1
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- ‘Narcissus comes to the spring at the city square, and believe=
s he
is seeing his beautiful reflection in the water. He is curious to see
what he looks like today. He is sustained by the feeling that he can
never fully know himself, who he really is. That is why he comes to =
the
well time and again, not to love himself but to fall in love with his
new self that is reflected in the water. He admires his picture, one
reflecting on the other, so that he finally melts into it. He does n=
ot
drown, his image drowns into him. The image wears off and becomes pa=
rt
of the self. The image of Narcissus ceases to exist as he has become=
his
own image. Tomorrow he will come again.’
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- 1. The cultural layer of urban consumption
- 2. The consumer-urbanite and public space
- 3. Spatial effects of consumerism
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3
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- 19th century Paris
- boulevard, passage
- flâneur
- the term ‘modern’ (Baudelaire: le transitoire, le fugiti=
ve,
le contingent)
- department store: ‘actice verbal interchange between customer =
and
retailer was replaced by the passive, mute response of consumer to
things’ (Rosalind Williams 1982)
- from communication to experience
- public space for women -> feminisation of urban culture
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4
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- American impact in 50’s: wealth, technology
- the welfare state: all citizens to become consumers
- ‘the big move’: late and rapid urbanisation 1965-1975
- comprehensive planning ideology: satisfying the needs of citizens
- urban sprawl: suburbs (lähiö) as the model of Finnish built
environment
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5
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- cultural transformation by the first (sub)urban generation
- from suspicion of urbanity to excitement of it
- urban media (City-lehti, Radio City, Image)
- city and locality against the state and nationality
- commercialism and liberalism against consensus politics
- aesthetics and intellectualism against the stagnation of culture
- consumerism, commercialism
- urban events (Night of Arts)
- restaurants: from bureaucracy (alcohol policy) to enjoyment*
- feminisation of urban culture
- ‘ways of life’, ‘everyday aesthetics’
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6
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- Helsinki: ‘a post-soviet city’?
- mixing European and American urbanities
- deep economic recession
- café culture, ethnic restaurants
- mobile phones: individual life-management, international focus on
Finnish urbanity
- new definition of culture in the City of Helsinki’s cultural
policy: urban, everyday, active, experiential, process, adventure
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7
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- consumerism predominating urban practices
- consumerism shaping spatial development:
- spreading of public space, publicity as an ideal
- spreading of homogenous semi-public space
- spreading of the leisure culture of youth: ‘the new middle
class’
- housing is becoming part of consumption: dream homes, differentiatio=
n,
inequality?
- participation, urbanity as experiences, urban events
- vitalism as general ideology (economy – welfare – cultur=
e,
‘creativity’, ‘innovations’)
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8
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- The research problem
- how does the city as public space function as the stage of the consu=
mer
society?
- 1) in other words how does the city as public space support and prod=
uce
culture of consumption?
- 2) how does the culture of consumption in turn shape the city as pub=
lic
space and its culture?
- has public space come to an end? (Arendt, Sennett, Davis, Putnam)*=
li>
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- the interactive approach
- Simmel: society as human interaction, study of social forms
- Chicago school: city as a product of human nature -> ethnographie=
s of
urban cultures
- Goffman: interaction order, dramaturgy and behaviour in public space=
s
- challenging the political conceptualisation of public space (res
publica) (Arendt: a void; Sennett: the fall of public man)
- pragmatism: examining the banal everyday practices, ‘the
passivity’ of consumption and communication of the
non-communicative
- solving the mystery of modern consumption: how to explain the
insatiableness of the modern man?
- ethnographic research in the centre of Helsinki and in Itäkeskus
shopping mall
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- the overwhelming amount of stimuli (Simmel)
- simultaneous and interdependent publicity and privacy
- impersonality, indifference (alienation?)
- ‘The sunny side of the Street of Indifference’
- freedom (Simmel: negative and positive), ‘Die Stadtluft macht
frei’
- anonymity of the crowd: civil inattention (Goffman), reciprocal evas=
ive
action (PM)
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- 1. theatrum mundi, theatre of the world: public space as a stage,
presentation of self, ‘voyerism’,
‘exhibitionism’ -> mimetic self-relation
- ‘theatrum mundi’ signifies the make-believe aspect of ur=
ban
life
- 2. ‘the aleatory’: chance taking, serendipity ->
anticipation, game of chance
- ‘the aleatory’ signifies the mental activity of adjusting
the unexpectedness of urban life
- Baudelaire, Sennett, Goffman, Hannerz, Asplund, Wiklund, Debord
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- The particular public form of sociality, of being at once both
interested and yet indifferent and anonymous.
- Street sociability is entertaining the sharing of public places with
strangers, with whom one is in eye contact and with a bodily closene=
ss
that is discreetly played down, but without directly addressing them=
by
voice.
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13
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- the stage-like and the aleatory: playfulness as an adaptation to the
modern urbanity
- play as a human activity: free, autonomous, autotelic, separated
make-believe miniature reality in but outside ‘the real’
reality
- tension of anonymity and intimacy
- -> romanticism of the urban crowd: who/what is the one for me?=
li>
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14
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- the aleatory in action: anticipating (the flea markets)
- women: department store, presenting of oneself in public
- anonymity -> impersonality -> I am no-one -> so I can be as=
if
anyone -> mimetic self-relation
- the mental economy of the urbanite: lots of input, no output
- turning of stimuli (Simmel) inwards from expressions to impressions<=
/li>
- -> strong inner world amongst the crowd, provided with stimuli for
imagination and the stage-like setting for self-presentation
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- alienating of one’s everyday self and tendency for romantic
dreaming: acting someone else, being present for oneself in an
‘as-if’ setting
- Campbell: modern consumption as self-illusory hedonism, individual
theatrical plays for oneself in one’s imagination
- -> the using of the goods around as stimuli for the imaginative
role-playing for one’s self in public
- shopping streets and malls are theatres of longing, inventing and
testing roles which lifestyles and styles of performing oneself
formulate
- -> modern urban consumption as shopping: the time before purchasi=
ng*
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- What happens in the action of shopping is anticipation of things whi=
ch
might turn out to be just what fits to one’s self – just
what fulfils the vague idea one had when going to wander around in t=
he
city.
- Public mimetic playfulness is about opening up of the everyday
‘role’ of personal contacts and projecting a new and
idealised image of oneself and reaching for this image by
representations which the world of goods carries.
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- shopping as a paradigmatic urban practice: privacy and fantasy provi=
ded
by the anonymous crowd as public social space, opening up for new
presentations of self, anticipation of desired encounters
- public urban activity from managing of others’ impressions
(Goffman) to facilitating and managing one’s own impressions=
li>
- consumer-urbanite gives up himself in order to reach for the new sel=
f:
explanation of the insatiableness of the modern consumer*
- romantic anticipation as a generalised way of life: puer aeternus (J=
ung)
-> city of youth
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- anti-Arendt and public space as a void: there is still a public space
– the practice of consumption forms the present public space=
li>
- communicative but non-verbal, individualistic but sociable
- metacommunication (Bateson, Geertz)
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- At the metacommunicative level urban dwellers bring to the fore publ=
icly
their cultural likings and dislikings, their styles and tastes which=
are
grown from their social positions both in the hierarchical dimension=
of
social structure and in the horizontal dimension of the ways of life=
.
- They present and represent their styles to each other and read the
styles of the others and the positions behind the styles.
- By consuming, which is the main action of the play, they simultaneou=
sly
both reproduce their positions in the social structure and work on it
and revise it imaginarily and materially.*
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- In the level of metacommunication the play reproduces social differe=
nces
and distances. But above all it reproduces tolerance to these.
- This is the more significant meaning of ‘the melting pot’=
; of
the metropolis in the level of social metacommunication: the functio=
n of
the city as urban publicity is to tell us the story of the society t=
hat
is both organised and in a constant but continuing and permanent pro=
cess
of reorganisation.
- The city as the public consumeristic space is a story we tell of
ourselves to ourselves. (Geertz)
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- the city still functions as a place for leaving one’s self and
opening up to the otherness, but in an individualistic way (Narcissu=
s)
- pro-Arendt: this does not signify political public space (res public=
a),
nor does it imply a total loss of significance of it – problem:
convertibility of political opinions when judgment of the world are
playful and based role-taking
- we need to focus on the ways people retain each other far enough from
themselves as the basis of social life of the modern city, rather th=
an
seeking formation of urban community as such.
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- My standpoint is that the playful consumerism is not to be opposed.
Consumption – if we put its ecological consequences aside R=
11;
is our way of life and signifies much more than just materialistic
values it is accused of in everyday moralising. So, unlike Debord and
other situationists, for example, I’m not worried of the souls=
of
the urbanites, so to say.
- Instead, my worry is that the physical essence of the city is
endangered, and those who commit to impoverishing it are not just
capitalists but consumers for whom the city as a façade for t=
heir
mimetic imaginaries is sufficient.
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- thesis: the play form of modern consumption determines urban space=
li>
- 1980's: the shopping mall copies the city (Helsinki)
- 1990's: the city(centre) copies the shopping mall
- public space reaches into the interior -> semi-public space
- glass walls, no doors -> panopticon, impulsive behaviour
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25
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- All the spatial qualities of this space have to do with accessibilit=
y:
visual openness of glass plated walls, doors replaced by enlarged
openings, and the general blurring of the boundary between inside and
outside.
- The visual openness – the city as an aquarium – is to be
found in Helsinki with recently opened cafés and restaurants,
Parisian type of tram stop shelters, trams themselves and many office
buildings, as well.
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- semi-public interiors, covered space -> space for public convenie=
nce
- the weakening of space: façade for experiential activity (from
physical space to mental space); space and spatiality have lost their
cultural resonance
- self-sufficient miniature cities, interior cities (malls, galleries,
Sanomatalo, museums)
- ‘terminal cities’ inside the city: visiting the city wit=
hout
being outdoors
- history of modern commercial space: retail store – department
store – shopping mall – retail centre or an artificial
retail city? (www.ideapark.fi)
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- The spatial order of series of spaces opening up when walked on the
streets of the city is in a process of transforming to spaces openin=
g up
inside other spaces. The city becomes like a Russian wooden puppet in
which there is a smaller puppet inside, as if ad infinitum.
- This kind of spatial order corresponds to the order of play. The pla=
y is
by definition a reality in reality, a miniature world inside the wor=
ld.
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- How to make a city for the inner-directed imaginaries of
consumer-urbanites when ‘the mimetic desire’ (Benjamin) =
of
the consumeristic play implies absorbing to one’s surroundings=
?
- How to avoid spatial unidimensionality and sameness?
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- New semi-public space is overly uniform, although urbanites have
performed a tendency to multiplied cultural consumption, for example
urban happenings, cultural events and mobile telecommunication.
- Urban public space should be open for urban dwellers to leave their
marks on, to trace and share the marks of others, as well as to comm=
ent
on them and to contest them.
- Communicative planning should not forget the non-communicative.
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- Arendt’s classic idea on public space was leaving oneself and
laying oneself open to others (and Other). This should and could be a
conscious aim on urban planning in the consumeristic city, as well.<=
/li>
- The physical urban space of the city (urbs) should mirror the social
community that inhabits it (civitas).
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- It is still the logic of theatrum mundi (worldly theatre) that gover=
ns
urban sociality. But urbanites do not project their selfhood onto sp=
ace,
instead they project their selfhood onto performances of their selve=
s in
space.
- This is the public man of today in action, and he/she is worth of a =
city
which is consumeristic but something more.
- The challenge is to create space which follows both the everyday
practise and the strong imaginary of the consumer-urbanite but leads=
to
something different.
- Here is where urban sociology stops and creative planning should go =
on.
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- Pasi Mäenpää
- Ph.D, researcher
- Department of Sociology
- University of Helsinki
- pasi.maenpaa@helsinki.fi
- http://www.valt.helsinki.fi/staff/pamaenpa/
- +358 9 191 24615
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