>If the ground of operations of the
>visual is the visual faculty, then what is the operational 'ground' of
>the image?
>Does the relation between images, imagination-activation, and the urban
>come down to a struggle in the field of *attention*?
pow!
well put, jordan.
what if we consider for a moment that 'gap' you refer to as being
transgressed by the imaginative faculties of a desiring subject, without
which the image could not exist? (might this be the 'operational ground'
you're looking for?) by doing so we would locate the image not within it's
technical facing, nor completely within some form of subjectivity, but as a
complex negotiation between the two. what follows are some impromptu
thoughts on two different sites of this negotiation...
tour eiffel
when we substitute the eiffel tower for our image of paris, we are
facilitated through the following conditions (as Barthes points out):
(1)the tower itself is a virtually empty sign in that it potentially
signifies everything and therefore nothing (2)there is no parisian glance
the tower fails to touch at some point in the day... and in this sense it
doesn't matter wether it is the actual tower or it's picture-posctard that
touches... it is always there, periodically encountered, forming a ground
against which perceptions of the city figure...
here, the tower acts simultaneously as a conduit and a collector: a conduit
in the sense that the imagination is mobilized and dispersed into the field
of mnemonic images of the city acquired through both mediated and
non-mediated experiences, some mythic, others directly lived; a collector
in the sense that it serves to gather together these images through its
agency as a spark igniting the recollective act.
now barthes states (after maupassant's example) that the only way to negate
the tower is to (literally) inhabit it, to identify with it (we're told
maupassant would eat his lunch there because it was the only vantage point
from which he could avoid looking at the thing)... the tower being "the
only blind point of the total optical system of which it is the center and
paris the circumference"... yet by doing so, the tower acquires a new
power: it becomes a 'lookout', offering the objectification of paris up to
our searching gaze...
what is perhaps most important about the tower for the tourist industry is
that no matter what paris becomes, the tower endures: reliable, efficient,
infinitely reproducible; this would be so even if it were to be torn down...
infoboxberlin
potsdammerplatz/leipzigerplatz
"a very permanent-looking temprary building where many sorts of
multimedia toys show the privatisation of a much-vexed "public space."
(Jordan Geiger) arguably the current #1 tourist attraction in berlin, i
might add.
having recently from that city after an intensive week of field-work for a
project i'm currently working on, i'd say that the 'image' of berlin is
perhaps one of the most aggressively contested urban sites today.
it might be argued that the development of the urban fabric of 20th century
berlin is a product more of a process of erasure than one of construction.
both the allied bombing campaigns of the second world war, and the
construction and subsequent removal of the berlin wall, marking the
duration of the cold war, have left the city with a series of urban
erasures: gaps within an otherwise continuous built environment. these
gaps contain, through absence, the presence of the historical events by
which they were produced, preserving an image of a past through it's
erasure. taken at the scale of the city, the collection of these gaps
becomes a dispersed monument, committing to memory not an official
narrative but a series of enigmas whose significance is ultimately
constructed through the interplay between evidence, memory and the
imagination.
with the reunification of germany and the relocation of the government to
berlin, these gaps are rapidly being filled as the city prepares itself to
once again serve as the country's capitol. potsdamerplatz, a thriving 19th
century urban center devastated by air raids in 1945 and engulfed by the
buffer zone created by the Wall in 1963, is currently one of the largest
construction sites in europe. when completed, the new multi-block complex
will house corporations such as daimler-benz, sony, ITT, bewag, deutsche
bahn, and telekom. the erasures of 20th century berlin, and the historical
events they bear witness to, are themselves in the process of being erased
by the frenzy of construction currently in progress.
as Jordan G points out, much of this "passes under the local rubric of
'Critical Reconstruction'... reinforcing the notion that Germany is now
strictly
'reunified' and becoming 'restored' to its natural state (and not
annexed and being remoulded by a politically conservative wave of
speculation.)" and the bright red 'info-box' plays a primary role in the
dissemination of this party line. through highly elaborate computer
animations, the visitor is projected into a future of the seamless
transnational corporate development of perhaps the most valuable real
estate berlin has to offer.
leaving aside for the moment the spectacle of germany reinventing itself
through the agency of the TNC, i think what is interesting here is the
calculated program of forgetting that this enterprise mobilizes... in the
interim period between 'now' and the completion of construction is inserted
a high resolution picture of a future-berlin brand-spanking new, rendered
legitimate and believable through the technology employed (keep in mind
Sony and Deusche Telekom are a major players here); a multi-media
extravaganza on par with the best the epcot center has to offer; fun for
the whole family! certified by the State itself!
what is significant here is that the image here is formulated prior to the
arrival of the urban itself, packaged and distributed through the agency of
tourism, taking the form of edu-tainment.
how does that which constitutes 'the urban' mutate when it's existance is
preceded by it's image? what becomes of all that is left "out of the
picture"? what happens when the 'center' becomes, as herr Geiger suggests,
more for citizens of the world than of berlin?
oh where is our dear maupassant to take his lunch today?
and/
department of public works
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