“This new image–space is a surrogate reality that can no longer be judged for either its authenticity or its accuracy for its referent is absent.” -Boyer
I find this quote to be regrettably accurate. From my point of view, I would say that there are very few places that are not “image-space”, and that are authentic. It has become our nature to make our spaces marketable, part of that marketability is formulating a description of a place that the public can identify with. We have done this time and time again with communities, districts, zones and crossroads such as Times Square, where in order to communicate a place with others we apply definitions. If a place does not already have an image than we will give it one, in fact we have gotten quite skilled at naming the nameless. We use words like “vibrant”, “open”, “animated”, and “unique” to name place. We live in a world of adjectives and we feel like we know a place through the description of strangers. These “words” have become so commonplace that we start to feel like we really do know a place, not unlike New York for example. For me there wasn’t much difference between actually standing in Times Square than from imagining what it was like in my head. Or perhaps this fictive or cliché description of the place has rendered it un-experiential because you cannot remove yourself from what you have been told it is like. In that sense “authentic” is just another adjective we use to describe place, it holds no further meaning for us, we have exhausted its meaning.
4 comments:
I agree with Larraine’s comment on our attempts at naming what should remain or may want to remain anonymous. I think we have a habit of needing to codify our surroundings, events feelings etc in an effort to gain a better understanding of these things. But I think sometimes by placing these labels on things we are actually obstructing our understanding because of our previous associations with whatever title we use to label the anonymous. In this article alone there were five labels given to Times Square, these were: image-place, non-place, any-place, commodified-place and audiovisual-place. Times Square may be one or all of these things but what is most important is to recognize it as the Times Square place. I believe it is a unique environment that labels will never do justice. I also have visited Times Square, but unlike Larraine I felt that no picture or video or song etc. could capture the spirit of Times Square. For me it was a completely surreal experience, it was like walking around in an amusement park in the middle of the night (but it looked like day) with no rides to go on, and no activities to do, just look and purchase. This is not to say that I think Times Square is a ‘good’ place, but there is something entirely unique about the environment created by the lights, people, buildings, cars and media. I think that the place I experienced was not any of the places that the authors suggested I visited; my experience was much more than all of those labels put together.
There were two questions this article made me think about, these were: what are the affects of planned spontaneity? and, what is the significance of the profound and the superficial with regard to place?
Planned spontaneity is by definition an oxymoron but this does not mean that it does not exist within the realm of design. I think that as designers we plan to facilitate spontaneous activities or events. So in essence we are planning for spontaneity. But what I am curious about is what happens when we structure spontaneity, does it loose its contribution to the randomness and surprise we like to have in our lives?
The profound and the superficial I think have a large contribution to our experience of place as well as our memory of place. I think that a profound experience and a superficial experience are not necessarily opposites but they both touch on something I think tourists value, that is the extreme/ adventure and the notion of authenticity. Certain places may have more prominence in our memories because of how profound the experience was at that time. The superficial may have certain effects on our memory in that we may pay particular attention to the authenticity of a place. We may remember a place more because it did not live up to our expectations of authenticity or we may remember a site more because of its authenticity. Why do you think that we crave things like the profound experience and the authentic?
When I visited Times Square, my immediate thought was, "I don't get it." My visual attention shifted rapidly without focus, trying to make sense of a cluttered, corporate-focused, tacky scene. Then I followed my NYC-resident-friend into the Virgin Megastore and bought a C.D. I felt like I was perusing an oversized strip mall, not visiting an iconic 'place.' In fact, I didn't sense 'place' at all - for me, 'place' was lost amidst the giant advertisements and corporate logos that dominate the space; perhaps that's why I too felt lost. I also felt like I had to buy something, anything. I wouldn't feel 'right' leaving Times Square without a souvenir of some sort - isn't that why people go to Times Square - to buy stuff? I suppose I may have subconsciously been searching for a sense of authenticity: if the purpose of Times Square is to sell products, I must consume said products in order to have a true (authentic) experience of the site. This relates to previous readings regarding commodification and selling tourism attractions: authenticity is not necessarily 'historical' or 'nostalgic' (as Boyer discusses), it's for sale, and I'm buying.
PLACE/Space
To add to previous discussion on labeling:
What value is added or subtracting when we label a space? What happens to a space once we name it? Does the name we give it portray the action? If we did not name the space anything would people still go there and behave in a similar manor? What would happen if I reversed the signage of the men’s and woman’s washroom around? Do I need to label the sky blue? We do occupy the sky…do we not?
Time Square:
I have never been to Time Square but I have experienced the space through movies and television. The space seems pretty boring with empty labeled spaces. What are the spaces the labels encompass? The labels falsely represent the apparent space.
The Square has become so polluted with false space that there is nothing you can do to make it better. The original “real” Time Square has a reputation that will long live its present state. Like any space or any building that has been re-manipulated to suit another function, it is never as good as the first time. Your senses are so intuitive that you pick up on the truth of the space before you can process the information.
I think this is one of the many mistakes of designers that make a game plan to recreate the already created. There are however varying degrees of creating the already created. I wonder what would happen if you left Time Square to decay. Would this make for real space?
*
I decided to use space as opposed to place because to me a place is somehow a natural extension of the individual. I have yet to find a space that I can call natural extension of myself.
Post a Comment