Violence and prospect-refuge values.

Abstract

Appleton's prospect-refuge theory of landscape aesthetics is joined to Kupfer's treatment of the more contemporary forms of violence as aesthetic projects. The insufficiency in the modern urban environment of good opportunities to see without being seen stresses the present and near future into heightened feelings of vulnerability, adding with untoward social circumstance to activate more extreme measures to secure an advantage in our dealings with the world. From the standpoint of prospect-refuge theory, violence directed to asserting the self as someone who matters is a misbegotten effort to unstress the present and near future. Violence valued only for the aesthetic satisfaction in dismembering persons and things to formlessness suggests an attempt to kill time. As the likelihood of violent incidents increases, revisions in the prospect-refuge map together with institutional reforms become more urgent.