Entertainment in a Box

As large retail venues venture further and further away from relying on anchor stores to provide the stimulus for consumers to shop, festival marketplaces seem to be fueled by something the conventional mall is striving to capture, entertainment. Faneuil Hall in Boston is a perfect example of a marketplace which demonstrates “architectural openness [as] a metaphor for social inclusiveness” (Goss), while providing off the street entertainment with the attraction of exhibits, ethnic shows, specialty shops, and concerts. Interestingly enough Wolf quotes, “entertainment-not autos, not steel, not financial services- are fast becoming the driving wheel of the new world economy” (Wolf). While malls, restaurants, and museums attempt to gain popularity through the notion of providing ‘entertainment’, Wolf’s relation of entertainment to the auto and steel industry becomes seemingly important.

Throughout the years of technological innovation, both the automobile and steel industries have seen vast increases in production and profit due to the evolution of mass production. A direct comparison can be formed between the assembly line and the mass production of entertainment ventures such as the IMAX RIDEFILM. Originally developed as an amusement park ride/movie, IMAX has since “miniaturized the simulation theater into a 15-seat modular unit that fits into a 30-foot-by30-foot space that is less than 15 feet high” (Rubin). Evidently the entertainment industry has not strayed far from that of its predecessors, and it too has the capability of being mass produced, and used anywhere. The entertainment industry may very well be on its way to driving our ‘new world economy’ in that major retail venues all over the country desperately try to attract a certain amount of guests per day, while keeping them entertained long enough to perhaps buy a thing or two.

the thin defining line...

What really sparked questioning for me this week was the article Entertainment Returns to Gotham. Urban entertainment centers seem to be a rapidly growing trend. According to Rubin, Gorman, and Lawry’s classifications and described characteristics, DestiNY is not a mall, but another urban entertainment center. Which leads me to question where do we draw lines between shopping malls and UECs?

Any promenade lined with shops can indeed be called a mall. But we do not classify Main Street USA at Disneyland a mall do we? From my view, DestiNY is not a mega mall, for I see a shopping mall to be a destination purely driven by shopping in stores, not by side attractions, water parks, night life, and marinas. DestiNY and other ‘mega malls’ like The South China Mall are actually UECs and should not have the label mall attached at all for these places have the draw of shops but are also largely and mainly drawing in consumers by ‘entertainment districts’ and attractions; they are larger than some towns and require interior transport by monorail or boat. DestiNY is so large in area that it even has its own zip code. Now how can places like that be labeled as a ‘mall’?

The Ethicalization of Entertainmentization

“You don’t bring people half-way around the world to visit a zoo. You bring the zoo to them. San Diego is the perfect set. People already associate her beautiful city with animal attractions: San Diego Zoo, Sea World, San Diego Chargers...”
-Jurassic Park: The Lost World

With all the positive discussion of entertainment and 'fun' becoming the major economic driver of the world, I can't help but wish there was more distinction in what constitutes what one might call 'healthy' fun, as compared to 'degenerative' fun. Either can support a booming economy, but only one can improve the quality of life.

Degenerative fun, I believe, constitutes the majority of the entertainmentization that supports our economy today. This includes events like gambling, strip clubs, television, certain video games, 'leisure' shopping, NASCAR, and perhaps several other sports. I group these together saying that, for the most part, they all occupy time in a manner that not only doesn't improve one's life, but can actually detract from it. All of these have the potential for pretty awful addiction as well, and the results can be devastating. Gambling can bankrupt you, leisure shopping can lead you to rely on material goods for all of your life's satisfaction, television can occupy your time to the point where you're essentially hibernating in your free time, there are video games that desensitize you to truly gruesome violence and make it fun, and NASCAR is just generally wasteful of resources. Given, one can argue that all of these events have a positive social dimension that people are able to bond over and therefore that's positive, but people can bond and be social over just about anything, like um, squirrel slaughter.

On the side of what I would call 'healthy' fun, I would include a number of obvious items like exercise and visiting family for vacations, and some that can potentially overlap with the degenerative ones. Our generation is a visual generation, and there are television shows that are extremely educational, from National Geographic, to PBS Kids Shows (who didn't learn good moral values from Arthur?). I would even argue shows like 'The Daily Show' are healthy, in the respect that they are intelligently written and teach a lot about politics and the inherent problems with the global economy, just through a humorous lense. There are video games coming out these days, such as 'Spore', that are essentially going to be teaching Maya to kids in addition to the evolution of biology from single-celled organisms to entire galaxies. It's another product by Will Wright, maker of The Sims, which just so happened to be a factor for me (and others) deciding I was interested in designing architecture. More and more video games these days teach you wonderful things, from problem-solving to history without even making you think you're learning. Why? Because you're having fun. This is also how I felt visiting The Bodies exhibit while I was in Florida for break. The amount I learned from this visual, two hour excursion into the human body was equal to if not greater than everything I learned from a boring textbook in high school; and I had fun doing it.

This brings up the issue of the UEC, and how much more effective it is to bring fun events to people instead of making them travel. We prefer quicker doses of gratification and leisure, and it fits in our schedule easier. I'm now realizing in retrospect that over the course of doing the four readings for this week (in one session), I took eight different very short breaks, used up by youtube, facebook, guitar, and eating. How strange it is to think that 'eating' becomes thought of as a leisure activity purely because it's not spent doing 'productive' work, but merely fulfilling an instinct. Many of us in Architecture tend to think of sleeping the same way, and we can easily find ourselves feeling guilty for getting eight hours of sleep, thinking about the work that we could've gotten done if we had limited ourself to four. If we're considered a multitasking generation now, I'm frightened to think of the capabilities our children will have. Imagine no internet lag, never having to dial a phone number, never having to cook, everything activated by speech and simple hand gestures absolutely instantly...crazy stuff.

To see the future of computers, see here: http://www.perceptivepixel.com/

Movies and Missiles

When the entertainment industry is framed as the replacement for endless military spending, it doesn't sound so bad. Indeed, as Michael J. Wolf (any relation to Michael J. Fox?) puts it, "the missile in the silo just sits there gathering dust. You make a movie, on the other hand, and you can potentially release it again and again" (6). To some degree, movies and missiles play the same social role; they are both there to keep us safe. The missile keeps us safe from communists and terrorists while the movie keeps us safe from the boredom created by the very lifestyle that the missile is forcibly defending.

But why is it that entertainment took over when stealth bombers were no longer quite as essential? When we are faced with all this supposed free time, why do we spend it watching TV and movies, surfing the net, and reading news about the latest governor's sexual exploits? We do not create. We don't even destroy. We just sit there. Picture yourself watching a movie with your friends in a nice living room, sitting on nice couches and pillows. No one is talking. Now imagine the TV isn't there. There you all are sitting on a nice couch in a nice room surrounded by people you supposedly like, and all of you (instead of interacting) are sitting perfectly still, staring contentedly at the same point in space (for two hours).

Increasingly, the old saying "All the world's a stage" is becoming far too literal. There are few spaces that can be taken at face value; life consists of manufactured experiences meant to recreate some other point in space and time. Destiny USA's re-creation of Tuscany is a case-in-point. Rather than intervene in downtown Syracuse and enrich its own history and urbanism, Congel decides it is better to implant not only Italian architectural pastiche, but an entire Italian village, potentially at the cost of downtown's revitalization. But at the end of the day, downtown is not entertaining. The only part that is currently successful (Armory Square) is so only because of its concentration of restaurants and bars, places of consumptive entertainment.

___tainment

Hannigan, in “Shopertainment, Eatertainment, Edutainment,” looks at physical sites of consumption, targeting specifically, themed environments. In a sense, he focuses horizontally, looking at the different aspects of these particular spaces of consumption. We can look at these spaces in two related, but different ways: each environment is both different and the same. These themed environments try to be different from other places through an exaggeration of their articulation and by having a particular theme. Themed environments are different from one another and provide an escape from daily life because they are over-designed, so that the designer must infuse each detail with the theme or some kind of meaning. Perhaps they are the ultimate contemporary gesamtkunstwerk. The consumer goes to these places to be entertained by over-stimulation and by participating in a world that’s superficially different from their day-to-day life.

However, themed environments are also anesthetized and controlled. An over-arching concept for these environments involves McDonald’s operational model, which is described by “efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control (81).” Although searching for adventure and change, we are safe in these worlds, which run smoothly as calculated theatrical experiences. They must be safe so as to protect us from danger and to keep us happy. These themed environments (destination shopping malls, themed restaurants, and high-tech museums) aren’t places we go daily as consumers, so we enjoy our time spent there. So, in the end, after our visit, we can remember the ---tainment land as an exciting, entertaining experience, and, if we have the chance, enjoy it all over again, in the exact same way, when we return in the future.

cycle of death

The Au Bonheur des Dames was a large department store that was overtaking other small businesses around the area and making them go broke and forcing them to close down or even move, as explained by Zola. The Au Bonheur des Dames spread like a virus and it closed everything around the area and basically killed off smaller businesses. The Au Bonheur des Dames hired hundreds of people and therefore help for the smaller businesses were limited because more opportunities were given at the Au Bonheur des Dames. It's ridiculous how much these things exist today and also is manipulating architecture.
Large chain stores such as Hollister are in competition with other brand name clothing companies such as Abercrombie and Fitch as well as American Eagle. These stores are all aimed towards the younger audience and has put other clothing companies aimed at younger people a thing of the past. Small brands such as Von Dutch, JNCO, and BOSS were all clothing companies aimed at younger people in the past but now Abercrombie&Fitch, Hollister, and American Eagle is now the new brand that has put other clothing companies broke or close to it. The architecture is affected as well because it's aimed towards a younger class. Hollister has that surfer feel to it and Abercrombie and A.E both have that beach house feel to it to appeal to younger audiences. It wouldn't suprise me if another clothing company int he future forces A&E,Hollister, and Abercrombie out of business. THerefore, ti's in big endless cycle of death.....for companies.

“America Runs on Dunkin”

In Hannigan’s reading he exemplifies the influence “retailers as well as restaurateurs, arena and stadium managers and, increasingly educators and cultural institutions” hold in the everyday life of the consumer. With the pressing issue of traffic congestion starting mainly in the early 80’s, consumers began to look for other alternatives to shopping at large retail venues. To revive the image of shopping at a large venue, the retail industry responded through combining a foreign synthesis of entertainment and retail, adding a realm of ‘experience, or fantasy’ to a day of shopping. Equivalent to malls and town centers using entertainment as leverage, eateries around the country began to adopt a new typology: themed restaurants. Now the influence of entertainment has far surpassed solely retail stores, yet has spread too many different disciplines all trying to attract “a new breed of consumer”. Restaurants such as the Rain Forest Café, the Hard Rock Café, and Planet Hollywood all implemented the notion of themed eating, attempting to redefine the norm, as well as bring a “value-added component” to dining. As if themed dinners were not enough, many restaurants continued to improve their image by immersing themselves into the “celebrity-soaked, media-purveyed public life of America”.

The reading “Spatializing Commodity Chains” begins to distinguish between the many complexities associated with coffee as a major commodity worldwide. The author notes that “coffee offered to a guest in Tanzania is not the same commodity as that sipped in a food court in North America…” Coffee is proven to be a powerful, even seductive commodity worldwide, yet from nation to nation its image seems varying. Today, famous chef Rachael Ray can be seen and heard across the country raving about Dunkin Donuts and even going as far to say “America Runs on Dunkin”. It is without a question that marketing ploys such as the one used by Dunkin Donuts, exemplifies a by-product of earlier implementations of fame as a source of “entertainment” to lure in consumers.

The Public’s Not Complaining, Anyway…

In reading the entirety of Au Bonheur des Dames, I found myself entranced in a powerful firsthand experience of the rise of the department store from nearly every perspective imaginable. From the very real eyes of both someone like Bourras trying to keep the ‘Arts and Crafts’ side of retail alive to someone like Mouret who’s a genuinely humane person despite the all-consuming nature of his retail machine and then with Denise in the middle of it all. Then to see the ‘idea’ of the department store ‘improved’, from adding new departments, to various forms of advertising, to architectural gestures, the entire experience was truly a treat.

Zola makes a very clear argument for the inevitability of the department store as the “natural evolution of trade” (191), highlighting both the positive and negative aspects of it but ultimately, through his protagonist Denise, makes it clear that ultimately it is the public that benefits from this new phenomenon:

“At one time, prices were set by fifty firms, now they’re made by four or five, which have brought them down because of the power of their capital and the strength of their customer. And so much for the general public, that’s all!” Denise, p. 191

Now of course this is before the kind of major outsourcing that companies like Wal*Mart use to achieve such low prices at the cost of people’s lives in other countries, but the basic principle of why department stores are positive for the public is explained. And the fact of the matter is, there’s strength in numbers, both in people and from a monetary investment standpoint. In Chapter 7 where Robineau goes into competition with Au Bonheur des Dames over umbrellas, lowering the prices over and over until neither is making a profit and the customers are in glee, you know Robineau is doomed from the start because of the collateral Au Bonheur des Dames has in their 27 other departments which can always make up for losses in one department. Robineau can’t.

It is a pity we don’t get to see more competition between Au Bonheur des Dames and Les Quatre Saisons (Bouthemont’s rival firm established after he is fired) and the Bon Marche, because there is true importance in those prices set by “four or five firms” and not just one, because as I discussed in a previous blog post, things get scary when only one place carries a product that everyone needs and they can charge whatever they please. I wonder, after Mouret drove Robineau’s umbrellas out of business, what became of his prices? Did he keep them low because he seems to have far more of a ‘heart’ than the Walton Family does, or did he immediately skyrocket the prices in order to make the greatest profit? Is there ever a profit level that one can just be content with and level prices once they reach that point? I don’t think so, as Mouret shoots for having Au Bonheur des Dames make 1,000,000 francs in a single day, for no particular reason other than to say that it happened, and when he finally achieves it he doesn’t seem to gain any real satisfaction.

Still, the money-making strategies Mouret employs are extremely interesting to witness, especially considering many of them are ‘introduced’ in this department store but are still used today. On pg. 234 during Au Bonheur des Dames’ first major sale, Mouret in a last minute stroke of retail genius commands his employees to disorganize the items to get people to travel the store more. This reminded me of something I had thought during Professor Lonsway’s presentation of the Piggly Wiggly grocery store where I wondered if everything is in sequential order and everyone knows where everything is, how does the store make any unexpected sales? Mouret’s strategy of moving key items to unexpected spots—forcing the customer to pass through items they may never have seen before—is what I considered to be the alternative, but of course there is a limit to how ‘disorganized’ a place can be before the customer just gets angry. I find this strategy is used often with Wegman’s in Dewitt, as every time I go grocery shopping products seemed to be moved. Of course if its frozen it’s still in a freezer and if it’s cereal it’s still in the cereal aisle, but little movements from the last place I remembered them do in fact cause me to pass by something I didn’t even know they sold and on occasion, decide to try it out.

Also, practical humanitarianism, a concept discussed at length in Chapter 10, is something I find to be missing in today’s major chains. Mouret makes an effort to keep his employees healthy and happy, knowing that this will effect their ability and desire to sell products. When Denise becomes Buyer, she even plays a hand in helping Lhomme on pg. 349 set up an entire orchestra using only the staff of the Au Bonheur des Dames. Then various classes and a library are even set up purely for the enjoyment and education of the employees. Reading this, I couldn’t help but wonder how much more attractive a retail job might be if you knew that Target would give you free classes in Japanese or provide you with a wonderful retirement and pension plan (most contemporary department stores make every effort to keep their employees part-time such ‘luxuries’ are never required). In any case, it seems to be a wonderful concept of bonding to bring employees together in settings outside of their immediate professions. It makes me think of the Warehouse Architecture Theater, which Danton and I founded on that very idea that the architecture students who get accepted to Syracuse University have many talents that reach far beyond architecture and it’s a pity to let them go to waste just because we’re now in ‘Architecture’ and have to be ‘Architects’ and nothing else…

On a last note to this ever-long blog post, I found the ending of the book to be rather anti-climatic. To anyone else who read the entire book, I pose the question why did Zola end his story this way? It seemed like the majority of the story was about Au Bonheur des Dames and how it affects everyone in Denise’s world. Why then introduce a ‘love’ story between Denise and Mouret that doesn’t amount to anything yet plagues the last third of the book? For Denise to leave the Au Bonheur des Dames after ‘conquering’ it would seem an act of defiance—and that would have been a fine ending commenting on her ability to remain independent even after all she’s been through—so why end the story with Mouret reacting to Denise’s admittance of love by saying he is going to drag her back after her vacation. I’m rambling, but really, WHY?

Socially Local/ Geographically Local?

“I calculate that there’s a reductions of at least fifteen percent on their list prices compared to ours…This is what’s killing small business” (Zola 190)

That quote was written in a book first published in 1883. Robineau was furious about how even when he tried to buy big and help the small businesses fight Au Bonheur Des Dames he still could not do it. I was recently in Hawaii and I was floored to find that nearly every restaurant or store that I went to on the island of Oahu had listed somewhere in its advertising at least one other location, most of which were locales not even in the state of Hawaii. It seems as if every attempt I made at finding the local Hawaiian shop, market or eatery was a failed one. Even in a place known as the International Marketplace, in which several individual merchants can sell goods, I saw several iterations of the same shops in the form of several different kiosks in the same marketplace. This is still present today not only in Hawaii but in case studies of our own work. When we analyzed the Mall of America and the Golden Resources Mall we found cases in which some of the same stores were repeated over and over throughout the mall. When I first started noticing this occurance I was concerned about issues of locality being lost and about individuality of stores being jeopardized.

However, If you look closer you can see that what has occurred is a change of scale. Scale is not always just about physical size, but also about impact and growth. In 1883, the automobile did not even exist and wouldn’t for nearly another ten years. In 1883, the airplane was nearly 20 years from being birthed in Kitty Hawk, South Carolina. The point is that in 1883, the radius from which the average individual traveled from there home was very small and now we are a much more global society. Ancestry magazine, Volume 25, Number 6, in an article entitled, “A Moveable Feat” discusses the mobility of people from the past to today and their willingness to travel. The author, Beau Sharbrough writes that “In fine weather, a horse- or mule-drawn wagon could cover 30 miles a day.” To put this in perspective the bus route from the warehouse and back to college place six times is 30 miles. Less than three trips around Lake Onondaga is roughly 30 miles. Or better yet, a drive from the warehouse to Fayetteville Towne Center and back to the Warehouse is 20 miles.
So, if you want to go to Target today, it will take you only 10 to 15 minutes to get there and roughly the same amount of time to get back. That distance was nearly a day’s trip before automobiles existed. Would you have taken the same journey to Target if it took a day to get there? Or would you instead walk to Armory Square from the warehouse and attempt to find a similar item that you needed there?

My point is that when the scale of the way the world travels from location to location changes, it drastically changes the idea of the local store. Target is very much a local store if we defined local as the regional draw of individuals to a specific location or when it takes a reasonable amount of time to get to a location. In fact, it is reassuring to know that if I move to another town, I still have a “local” Target and I know what to expect and in some cases, I may already know where in the store the goods I want are located.

Because we live in a global society, the concept of local has changed. It needs to be redefined, or perhaps we need to stop thinking that “socially local” stores need to exist as “geographical local” stores. In the past local identity made stores recognizable to the citizens inhabiting the town in which the store was located. That local identity has now become a brand, or trademark, or a red and white bulleye. “Local” no longer exists as anything more than a simple geographical marker and it should no longer be confused with anything else.

the dueling department stores

The story of the dueling department stores in, Au Bonheur des Dames, shows us how big business has traditionally put craftsmen to rest. The once vibrant street of the locally run store is now at the mercy of Au Bonheur des Dames expansion, which is literally taking over the garment district. Baudu, a local garment shop, is feeling the frustration of trying to keep up with its rival department store. When it comes to selling Mouret is on top of his game. “ Whenever Au Bonheur des Dames creates a new department store, more of the small shops around it collapse” (215). For Mouret, every considerable detail must be touched upon. The department store is personified as a living being brought to life by the hundreds of people it employs. His store portrays the highest in quality and fashion, which is why Baudu must struggle to stay in the game. Au Bonheur des Dames has proven to be a force within the community and many of the local businesses are left in its dust. As crowds of women swoon to the elaborate displays, fanciful fabrics and intelligent architecture they become trapped by Mouret’s spell. “He wanted to make her a queen in his house and he had built this temple so that he could have her at his mercy.” (231) Baudu sluggishly puts up a fight. Loosing both customers and employees to Mouret’s mega store, Baudu is an example of how big business has exhausted small businesses. This story is a parallel to Congel's mega-mall in Syracuse. The proposal for Destiny USA plans to relocate 29 private businesses to make room for the Carousel Center expansion. The local shop owners, known as the Salina 29, feel they are not being paid properly for the relocation so they are standing their ground. This is an example of how big business is taking over, and small businesses like Baudu’s is struggling to keep up. It is evident that size demonstrates power and prominent figures will use their buildings as a power tool. As long as this trend keeps up the mom-n-pop shops will continue to be a thing of the past.

Identity Crisis

My first intellectual impulse to explain the urge to theme all aspects of life is to say that it is a lack of cultural identity that gives birth to the dishonest pastiche of themed environments that both define and suck the life from American culture. But the successful spread of American behemoths like McDonald's throughout Europe and the world and the new phenomenon of China's literal themed-cities would serve to discount that argument, given that Europe and China both have strongly entrenched cultural identities. Perhaps in China it makes some sort of sense; yes, they have a strong traditional culture, but it is entering a point of transition in its history whereby it is taking a leading role in shaping the world, emerging from its rural, dynastical past into a (sub)urban economy of corporations and consumption, where food and family is becoming replaced by money and entertainment as cultural currency. Naturally, its identity is being lost in this transformation. Also, in places like Africa and India, the same sort of phenomenon is occuring, where ancient societies and traditions find they no longer hold any relevance in the modern world, and when these past identities are still being clung onto, they are at the same time being watered-down, swallowed up in the machine of global modernization.

Without a strong cultural identity to hold onto, many people will swallow up whatever seductive image is offered to them. Particularly in American society where individualism is (ironically) the strongest commonly held ideal, it is damn near impossible for a singular identity to unite its purposefully diverse population. Basically, by embracing diversity we are failing to truly understand any one people's culture, satisfying ourselves with theme-park renditions of Venice and the Forbidden City à la Disney's EPCOT, always only scratching the surface of the true depth and beauty of an entire people's inherited history.

The "edutainment" factor in museums underscores this charlatanization of cultural (mis)understanding. In an attempt to draw bigger crowds and "educate" more people, museums are making their displays more theatrical, more fun at the cost of historical accuracy.

In my road trip down south this spring break I discovered the difference between seeing something and actually experiencing it. My friend does this thing called "waterfall hunting," where he tromps around the forests of South and North Carolina looking for cool waterfalls (ideally with fun water-slides) that no one knows about. He is in it for the experience, the discovery, the more intimate knowledge of a nearby wilderness. It is not a touristic endeavor to simply see "the Southeasts's tallest waterfall" and bring home the memories in pictures and souvenirs, but to find the hidden beauty of nature and allow an unexpected, uncontolled, unpredictable, inefficient experience to infinitely enrich his non-standardized life.

Supplyin' Demand

“Although retail is the link between manufacturers and consumers, retailers treat the commercial logic of supply as quite separate from the symbolic representation of goods to the public.”

With the proliferation of big box working-class shopping havens such as Walmart or Target, the logic of supply becomes a means of representing goods. The Target “box,” essentially a warehouse, represents its goods much like any well-organized stockroom would. Despite its slogan (“Expect More, Pay Less”), customers have learned to expect nothing more than what they are presented with. In this example, the symbolic representation of commodities has been sacrificed (or has adapted) in favor of a literal representation of the source of Target’s low prices – in other words, mass production discounts made evident by the sheer volume of merchandise displayed on the store’s shelves.
The convergence of the systems of portrayal and the mechanisms of supply is symptomatic of what Hannigan refers to as the “McDonaldization of society.” Efficiency (stockroom layout), calculability ( % savings), predictability (mass production), and control (the product of the above three, which allows the big box store to function smoothly with only low-level employees at the helm) are the four pillars Hannigan mentions as supporting the operational model of McDonalds, or any similar establishment. On the flip side, boutique stores, which thrive on personal interaction and celebrity treatment, conceal much of their merchandise behind closed doors, thereby widening the gap between visible supply and representation of demand for that supply – a kind of commercial legerdemain, which tries to justify higher prices through exclusivity.