Drawing on Hartmut Rosa’s reflections on acceleration and resonance, and on Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval’s notion of competition as a model of subjectivation, this essay discusses the changes in the self-surveillance patterns of behaviors, namely those that take place in the ever-increasing accumulative cycle of personal efforts for maintaining and surpassing current production standards. This reflection starts from the realization that we experience increasingly accelerated urban lives, mainly urged by consumption practices that lead to exhausting and alienating urban experiences. This results in urban experiences of little or no durability, markedly ephemeral, without territorial implications beyond the mere consumption of space itself.
Keywords:
Acceleration; Exhaustion; Mere-life