Walking in Late Capitalism Dialectic of Aestheticization and Commodification Anja Hälg Bieri Dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In the School of Public and International Affairs College of Architecture and Urban Studies Paul L. Knox Brian M. Britt Sonia A. Hirt Simone W. Paterson 23 October 2015 Blacksburg, VA Keywords: Walkable urbanism, walking as art, aestheticization, audio-walks Copyright © 2015 by Anja Hälg Bieri 0 Walking in Late Capitalism Dialectic of Aestheticization and Commodification Anja Hälg Bieri Abstract Walking has become a trend in the USA. In recent years, the desire to walk has brought forth specific urban design for walkable places as well as art forms that focus on walking. Whence this trend? This dissertation studies the socio-economic and cultural context that brought forth the aestheticized forms of walking such as walking in designed walkable places and walking as art. The theoretical framework to study this genealogy is based in social anthropology, critical theory, theatre studies and the practice of audio-walks. A ‘dialectic of aestheticization and commodification’ runs through modernity that generates aestheticized forms of walking today. While walking is initially a form of aesthetic struggle against the rational principles of modernity and the forces of capitalism, this struggle is co-opted by the logic of capital in a continuous interlacing of the processes of aestheticization and commodification. The social and spatial consequences of capitalism together with the process of aestheticization of society produce new spatial forms of capitalism, new commodified forms of social interaction, and new forms of walking. What became of the yearning for agency through walking? With ‘walkable urbanism’, capital returns to the city center and creates new markets for a budding walkable life-style which is fed through conspicuous consumption and the commodified ‘walkable body’. With walking as art, the struggle for more physical, intellectual and political agency through walking goes on. While fighting with the self-referential loop of postmodern performing art, art walking opens up doors to new paths for contemporary art that lead out of post-dramatic art, beyond the 1 phenomenology of embodied experience, and out of the manipulating products of the culture industry in order to create art that offers room for imagination – the source of social change. 2 Acknowledgements My warm thanks go to my advisor Paul L. Knox for his smooth guidance of our ship through the adventurous waters of doctoral studies, for his trenchant suggestions and advice, and for the many wonderful evenings hosted by his wife Lynne. The journey was accompanied by a fabulous transdisciplinary committee: I thank Brian Britt for sharing his spirited way of engaging with Critical Theory and with Walter Benjamin’s writings in particular. I thank Sonia Hirt for her clear, structuring mind and her depth in historic and theoretical knowledge of architecture and urban design. I thank Simone Paterson for steadily holding the artist-scholar position and view and for sharing with me the inspiring approach of practice-led research. I also thank Timothy W. Luke for introducing me to the doctoral program. So many persons have contributed in one way or the other to my work and I would like to extend a collective thank you for their engaging with me, their reading and comments, their critique, their support, their inspiration. At Virginia Tech: Gerry Kearns, Anne Khademian, Patty Raun, Minnis Ridenour, Karen E. Till. At the University of Michigan: Robert Fishman, Elizabeth Goodenough, Douglas Kelbaugh, Amy Kulper, Martin Murray, and the architects at the University of Michigan Liberty Research Annex who gave me a production home away from home while we lived in Ann Arbor, especially Maria Arquero de Alarcon, Craig Borum, Jennifer Maigret, Geoffrey Thun, Katy Velikov. Further I extend my thanks to Robert A. Beauregard and to Carol Becker for inspiring exchanges. Thanks to the students who participated in creating audio-walks at Virginia Tech and at the University of Michigan. Thank you, David! iv iv A Note on Image Credits Credited images are reproduced on a ‘fair use’ basis. Certain images are only represented by the URL to the source. All other photographs are by the author and licensed under a Creative Commons License. v v Table of Contents Abstract III Acknowlegements IV A Note on Image Credits V Introduction 1 Structure 25 Part 1: Walkable Urbanism – Spatial Fix and Life-Style 27 The Pursuit of Walkable Happiness or The Walkability Fix 30 1.1. Walkable Urbanism and Visual Culture 36 Dialectical Movements towards Aestheticized Walking 37 Instant Iconology or Learning from Learning from Las Vegas 43 Aestheticization of Art: Images of Americana in Theatre 49 Aestheticization in Academia: Social and Academic Reproduction of the Spectacle 52 Aestheticization in Urban Design and Planning: Images and Imaginaries of Urbanity 65 Depolitization through Commodified Aestheticization 91 Walking Isn't Just Good for You, or the Walkable Aporia 98 Standardizing Walkable Urbanism and Walkability 105 The New Non-Places 112 1.2. The Walkable Body 125 The Postmodern Flâneur or the Contemporary Sandwich-Wo/Man 125 Aestheticized Body and Space in Late Capitalism 128 Container Space and Social Space 132 Biological Body and Social Body 139 Socio-Spatial Skills for a Socio-Spatial Order 144 The Walkable Spectacle Needs Walkable Bodies 152 The ‘Walkable Body’: Incorporating the ‘Walkability Fix’ 158 Part 2: Walks of Art 162 2.1 Art in Context 170 Walking Art and Postmodernity 172 Spatial Turn 175 Everyday 181 vi vi Aestheticization 185 Autobiography 194 2.2. Audio-Walks – Towards an Aesthetic Form 198 The Performative Turn 201 Action, Time and Place 202 The Notion of Performative 203 Detaching Signifier/Signified 205 Media Collapse 206 Is It Anti-Art? 209 On Postdramatic Theatre 211 Audio-Walks as Aesthetic Form 215 On Aesthetic Form 216 Mimesis and Reality 220 Walking through Postmodernity 222 The Audio-Walks of Janet Cardiff 226 The Dialectic in Audio-Walks 230 Aesthetic Education with Audio-Walks 234 1. Blacksburg Walks 234 Geography Meets Aesthetic Education 234 Audio-Walks on the Ecologies of Food 236 2. Soundscapes of Childhood 238 Literature meets Geography meets Aesthetic Education 238 Healing Walks 240 Postmodernity devours its offspring 243 Conclusion 247 References 256 vii vii Introduction Once we could have fun denouncing the dark, solid reality concealed behind the brilliance of appearances. But today there is allegedly no longer any solid reality to counter-pose to the reign of appearances, nor any dark reverse side to be opposed to the triumph of consumer society. Let me say at the outset: I do not intend to add my voice to this discourse. On the contrary, I would like to show that the concepts and procedures of the critical tradition are by no means obsolete. They still function very well, precisely in the discourse of those who proclaim their extinction. (Rancière 2009) N’est-il pas réellement bien extraordinaire de voir que, depuis le temps que l’homme marche, personne ne se soit demandé pourquoi il marche, comment il marche, s’il marche, s’il peut mieux marcher, ce qu’il fait en marchant, s’il n’y aurait pas moyen d’imposer, de changer, d’analyser sa marche: questions qui tiennent à tous les systèmes philosophiques, psychologiques et politiques dont s’est occupé le monde? (de Balzac, [1833] 2011) The inspiration for my dissertation started to develop a few weeks after I arrived in the USA. I came in the early summer of 2009 to join my partner and to live here for as long as we could and would. We lived in a small college town in the Appalachian Hills of Virginia. A beautiful place, and the Blue Ridge Mountains reminded me a lot of the Jura hills of Switzerland where I grew up. I wanted to go and hike on these hills and through the meadows following the little creeks. But I soon realized that all the land was private and there were but a few public trails made by courageous souls who were into “outdoors” and hiking. Alright, let’s walk where it is allowed then, I thought, in a first hesitating acknowledgement that my understanding of public space was not a universal one, and so I would either hike the Appalachian Trail or walk on the sidewalks and streets downtown and back. Soon my bicycle arrived with the shipment of a 1 selection of goods from a former life in Europe. The commute to the town and the university was reduced to 10 minutes thanks to my bike, but it was also complemented with the extra thrill of riding a bike in a town where only 9 others owned a bicycle. Suddenly I would wear my helmet every day. I would yell at cars who bypassed me too closely, or throw up my arms against the planners who would let a bike lane abruptly stop with nowhere to go. I only understood later how very progressive my town was to even have the few bike lanes it had painted on the street. It was the same when I walked. I did not think of walking as a form of transportation then. I did not think of walking as an active choice or a special thing to do at all. I simply walked because a more or less efficient mixture of taking a bus, riding a bike, walking, or driving a car, was what I had been used to. But here, public or mass transit was hardly existent, driving a car seemed exaggerated for this short distance, streets and roads were not practical, walking and biking was hazardous and complicated.