EL ESPACIO-TIEMPO FESTIVO Y LA PERCEPCIÓN FOGUERIL COMO CONFORMADORES DEL MONUMENTO EFÍMERO ALICANTINO

Resumen

The «hoguera» [bonfire], a fleeting monument of the public festivities of San Juan, in Alicante, has subordinated the evolution of its formal, expressive and iconographic features to that peculiar human perception which arises in a festive space-time frame. This latter is not ruled by the daily social relations, but by the exceptional character of the feast, by laughter and human communication; it is a parenthesis in people's life. The space of the celebration impel us to go across streets, the functions of which have been changed; they move to the structure base-top of the monument and to a tendency to vertical position. Daily rhythms become broken, the rite of visiting the monument takes the time of labour life for three days; the 'reading' is instant, the spectator has only a few minutes for perception, what leads to the synthesis of the message and to the exaggeration of formal and expressive features to benejit a quick impression.