The Arcades Project

[Dillinger4]

By Walter Benjamin

From the Amazon blurb

It is a complex, fragmentary work--more a series of notes for a book than a book itself--which probes the culture of the Paris arcades (a cross between covered streets and shopping malls) of the mid-19th century and the flaneur ("the man who walks long and aimlessly through the streets" in an "anamnestic intoxication [that]...feeds on the sensory data taking shape before his eyes but often possesses itself of abstract knowledge--indeed, of dead facts--as something experienced and lived through").

I have had my eye on this for a while. The idea of the flaneur is particularly interesting because it seems a precursor to the situationist idea of the Dérive.

Has anybody read this? I have some questions.

 

[Santino]

The chapter on Space Invaders is the best one.

 

[articul8]

They aren't chapters - they're "konvoluts" (it was never published - it's a series of filed notes for a work which was never fully brought to completion)

To understand some of the underlying metholodological questions read Benjamin's correspondence with Adorno.

 

[El Jefe]

The idea of the flaneur is particularly interesting because it seems a precursor to the situationist idea of the Dérive.

.. and then to psychogeography

 

[Dillinger4]

They aren't chapters - they're "konvoluts" (it was never published - it's a series of filed notes for a work which was never fully brought to completion)

To understand some of the underlying metholodological questions read Benjamin's correspondence with Adorno.

That is/was my main question: just how unfinished is it?

 

[articul8]

It's arguable that it's as complete as was ever really possible - ie that a constellation of fragments would illuminate each other to reveal what can't be said directly.

Others would argue that this essentially means being bewitched by things in their immediacy - ie. without the mediation necessary for rational thought.

 

[Dillinger4]

Interesting. I think I will get it.

 

[articul8]

well worth investigating - but as I say, best read alongside letters to/from Adorno

 

[Pickman's model]

By Walter Benjamin

From the Amazon blurb



I have had my eye on this for a while. The idea of the flaneur is particularly interesting because it seems a precursor to the situationist idea of the Dérive.

Has anybody read this? I have some questions.

i thought that the flaneur took possession of the city, whereas the derive is more of a drunken ramble. also, i was under the impression that the flaneur was a) male, b) of a class who didn't need to work. the flaneur flans while other people are at work. and the flaneur is a solitary, whereas the derive could be undertaken by a number of people. the flaneur seeks to understand the city, the derive imposes other more nebulous ideas on the city.

 

[Dillinger4]

i thought that the flaneur took possession of the city, whereas the derive is more of a drunken ramble. also, i was under the impression that the flaneur was a) male, b) of a class who didn't need to work. the flaneur flans while other people are at work. and the flaneur is a solitary, whereas the derive could be undertaken by a number of people. the flaneur seeks to understand the city, the derive imposes other more nebulous ideas on the city.

As I said in my OP, I have not read The Arcades Project (yet).

From what I do know, I agree with you.

I just couldn't help but draw a link between two ideas of urban-wandering.

 

[llantwit]

I've read most of it. It's a fascinating book.
I came at it as a cultural historian of nineteenth-century consumerism, and from that perspective it offers loads of fascinating fragments of insights into the birth of the consumer society (the arcades themelves, the birth of the department store, the power of advertising, the suffusion of comercial culture into art, poetry, and the novel, etc). But it is very fragmentary.
The Flaneur, imo, was essentially a rich proto-consumer, so not sure how much scope there is in this figure for transgressive or even very political behaviour.
I'm assuming you'll get the Harvard UP version which was published a while back - if so, good. It's a very good version. In fact, I'm not sure there was an earlier edition. I seem to remember reading something that called itself The Arcades Project but was actualy more of an attempt to impose some kind of structure and order on it by an academic in the 80s. It was rubbish.

 

[llantwit]

I went to the Paris arcades last time I was there, and they're briliant places. Very unike the gilded pomposity of the Burlington and similar places in London today.
They've kind of been left to go to seed in a very attractive way. Cafes, restaurants, and bookshops mingle with gay saunas and stamp collectors.