A distinct influence, a concavity in a surface produced by pressure, an impression, to impress, to mark // To impart a strong or vivid impression, to make a mark, to implant firmly in the memory or fix in the mind //
A distinct influence, an indication, an impression, to press, to apply, to impress, to mark // To imprint a kiss, a touch, a caress with the lips, to impart a kiss by pressing or applying pressure / A distinct influence, an impression produced by pressure, to impress, to mark, to implant firmly in the mind or fix in the memory //

Detroit 2011 - Archival Inkjet Print 24” x 30”

Though Detroit’s population continues to decline their absence was imagined long before actual departures. The continued active erasure of the city’s population, particularly in the global circulation of photographs, has extended the trope of the disappearing city. It is an erasure that has helped to propel the city as an imagined frontier steeped in a market fundamentalist ideology of blank slates and boundless possibilities. This narrative of ruins allows for the projection of hopes and fears on a scrim of Detroit, unbound by the actual complexities of the production of urban space in the city. The emptiness of these photographs captures the dissonance of an impoverished theory of decline that is predominantly focused on absence and loss. It is an explanatory narrative that obscures actors engaged in systemic exploitation by dismantling the city and managing the flows of profit through and out of Detroit. This focus on what has left and what has passed contributes to the disembedded and disembodied ‘othering’ of Detroit.

The Depot closed in 1988. A monumental structure, the Beaux Arts Classical station has become the iconic symbol of urban decline. It was purchased for back taxes in 1996 by billionaire shipping mogul Manuel (Matty) Moroun and has been left vacant for the past 15 years. Moroun, who also owns the Ambassador Bridge, has become one of the largest landholders in the city of Detroit, strategically buying property and leaving buildings to decay, in order to prevent projects that jeopardize his monopoly on the flow of commercial traffic between Detroit and Windsor.

Excerpt from ‘The Annihilation of Space by Just in Time Delivery’
Joshua Akers

Detroit 2011 - Archival Inkjet Print 24” x 30”

Fire is integral in shaping spaces in declining cities. The genealogy of fire in Detroit reveals a tool of resistance, a force of reconfiguration, an act of reclamation, and the simple desire to cash out. Fires of resistance have been with the city since 1705 when Native tribes lit fire to Fort Pontchartrain du Detroit. Throughout the early half of the 20th Century fire and the threat of fire from white mobs was a preferred tactic when black families dared to move into white neighborhoods. An essential instrument in both the 1943 race riot and 1967 riots fire continues to play an integral role in the shaping of Detroit. In July 1967, before the riots, H. Rap Brown gave a speech in which he said ‘If Motown don’t come round we’re going to burn you down.’ In January 2011, Janet Jones of The Source said to me in conversation, ‘Detroit has lessons to teach, and its gonna burn till it learn’. Detroit’s city motto is:

We Hope for Better Things; It Shall Rise from the Ashes

The development of the forces of production had turned the wish-symbols of the previous century into rubble, even before the monuments which represented them had crumbled.

This development during the 19th century liberated the forms of creation from art, just as in the 16th century the sciences freed themselves from philosophy. A start was made by architecture as engineering.

There followed the reproduction of Nature as photography. The creation of fantasies was preparing to become practical as commercial art.

In the feuilleton, creative writing bowed to the exigencies of layout. All these products were on the point of entering the market as commodities. But they still lingered on the threshold. From this epoch spring the arcades and the interiors, the exhibition-halls and the dioramas. They are residues of a dream-world.

The utilization of dream-elements in waking is the textbook example of dialectical thought. Hence dialectical thought is the organ of historical awakening.

Every epoch not only dreams the next, but while dreaming impels it towards wakefulness.

It bears its end within itself, and reveals it – as Hegel already recognized – by a ruse. With the upheaval of the market economy, we begin to recognize the monuments of the bourgeoisie as ruins even before they have crumbled.’

Walter Benjamin
The Arcades Project
Paris – Capital of the Nineteenth Century
Read the entire chapter at: http://www.casbarcelona.org/BenjaminParis.pdf

Seeing is / the new times performance.// Place: the luminous fogbank./ Stepping in disappeared self / at center / all together/ cleaned out / replacing it seemed to change its aspects //

There was this time. Mom made pancakes. They had real Aunt Jemima maple syrup on them. Dad’s dad was from Alabama. He came with his wife to visit in a Winnebago. They brought syrup with them, and grits too. I didn’t much like the grits but when he put egg yolks on them they tasted a lot better. Grandma chain smoked Virginia cigarettes while she stirred the grits and I swear I saw ashes fall in. She wasn’t the kind of woman you say that to though. Her mother was a seamstress in San Francisco so she was pretty cultural.

She hated Alabama and made sure Grandpa knew it. I don’t think she much liked it here either. But she liked the machines and the fancy pink Zinfandel wine they gave her for free at the Golden Phoenix. She always threatened she was going to run off with a millionaire. Grandpa didn’t seem to mind.

It always felt like Mom was just tolerating them, she was always so tired when they came to town. But I loved it. They would buy me prizes from the gumball machines and let me go to the arcade sometimes when they were playing slots.

Once Grandpa won, I think it was a lot cause he gave me fifteen dollars to play video games with, I saved ten of it for a Walkman. But I didn’t tell him though.

It wasn’t just the stuff they gave me either it was just more fun to watch them then it was to watch mom. And of course, there was the breakfast.

After Dad left I never saw them again. Maybe they’re dead. Maybe she ran away with a millionaire. Maybe he lives in his Winnebago, all alone somewhere in Alabama and eats pancakes with Aunt Jemima syrup on them every morning, and grits with egg yolk. That’s how I think of him.

It was another bad night, things hadn’t been going so well and I left Joshua at the bar. On my way back to my room at the Sandman motel I found a dead squirrel and I don’t know why but I picked it up. It looked so sad out there in the street just waiting to be flattened and I thought, ‘it’s just not right’. It shouldn’t be out there, dying in the street.

It had been hit by a car or something. Maybe just a few minutes ago because it was still a bit warm. There was nowhere to put it. No grass or dirt or anything, just pavement, parked cars, storefronts, trucks and motels. So I took it with me back to my room.

The room was nice enough. It had a bed and a dresser and a chair and a florescent lamp over the bed good for reading. Best of all there was a little fridge in the corner so I could eat without always going to the casino.

By the time I got home I had carried this dead squirrel like three miles and he had gone pretty cold. The little trickle of blood from his mouth had dripped into my hand; all warm and sticky and it kind of felt good with the cold and everything. On the way home I would switch the squirrel from one hand to the other to keep them warm so I felt him as he went stiff. After that, I just couldn’t throw him away. I decided to put him in the freezer until I could figure out what to do with him. It was a little freezer so I had to push him in by his stomach. His head and tail sort of popped out. He looked peaceful there, friendly. Anyway, the ground was frozen so I couldn’t really bury him for a while.

He was there for a long time though, through all of it. Every time I would go to get a beer because Joshua and I were fighting and it just got too much or I just couldn’t handle it anymore; he was there, sort of smiling at me. And I began to think of him as a guardian or something.