experiences, we will investigate the place of virtual experience as the possibility of a new territory of existence. To Pierre Lévy, virtuality is closely linked to creativity; Winnicott, on the other hand, tells us that, in order to look at the world in a creative way, an individual must, above all, have internalized the experience of being looked at. It is therefore the case of discussing the many opportunities that the virtual world can offer as an experience of looking or of not being seen. That is, reading the internet as a place or a non-place will depend on the uses which an individual makes of its resources, and on the relationship established with them and with him or herself.

: territory; non-places; virtuality; creativity; looking.

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