W5: Amusement & Distraction

Class begins with follow-up on Presentations of Possible sites.

Ipek advises us to employ an ethnographical approach

Kracauer's Cult of Distraction

 * Kracauer observes the development of mass society and talks about the agency of this mob
 * "The more people perceive themselves as a mass" the more they demand to be served (325)


 * Urban Phenomenon
 * liberating environment of cities


 * Sociological Explanation of Distraction
 * Working class daily lives not fulfilling, thus the need for a site to compensate with "distraction."
 * Work as an "abyss" (327)


 * Spectacles approximating reality (327)

Rem Koolhaas

 * Delirious New York (1978)




 * City of Captive Globe
 * Each block is a city within a city


 * Self-proclaimed influences such as:
 * Le Corbusier's Plan Viosin towers
 * Wallace Harrison's buildings for New York World's Fair


 * Koolhaas builds an idea of Manhattan as an incubator for the idea of the world


 * And Coney Island is the incubator of Manhattan architecture

Coney Island



 * Interrogating the "Safety Valve" argument
 * Entertainment as a means of escape
 * Not an end of the capitalist/industrial machine -> but another face of it


 * Perhaps this needs to be thought of more in the capitalist mindset, as something that is financially not socially or politically motivated


 * Is Coney Island an outgrowth of the Pleasure Garden


 * Nathaniel: Production of a space to be a Stranger (liberation from the Neighborhood)


 * Question of Coney Island Libration


 * Nathaniel: IS Coney Island the Amusement Park in Walt Disney's | Pinocchio

Disaster & Chaos

 * Is an opportunity for Civilization to suggest its dominance over chaos?
 * Or is it an affirmation of technology -> thus Industrial Society?


 * Why are these amusements pleasurable?


 * Is it the danger that excites the mind & body?
 * Or relief from danger?


 * Are Amusement Parks an outgrowth of Spectules?
 * Spectacular Culture made bodily? Inhabitable?
 * Where once you might simply be in awe of the Ferris Wheel -> Now you can participate in it?
 * So are amusements a sort of participatory amusement?


 * The Experience of the Body -> How important is this?

The View

 * Is this the object of the Ferris Wheel?
 * Or of all tall areas -> "VISTA"

Compressed Time & Space

 * Are Amusements Microcosmic experiences?
 * Do they show the world in brief, in abstraction
 * Some have claimed that the roller coaster is a compression of the journey by train

Ipek's Ending Notes

 * We need to be attentive as to how social difference is constructed and maintained
 * Remember to watch "You Must be This Tall"
 * Filmmaker will be in class next week
 * About Rocky Point in Rhode Island