Week Four Readings

Diller + Scofidio’s "Homebodies on Vacation"
M. Christine Boyer's "Times Square Dead or Alive?"

“Homebodies on Vacation” discusses the tourism and vacation phenomenon that is increasingly being reduced to an act of viewing idealized images. Our general disconnectedness drives us on a quest for “authentic” experiences (which apparently don’t have to be authentic at all – examples being Arizona’s London Bridge and Nashville’s reinforced concrete Parthenon). So much of the mass-marketed vacation ideal encapsulates us in a “bubble” of the comforts of home. Our experience of the world becomes reduced to sanitized and popularized images fed to us through the windows of the car, tour bus and cruise ship, as well as the screens of our computers and televisions.

In “Times Square Dead or Alive?” M. Christine Boyer questions whether New York’s Times Square has died during its evolution to a “Disneyfied” tourist mecca. She questions the effects of the intersection’s technological skin of neon, flashing lights and video screens. Has the quest to recreate an idealized version of Times Square turned it into a flashing image produced for the mass consumption of society? Is it a form of nostalgia for what was once located in Times Square, or is the lament for what Times Square has become an even greater nostalgic view (a mourning for what has been lost)?

These cultural phenomena may be caused by a general boredom in the “affluent world” (previously known as the “Western World,” which I believe no longer has such well defined boundaries). Our basic needs are well met, and we no longer have any grand common projects (such as World War II or the mass exploration and colonization of North America) that we must devote our time to accomplish. I believe this boredom exists despite the hectic pace of our lives. Many “life goals” that society suggests we accomplish (such as pursuing a high-paying career, owning a suburban house and car(s), going on vacations) can be quite hollow, acting only as “check-marks” on an idealized list of what someone should achieve during their life. Many of these goals simply serve to occupy our time enough that we don’t realize how bored we are. As a society, we have time to dream of romanticized versions of the past and present and seek out to experience those dreams. The mass media, entertainment and tourist industries and the larger consumer and corporate world are more than happy to perpetuate and fulfill these desires in exchange for money and profits.