January 2009 Archives
This model is a response to the saturation of the hyperreal and the illusion. It is also a response to canary wharf, presented as an illusion in context of fitting into its 'architecture'. The model is a study looking at Canary Wharfs facades, keeping the same logic as the buildings that surround it; that is transparency and the standardized grid. The model keeps the standardized grid, however looses the physical sense of transparency, replacing it with a phenomenal transparency.
This 'tricks' the mind into miss reading the facade as different, however upon closer reading the transparency can be understood.
The illusion continues internally in response to the external facade; that is the external attributes become a rigid formal grid, linear. The external however, becomes an inversion of this logic; fluid, organic, grid, with the physical sense of transparency returning.
Disneyland has become the hyperreal
city; that is a fictional island placed within the cityscape, presented to the
public through its facades to mimic entire communities, through the creation of
a series of artificial worlds as film sets.
This hyper reality becomes pushed upon its audience through propaganda,
playing with our desires 'to escape' through the endorphins produced within
this reality. As the city becomes filled
with interventions, hyperreal simulations, it ceases to be real and a reality
of [substitute] proxy has therefore been created. Pushed in the pursuit of profit, and profit
alone.
The cityscape has become filled with
branded interventions, all of which hide their ultimate purpose, that is, they
are all there to grab at our conscious and subconscious trying to influence
decisions through blurring the boundary or creating a transparency into privacy. They are positioned to appear 'better than
real' as an imaginary front to their real purpose. These unassuming facades or unassuming
islands scattered throughout the city become interacted with by a mass
audience, therefore these 'hyperreal simulations' become a substituted reality.
The branded interventions and the theme
park have taken the city out of the context in which it should exist,
successfully creating the illusion of it being a theme park. It offers a variety of entertainment from
sightseeing tours to visiting historical sites [rides] such as London dungeon,
futuristic rides; the Apple store, cultural rides; Notting hill carnival. Everything has been reduced to a commodity,
to be consumed by the inhabitants of the city.
Is there a desire for reality to come
back into being? Is there need for the hyperreal in order to "awaken the
impression"1 of real to exist,
and what will the hyperreal become to achieve this? The theme park has created a world of
unassuming facades which hide the ideological violent 'machine' that is
manipulating the mass audience.
The way we perceive
the built environment and navigate our way through it is similar to that of a
film script; taking in any image that is placed in front of us. The strategic placement of imagery throughout
the city will have an impression upon our conscious and subconscious. Borries stated that: "In the USA in the
1950s, cinemas are said to have increased ice cream sales by inserting
advertisements of ice cream, lasting only fractions of a second, into the
evening's feature film. These advertising
images were never consciously perceived by cinema audiences, but instead only
subliminally."2
The positioning and hidden agenda of these unassuming facades become
their narrators, that is, how they are presented throughout the landscape become
ambiguous and dual purpose. These facades take on a variety of different forms
from billboards, shop windows and clothing to events and event spaces. They become branded interventions within the
landscape.
Borries stated that:
"They (brand) do not alter the built space, but instead alter our
perceptions of it, of its histories, recollections, and meanings, reorganizing
our mental map."3.
The built environment on the whole is static, however, it's the
perception of this static environment that changes, this can change rapidly to
suit the desired purpose by adding a temporary layer through propaganda. The outreach of the theme park utilizes this
for its desires.
The theme park is the
complete construction of the unassuming facades with its outreach into the city
through the strategic placement of its facades.
The desires within society are to visit
and interact with cultural sites of interest and cultural activities rather
than ones that are built out of branding.
However, it is how the brand has concealed itself through methods of
camouflage that allow them to become affective in their pursuit to change the
way in which the cityscape is perceived.
The simple facades utilized, such as billboards, becomes white noise
throughout the landscape.
The new facade is focused around
cultural interest; playing with peoples desires to be involved in experiences
of creating events and event spaces.
"As when a group of young
artists (accompanied by the requisite media) stormed Berlin museums to install posters reading "Down with
the Spanish champions." Here, the soliciting of public attention follows
the pattern set by the
media guerilla, and observers may well have believed these were in fact young
artists attempting to come
to terms with the musealization of art.
But the group storming the museum were actually
paid actors hired by an agency to install advertisements for a soccer
match..."4
This is also
utilised in other methods such as altering how existing spaces are used and are
therefore perceived, for example; Nike altered the use of a subway into a pipe
for skate boarding also allowing basketball and football to be played within it,
temporarily altering how the subway was perceived in the community through its new
uses. The creation of these fake events and
event spaces become the unassuming facades, the hyperreal fake simulations. Corporations, whether it be Disney or Nike
all compete for the attention of the mass, engulfing the landscape with their
unassuming facades.
The effect that the theme park has on
the landscape becomes two fold, that is, it accidentally changes the perceived
outlook and therefore use of the city as well as becoming a hyperreal island
within the cityscape, through its outreached unassuming facades. Perceived from this perspective the city
becomes an accidental theme park, the masses now have a choice of rides with either
traditional culture or evolved culture; this is the difference of visiting St.
Peter's Basilica and The Pantheon to The London Eye and Madame Tussauds. This evolved culture, such as The London
Dungeon which evolved from a prison to a tourist attraction incorporating rides
within the static cultural 'ride', becomes a fake simulation of a simulation of
what it once was.
The distinction between these traditional
culture events and fake simulations are deteriorating as the use of the spaces
change in relation to the brands evolution.
The theme parks outreach to its mass
audience relies on our ability to dream; to have the ability to transport ourselves
into the reality of a novel and to become nostalgic. Pallasmaa states that: "Memory takes us back to distant cities,
and novels transport us through cities in invoked by the magic of the writer's
world."5 We are transported to
where our memory wants to and can take us; we can re-visit these places
triggered through our senses. Pallasmaa
also stated that: "Perception,
memory and imagination are in constant interaction; the domain of presence
fuses into images of memory and fantasy.
We keep constructing an immense city of evocation and remembrance, and
all the cities we have visited are precincts in this metropolis of the
mind."6
Disneyland utilizes the restoration and
creation of fantasy in its pursuit for profit through its unassuming facades
within the city as well as within its own islands within Disney's theme park
empire.
The appetite for fantasy becomes the
fuel for this three dimensional illusional dreamscape, which in turn fuels its
mass audiences to dream and keep dreaming.
Its reality is one of participation, allowing one's self to become both a
participant within the narrated script of this fake 'dream-like' reality, and an
observer to the stories and films of Disney becoming transported by memory into
the writers world.
The evolution of its script allows the
constant dreaming of its 'guests', similar to that of reading a new novel; that
is, through Disneyland's constant change and renewal of its attractions and
stories ensures this survival adding new "helpings of happiness"7. Assimilating culture and technology by its
'dreamakers' into its theme park in its ever expanding search for new
illusions, dreams and fantasies, creating its own culture.
Disneyland has become a city in itself;
a city within a city that is modelled upon the idea of an ideal city; modelled
upon the idea of the 'pleasure parks' of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. Harris states:
"Excursions into illusion, excitement, myth-making, and role playing, (...)
theme parks have evolved into the laboratories, churches, and amphitheatres of
a new culture."8 Its culture behind
the theme park is one of a continuing experiment into the ideal city, one of
illusion and fantasy, fuelled by the desires of society 'to escape'.
The 'sets', that build up its
unassuming facades of this new culture, become further aesthetic and amusing
through their creation of the better than real look shown throughout their
city. The sets become representational
to the 'ideal city' were 'guests' and 'cast members' live and work. The employees (cast members) consist of
gardeners, architects, electricians, engineers, cooks, security, nurses, guides
etc, whilst the tourists (guests) become the controlled members of the City's
'public'; controlled through exclusion of those unable to pay. The cast members and guests therefore become
a part of this ideal; Harris stated that:
"It was Imagineering's attempt to take a complex idea of an entire
"living community" (...) and synthesize it into the theme-park
genre."9
Disneyland has created utopian society
ideals within the walls of their city through the creation of a society that is
based upon the pursuit of illusion and fantasy in which to create happiness. As Harris said: "a new, harmonious sense of community
built around the consumption of pleasure."10
Tuan and Hoelscher said: "Disneyland
is thus alive with animated creatures. (...) helps to sustain the illusion of a
paradisiac world in which animals and people, animals that are larger than life
and look like huggable cherubim, can all live in close proximity, offer one another,
if not intimate friendship, then wonder and excitement without risk of bodily
harm."11
Disneyland's ideal to create a utopian
society, this pursuit of the garden's of Eden is ultimately an illusion based
upon a maximum amount of control. It is
a vary-focal vision of utopian ideals based upon a dystopian control; controlled by its own 'police' and within a
gated community in which not all may enter, its 'guests' entering this
sanctuary at a price, and being politely told where to go and what to do.
Disneyland ethics also produce a vary-focal
vision; that is, on the surface the misleading fronts are a cheerful paradise
based upon; as Tuan and Hoelscher stated: "Disneyland's sunny exuberance
lies in the belief that Good triumphs over Evil, that the little fellow,
through a combination of luck, courage, and cunning, can always overcome in the
end the big bad person in his or her numerous guises, all of which signify
Power and its abuse."12
The abuse of power that the theme park
signifies becomes the unethical, symbolic violence behind its facades that is
projected onto a mass audience. This
power is activated through: surveillance, control of space, exclusion of the poor,
the endless production of simulation and the lack of freedom of speech. This is centralized in its theme parks and its
diffused consumption over society through its outreach into the real city.
In the real city, this diffusion is created
by the programmed propaganda through multiple methods such as: billboards,
flyers, clothing, costumes, 'Disney' buses and cruise ships, all physical
interventions within the city. Disney
utilizes digital medias in their propaganda through blogs, websites, television
station, cartoons and films all reaching to the masses through a level of their
privacy, their home. Due to this ability
of Disney's brand being able to reach a wide audience through multiple medias,
the communication of its image becomes control of imagination and knowledge
through the, previously mentioned, thin, changing and evolving layer that is
added to the city to which the masses are exposed to and interact with.
Zukin stated that: "Broadcast television
broke all existing barriers between public and private, local and global, the
living room and the world, until the viewers rather than the image became the
product."13 The masses become the
product of the reality of these fake simulations, a product for the brand to consume
and control, through desires to fuel itself.
We ourselves are living and working in the
reality of a theme park, as branded 'cast' members and 'guests' working and
playing within its walls creating and accepting its ever changing reality of
fake simulations and illusions, within both public and private spaces of our
city.
However, even the public spaces within
the city are increasingly controlled by the private corporations, becoming
spaces into which public entry is carefully restricted for the desire of profit. Sorkin stated that: "colluding in the
privatization of public space".14 The
public spaces are being replaced with illusional desirable interventions by the
brand, as Sorkin said "The private sphere of nostalgic desires and
imagination is increasingly manipulated by stag sets and city tableaux set up
to stimulate our acts of consumption"15
Our city's reality becomes constructed
with the fake simulations, these hyperreal interventions 'set up to stimulate
acts of consumption', this is based upon the model of Disneyland and our
desires to escape. We have become a
product of this reality, consumed by the illusions, paying for "helpings
of happiness"7, while the brand blurs the boundaries between public and
private in the 'dreamakers' search for new illusions, dreams and fantasies; thrusting
their next delusion onto their public.
Disneyland becomes a condensed version of this illusionary reality, a
city wholly constructed around a brand's set of stories where the visitor is
fully absorbed into this illusion, therefore not a place 'to escape' illusionary tectonics and
propaganda.
The distinction
between the hyperreal island and reality that we live within has become
blurred. The reach that the brand has
within the city through the creation of fake simulations has created a reality
of proxy, a substituted world. The
repetition of these simulations over time creates a loss of identity and
meaning; the reality that it has created is 'dulling down' through the yearning
for change. Tuan and Hoelscher
stated that Disneyland's illusions should only be experienced for a short
period of time: "A few seconds of starry-eyed watching is fine, more than
this risks dis-illusionment and boredom."16 This is true for the fake simulations that the
brand has created within the reality of proxy.
As we interact and navigate through this
reality of proxy, the illusions that are presented to us become a part of
everyday 'narrated plot' of our lives, over short periods of time the fake
illusions take on repetition through regularity within our narrated plot. These illusions start to take on the concept
of rhythm as they become a series of images presented to us frequently and
repetitively. As Reiser and Umemoto stated: "A name once it becomes
repeated, ceases to become semantic and takes on the characteristics and properties
of a rhythm, or refrain."17 Through
this repetition the overused fake illusions that have created this reality of
proxy lose their meaning.
Within this dulled down reality there
is a desire for reality to come into being; the overused layer of illusion
within the city, hyperreal island and facades to evaporate. In a city driven by brand fake representational
simulations there is a desire for a simulation that allows the conscious mind
to distinguish between reality and fantasy.
There then becomes a desire 'to escape'
not through 'reality by proxy' (that is to escape through the writers desires) that
has been heavily utilized by the brand within their interventions throughout
the city; but rather a 'reality of proxy' that is one that becomes not of a
visual representation of a fake illusion but rather allows one to experience
things for what they mean. The creation
of a real island within the hyperreal city that will reinforce reality from the
proxy by awakening the conscious mind of the masses to the world that surrounds
us.
The city that we live in has become saturated
by hyperreality that has created a reality of proxy, shaped by the brand
through the construction of the 'unassuming facade' these are fake simulations
within the landscape.
These fake simulations are illusions, that is they have changed how the
city is perceived through methods such as the temporary destruction of 'space'
and its original idea or use.
The abuse of power that the theme park denotes
becomes the unethical, symbolic violence behind their facades that is projected
onto a mass audience. This is initialized
in the theme parks and diffused by propaganda over society, into the city. Disneyland monopolies upon our desires to
escape, learning from our reactions to
their illusions they continually adapt to create their next better illusion,
this in turn gets projected through the city keeping the control cycle and
proxy going.
Reality of proxy is created through the
impact of fake simulations; our interaction with this reality also becomes fake
as with anything else associated with the simulation, destroying values
associated such as money. The brand has
successfully turned the consumer into a product to be consumed through the
brands desires.
Reality has become a series of fake
illusions within the city to which the illusions have become copies of copies
in themselves, losing their meaning through repetition and rhythm.
To break the hypnotic trance Disneyland offers as a form of escape and reinforce
reality, the conscious mind must be awakened to the hyperreal city and the
reality of proxy that has been created, by the creation of a new island that
offers reality rather than the hyperreal that has saturated the city.
