{"id":581,"date":"2016-10-20T00:32:10","date_gmt":"2016-10-19T22:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.woydt.be\/blog\/?p=581"},"modified":"2023-08-29T13:47:43","modified_gmt":"2023-08-29T11:47:43","slug":"mediterranization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woydt.be\/blog\/?p=581","title":{"rendered":"Mediterranization"},"content":{"rendered":"

“The old city<\/a> centres have been flooded with people in recent years. … In London especially … the centre has been taken over entirely by masses of tourists<\/a>. At the same time, however, the new masses are made up not only of foreign tourists – in London perhaps, but certainly not in Lille or Brussels. Day-trippers, suburbanites and local residents<\/a> are also joining in a trend to stroll en masse around the old city centre. …<\/p>\n

The scenery is fake and can become a scenery of consumption<\/a> only through artifice. … Christine Boyer: ‘The contemporary visitor looking for public urban places<\/a> is increasingly forced to stroll through recycled and revalued areas … urban tableaux that have been turned into gentrified, historicized, commercialized and privatized places.’ …<\/p>\n

Boyer writes: ‘City<\/a> after city is discovering that its abandoned industrial waterfront or out-of-fashion downtown contains a huge tourist potential and redesigns it as a leisure spectacle and promenade<\/a>. …’ This process can be termed as mediterranization of the city … While coastal resorts of the late nineteenth century plopped the city on the seaside – Brighton could have been called London-on-the-Sea, Ostend Brussel-Bad and Le Touquet Paris-les-Bains – the reverse now takes place; the ersatz urban quality of\u00a0the sea-side resort is re-exported to the city. … Humanity<\/a> is adapting … to global warming. …<\/p>\n

Mediterranization is not so much a sign of … a new public<\/a> life<\/a>, but rather an injection into the city of the archetype from the dream world of advertising<\/a>: the universal beach party. … The neo-theatrical city is the city in the era of transcendental tourism, an age defined by tourism as one of the basic forms of our existence. … Tourism … is one of the vital economic functions of the old city …<\/p>\n

The culture of the outdoor-caf\u00e9 is the new sociability. … And the poor<\/a>, the immigrants, the Fourth World? They will have to make way and bite the bullet, as always. … There is a very real possibility that this balancing act will fail. … One has to think in terms of a dual movement. Encapsulation versus mediterranization. …<\/p>\n

An outdoor-caf\u00e9 culture and the reconstruction of historical areas turn the city into a theme park … The city has always been a theatre … the theme park was invented in Athens or Rome … There is no culture without simulacra … Just as the critique aimed at the artifice of urban scenery is probably<\/a> as old as philosophy<\/a>, which posits being versus seeming, and critique (judgement) versus myth (story).”<\/p>\n

“It is precisely the point at which the city dweller is relegated to the merely passive, assimilating role of the (anonymous) spectator and the consumer of a spectacle that is decisive. … It all comes down to keeping the dividing line – between spectacle and everyday life, between stage and auditorium, between audience and players, between the city dweller as actor<\/a> and as spectator, between active and passive – blurred, open. For a more absolute division threatens the city.”<\/p>\n

aus: Lieven De Cauter: The Neo-Theatrical City. On the Old Metropolis and the New Masses. In: ders.: The Capsular Civilisation. On the City in the Age of Fear. Rotterdam: NAi 2004, S. 30-36 (Erstver\u00f6ffentlichung 1999).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

10\/16<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The old city centres have been flooded with people in recent years. … In London especially … the centre has been taken over entirely by masses of tourists. At the same time, however, the new masses are made up not only of foreign tourists – in London perhaps, but certainly not in Lille or Brussels. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woydt.be\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woydt.be\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woydt.be\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woydt.be\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woydt.be\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=581"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.woydt.be\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3947,"href":"https:\/\/www.woydt.be\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581\/revisions\/3947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woydt.be\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woydt.be\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woydt.be\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}