11 February 2008
the suburbs dream of violence: a trip to bluewater
[all quotes from Ballard's Kingdom Come]
Like all great shopping malls, the Metro-Centre smothered unease, defused its own threat and offered balm to the weary
Shopping was now the model for all human behaviour, drained of emotion and anger
Death had no place in the Metro-Centre, which had abolished time and the seasons, past and future
Never far from the defensive walls of the motorways, there was more than a hint of paranoia, as if these people of the retail city were waiting for something violent to happen
On a plinth stood three giant teddy bears. The father bear was at least fifteen feet tall, his plump torso and limbs covered with a lustrous brown fur. Mother and baby bear stood beside him, paws raised to the shoppers, as if ready to make a consumer affairs announcement about the porridge supply
"The Metro-Centre creates a new climate, Mr Pearson. We succeeded where the Greenwich dome failed. This isn't just a shopping mall. It's more like a..."
"Religious experience?"
"Exactly! It's like going to church. And here you can go every day and you get something to take home."
"What's the point of free speech if you have nothing to say? Let's face it, most people haven't anything to say, and they know it. What's the point of privacy if it's just a personalised prison? Consumerism is a collective enterprise...When we go shopping we take part in a collective ritual of affirmation."
The enclosed geometry of the Metro-Centre focused an intense self-awareness on every shopper
With its visual echoes of the Millennium Dome in Greenwich...at the heart of a new metropolis that encircled London, a perimeter city that followed the path of the great motorways
The suburbs, we would all believe to our last gasp, were defined by the products we sold them, by the brands and trademarks and logos that alone defined their lives
"I come here every Saturday, sooner or later someone asks, 'how much?' 'Free,' I say. They're stunned, they react as if I'm trying to steal from them. That's capitalism for you. Nothing can be free. The idea makes them sick, they want to call the police, leave messages for their accountants."
"We like dual carraigeways and parking lots. we like control-tower architecture and friendships that last an afternoon...There are no town halls or assembly rooms. We like prosperity filtered through car and appliance sales."
This was a place where it was impossible to borrow a book, attend a concert, say a prayer, consult a parish record or give to charity
"The future is going to be a struggle between vast systems of competing psychopathies, all of them willed and deliberate, part of a desperate attempt to escape from a rational world and the boredom of consumerism"
Opening the passenger window, I gazed at the dark triangle neat the apex of the dome. It would soon be repaired, but for the moment a section of space-time had been erased, exposing a deep flaw in our collective dream
Like all great shopping malls, the Metro-Centre smothered unease, defused its own threat and offered balm to the weary
Shopping was now the model for all human behaviour, drained of emotion and anger
Death had no place in the Metro-Centre, which had abolished time and the seasons, past and future
Never far from the defensive walls of the motorways, there was more than a hint of paranoia, as if these people of the retail city were waiting for something violent to happen
On a plinth stood three giant teddy bears. The father bear was at least fifteen feet tall, his plump torso and limbs covered with a lustrous brown fur. Mother and baby bear stood beside him, paws raised to the shoppers, as if ready to make a consumer affairs announcement about the porridge supply
"The Metro-Centre creates a new climate, Mr Pearson. We succeeded where the Greenwich dome failed. This isn't just a shopping mall. It's more like a..."
"Religious experience?"
"Exactly! It's like going to church. And here you can go every day and you get something to take home."
"What's the point of free speech if you have nothing to say? Let's face it, most people haven't anything to say, and they know it. What's the point of privacy if it's just a personalised prison? Consumerism is a collective enterprise...When we go shopping we take part in a collective ritual of affirmation."
The enclosed geometry of the Metro-Centre focused an intense self-awareness on every shopper
With its visual echoes of the Millennium Dome in Greenwich...at the heart of a new metropolis that encircled London, a perimeter city that followed the path of the great motorways
The suburbs, we would all believe to our last gasp, were defined by the products we sold them, by the brands and trademarks and logos that alone defined their lives
"I come here every Saturday, sooner or later someone asks, 'how much?' 'Free,' I say. They're stunned, they react as if I'm trying to steal from them. That's capitalism for you. Nothing can be free. The idea makes them sick, they want to call the police, leave messages for their accountants."
"We like dual carraigeways and parking lots. we like control-tower architecture and friendships that last an afternoon...There are no town halls or assembly rooms. We like prosperity filtered through car and appliance sales."
This was a place where it was impossible to borrow a book, attend a concert, say a prayer, consult a parish record or give to charity
"The future is going to be a struggle between vast systems of competing psychopathies, all of them willed and deliberate, part of a desperate attempt to escape from a rational world and the boredom of consumerism"
Opening the passenger window, I gazed at the dark triangle neat the apex of the dome. It would soon be repaired, but for the moment a section of space-time had been erased, exposing a deep flaw in our collective dream
