Uncanny underground: absences, ghosts and the rhythmed everyday of the Prague metro
cultural geographies, Oct 17, 2012
In this article, I explore some of the material aspects of the technological underground landscap... more In this article, I explore some of the material aspects of the technological underground landscape of the Prague metro, the building of which started during socialism and has continued until the present. The materiality of the older parts of the metro is informed by and shaped according to a particular socialist world view. Since then, the metro has been reshaped not only ideologically, but also aesthetically and materially. The remnants of the socialist past as well as other agents of potential disturbance have either been expelled or made invisible. Nevertheless, the past remains rooted in the materiality of absence, continues its presence in the metro of today, and disturbs the experience of its smooth surface. The juxtaposition of what is absent with what is present also gives rise to ghostly figures, namely those feeding on contemporary anxiety of disturbance, potentially shattering the existence of the otherwise technologically perfect and unambiguous underground transport system. Concentrating on the affect of the metro’s material absences manifested in diverse ghostly figures allows me not only to overcome the view of the metro as a fixed, planned, ideological and technological space, but also to approach it in terms of its actual presence. Drawing on Vidler, I understand ghostly figures to be representations of the uncanny moment of a sudden view behind the ordinary appearance of the metro. Referring to Lefebvre’s notion of difference, I link the absences to the metro’s rhythmicality. I argue that ghosts resist annihilation because they are manifestations of difference within a rhythmic landscape. They are the results of the workings of the absences that form an inseparable part of the metro; the absences inform the rhythm as well as nurture the uncanny.
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I am especially interested in the re-enchantment of urban decay within contemporary technological landscape. It has recently been brought about by scholars, artists and others who like spending their time exploring the anxious and scrappy urban landscape. In the paper, I use their accounts and imaginary of the landscape in order to sketch out the emerging ways of aestheticisation or emotional response to such places. Since the interest as well as urban exploration movement is global, this leads me to draw some considerations about landscape as an emerging specific global experience. Landscape is not only globalised on a material level – as a locus and product of production-consumption cycles – but it is becoming so also on an experiential level.
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We divided our presentation of garden colonies as a potentially fruitful research field into four main sections. At first, we offer a general theoretical background to gardening and garden colonies in order to show how theoretically rich the field is. Then we position Prague garden colonies historically and legislatively. In the end, we sketch out a preliminary analysis of a discourse Prague garden colonies are now embedded in. We hold that garden colonies represent an alternative to post-socialist urban space of Prague possessed by economic forces and we argue that the socio-political negotiation about the (non)existence of Prague garden colonies is more than it seems. For it is also the negotiation of urban space, our experience of it, and of our approach and relationship to it. And by means of negotiating the urban through garden colonies as a specifically post-social phenomenon, the position of the past and the shape of the future of the city have come to the fore.
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This panel calls for contributions exploring changing landscapes including liminal, peripheral, post-military, post-industrial and other that allows us to question the status quo and explore its changes. We want to encourage discussion on topics including:
- (accelerating) changes to past and present landscapes
- growing emphasis on an explicit engagement with non-/more-than-human
- modes of scholarly exploration (empirical research, conceptual and theoretical engagement, methodological concerns)
We aim at drawing together empirical, methodological, theoretical and experimental contributions.
Deadline for applications: 30 September 2015 24:00 GMT
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Deadline for paper proposals is 7 November 2016.
Nicméně pokládat pražská sídliště za místa, kde se zastavil čas a ustaly všechny změny, by byla iluze. Dotýkají se jich totiž procesy, které souvisí s rostoucí tendencí ke komodifikaci bydlení a městského prostoru, dochází na nich ke generační obměně, k plánování revitalizace budov a veřejných prostranství, někdy souvisejících se zástavbou volných ploch, či přistěhování nových obyvatel, které přináší etnickou diverzitu. Proměňuje se také finanční dostupnost bydlení na pražských sídlištích, kdy rostoucí ceny nemovitostí a potažmo rostoucí nájemné sídliště postupně vzdalují od ideálu místa, kde mohou bydlet různé sociální vrstvy, nejen ti bohatí.
Tato publikace je koncipována, aby byla čtenářsky přístupná a nebyla čistě akademickým a teoretickým textem, který osloví jen úzký okruh odbornic a odborníků. Kolektiv autorek a autorů proto zahrnuje jak sociální vědce a vědkyně, historičku umění a architektury, ale také novinářky a jednotlivé kapitoly jsou i proto mozaikou různých žánrů, zahrnující teoretičtěji zaměřenou kapitolu, kapitoly vysvětlující i kapitoly popisující některé z procesů a proměn, kterým sídliště čelí, ale třeba i fotografickou esej.