The сity as a Hyper-Object. Introduction

Abstract

This article offers a conceptual r terpretation of “the city” through the concept of a hyper-object, created by Timothy Morton. Tracing the evolution of the relationship between the urban environment and residents, the authors propose perceiving the city as a stable external object in relation to its population, possessing the characteristics of a hyper-object. Such a perspective helps to explain why rural and urban residents’ perceptions of the environment differ so much and how the breakdown of normal urban daily life is arranged, leading to the formation of new anxieties and fears. The starting point for the author’s interpretation is a reading of the Judeo-Christian myth of Cain and Abel as a description of the transition from animal husbandry to agriculture and, consequently, the birth of the urban way of life. Beginning with different ways of interpreting the myth, the authors discover key differences between life in an urban environment and a rural way of life —lacunas of space excluded by the population to the hinterland of the plan. Such a multilayered perspective is exclusively characteristic of the urban way of life. By examining patterns of perception, the researchers show how such changes in everyday life have resulted from living in the shadow of the city as a hyper-object, which is something more than a place of residence.