Alone in the Crowd

J Field Amanda

Description

Alone in the Crowd discusses the identity of nineteenth-century Paris, one of the most widely imaged cities in the modern world, whose most enduring attribute is that of a city of spectacle - a city of the pleasure of looking and being looked at simultaneously. Did Haussmann's re-figuring of the city, with its unrelenting straight boulevards, stirring vistas and uniform buildings, create a 'mass produced' image of Paris? If so, who benefited - and who lost out - in the construction of this new identity? Did the boulevards represent dystopia as well as utopia?

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 10 juillet 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781909183919
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Title Page
Alone In The Crowd
Utopia and Dystopia on the Parisian Boulevards
by
Amanda J Field



Publisher Information
First published in 2015 by
Chaplin Books
1 Eliza Place
Gosport PO12 4UN
www.chaplinbooks.co.uk
Digital edition converted and distributed by
Andrews UK Limited
www. andrewsuk.com
Copyright © 2015 Amanda J Field
The right of Amanda J Field to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder for which application should be addressed in the first instance to the publishers. No liability shall be attached to the author, the copyright holder or the publishers for loss or damage of any nature suffered as a result of the reliance on the reproduction of any of the contents of this publication or any errors or omissions in the contents.



Alone in the Crowd
A city has many faces. Just as a scene in a painting has been mediated by the artist - has in fact been re-presented - a city’s identity is composed of a complex set of signs. These signs are much more than just its physical attributes, such as its buildings, monuments and streets, which in themselves, according to Walter Benjamin, form a secret unwritten ‘text’ (Gilloch: 1996 p7). Between this physical ‘reality’ and the city’s image lie a host of mediating factors - its history, economy, politics, inhabitants and culture.
These factors will not add up to one single consistent identity for the city, as different viewers will each draw different meanings from these discourses. Indeed, many of those ‘viewers’ will only see a city through another layer of mediation - that of the way the city is represented in painting, photography, film or literature. Thus the view of the city becomes a little like a hall of mirrors, each mirror reflecting yet another representation; each slightly distorted from the last, and with no clear indication of how this might relate to the ‘original’.
The ‘hall of mirrors’ analogy is perhaps particularly apposite when discussing Paris, one of the most widely imaged cities in the modern world and one whose most enduring attribute is that of a city of spectacle - a city of the pleasure of looking and being looked at simultaneously.
It has other, equally powerful elements that make up its mythology: as the city of artistic bohemianism, of romance, of revolution and of decadence. These elements form what Michael Sheringham calls a set of fields. Perceiving Paris in this way avoids the temptation to “pin down an elusive essence” and helps dispel the illusion of an imagined unity (Sheringham: 1996 p2). Such a unity is possible, argues Adrian Rifkin (Rifkin: 1995 p53): the image of the city is fixed, but never comes fully to rest at a time or place.