Walter Benjamin's New York
 

A. FOURIER,
OR THE ARCADES

By Gabriel Goldstein



Notes Continue

For an example of an early seminal work by Scholem and for an introduction to Kabbalistic thought including a more extensive treatment of the Sefirot see Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism(Jerusalem: Schocken, 1941.) Scholem published prolifically on many aspects of Kabbalah. On the Benjamin-Scholem relationship see:Gershom Scholem, ed., The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, 1932-1940. Gary Smith and Andre Lefevere, trans.; with an introduction by Anson Rabinbach. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992). Gershom Scholem, Walter Benjamin: The Story of a Friendship, Harry Zohn, trans. (Philadelphia : Jewish Publication Society of America, 1981).
Narration
This mechanism made of men (p. 5)

Author's Note
This text and image emphasize the relationship between the constructed urban environment and human experience.
Narration
produces the land of milk and honey, (p. 5)

Author's Note
The initial dissolve superimposes skyscrapers and people, once again emphasizing the conflation of architectural/urban/construction topics with personal social and cultural themes.

The "land of milk and honey" suggests Benjamin’s involvement with traditional Judaism and his Zionist interests (or flirtations), including consideration of moving to Israel and a position at the Hebrew University at the urging and invitation of Gershom Scholem and Judah L. Magnes.

The image accompanying this text implies that for the capitalist world of 20th century New York (as it was for 19th century Paris) money is the sacred pursuit; the land that flows with milk and honey is now an automated computerized banking machine that pours out bills – "cash flow."
Narration
the primeval wish symbol that Utopia has filled with new life. (p. 5)



Author's Note
The quest for possession and money is basic to human experience, but our new technologically advanced Paradise has rejuvenated and heightened this desire. This is suggestive of similar primeval, mythic elements of experience in any epoch as discussed in the Atlas "world in miniature" sequence.
Narration
The crowd broke, groaning, (p. 871)

Author's Note
This is the first text/image in this film to explore shopping as a consuming passion – one of several elements exploring this theme in this project. The experience of the department store is clearly analogous to the 19th century arcade. This image stresses the aggregate, "de-individualized" experience of the urban shopping crowd, and the dream-like surreal experience of this mass event, as well as the grandeur and plenitude of the department store.
Narration
over sandstone thresholds (p. 871)

Author's Note
Although the text describes stone, suggesting primeval construction modes, the image stresses the massed urban crowd and the glass doors – echoing previously discussed aspects of the materiality and symbolism of glass.
Narration
and moved along before planes of plate glass, (p. 871)



Author's Note
This text and image accentuate "window shopping" as a 20th century glass-oriented, consumption fueled, urban experience similar to the glazed construct of the 19th century arcades. The reflection of the man seen in this image provides a clear allusion to glass as mirror and the power of vanity. This is a rare instance of a portrayal of a man window-shopping for fashion; such representations of vanity and consumption, particularly relating to clothing and department stores, most frequently depict women. Note the previous discussion of glass as a gendered, feminine metaphor.

Narration

saw artificial rain fall on the copper entrails of late-model autos as a demonstration of the quality of materials, (p. 871)


Author's Note
The artificiality of natural elements discussed by Benjamin is echoed in the presentation of make-up as artificial façade of human beauty. This image continues to explore the experience of the department store and the use of glass in display cases and mirrors. The "quality of materials" stresses issues relating to materiality, as discussed in relationship to glass and also in terms of the impact of color in relationship to make-up.
Narration
saw wheels turning around in oil, read on small black plaques, (p. 871)

Author's Note
These images of pristine store interiors without customers stress the physical design, materials and construct of the shopping environment.
Narration
in paste-jewel figures, the prices of leather goods (p. 871)

Author's Note
This sequence emphasizes the power of the "price" to motivate human experience, as well as the recurring themes of the overabundance of consumer goods and the massed, hurried urban shopping/life experience.
Narration
and gramophone records and embroidered kimonos. (p. 871)

Author's Note
This sequence emphasizes many of the recurring themes of this section of the film project: the power of the "price" to motivate human experience, the overabundance of consumer goods, the allure of fashion and vanity, and the massed, hurried urban shopping/life experience.
Narration
the merchandise on display is unintelligible, or else has several meanings (p. 871) Text reading: "SHE WAS A SURREALIST WOMAN. SHE WAS LIKE A FIGURE IN A DREAM"

Author's Note
Dali purportedly drove a car through this display window, turning a constructed, frozen surrealist display and /or art installation into nihilistic/surrealistic performance art.
Cf. Richard Martin, Fashion and Surrealism. New York: Rizzoli, 1987.
Narration
These images are wish images; in them the collective seeks both to overcome and to transfigure the immaturity of the social product and the inadequacies in the social organization of production. what emerges in these wish images is the resolute effort (p. 4)

Author's Note
The "wish images" of urban life -- the desire to build new, grand structures and to purchase and consume the plethora of consumer goods. The fast-moving sequence presents a dream-like montage, and the quest to build a rapidly paced urban life that could move forward to a futurist, technologically advanced (and possibly utopian) society.
Narration
to distance oneself from all that is antiquated (p. 4)

2:07 image: view of man asleep on the subway, with New York City skyline visible through the window

Author's Note
The image returns our discussion to a presentation of sleep and dreams, here within a well-known, archetypical New York City context. The individual is located within the iron-built urban world, and is moving rapidly through the technologically advanced urban construct of subways and skyscrapers. He is located within a world that seems to be totally immersed in the present as he advances in a technologically-charged society. Yet, this is clearly a dreamscape. If he senses that he can move forward beyond "history" – this is merely a dream. A subway moves forward along a linear axis, but our psychological and emotional lives are far more complex with multiple origins and destinations.
Narration
– which includes however, the recent past. (p. 4)

the previously seen view of the New York City skyline against the brilliant green of Central Park’s Sheep’s Meadow or Great Lawn becomes visible, as if it is seen through the subway window
sound: rustling, similar to opening sequence

Author's Note
In this image, the constructed world and the natural world converge. The sequence presents a seemingly impossible, surreal journey; the image seen in the subway window expands into a larger dream world.
The individual may dream that he is distanced from "antiquated" history and from the very recent past, but the technologically advanced urban future cannot be removed from the more complete context of an individual’s psychological experience and from larger historical or theological issues.
Narration
2:16 text/image: . . . In the dream in which epoch entertains images of its successor, the latter appears wedded to elements of primal history (p. 4)

soundtrack:
rustling and clearly discernible sounds of a subway train

Author's Note
In the closing image and text many elements previously discussed in this film project are reiterated or expanded.

The soundtrack, previously suggestive of ocean turf, now is understood as a quintessential urban sound. There is no clear demarcation between that which is a dream and that which is real.
The subway suggests the previously discussed topics of iron and bridges. This segment reiterates and expands the discussion of the antiquity of shared human experience, as conveyed in primeval myth and presented earlier in the Atlas "world in miniature" sequence.

Benjamin’s term "wedded" is suggestive of male/female bonding explored previously in the context of the relationship between iron and glass and in the discussion of the Kabbalistic metaphor of sexual union between the supernal Deity and the earthly human world. The motion of the subway in its subterranean tunnel can also be understood in this context. Primal human experience includes primal desires; Benjamin’s analysis of the arcades and many of the images and texts in this film project investigate connections between sexual desire, capitalism and consumption.

The subway as a train moving along a continuum also conveys the connectedness of historical experience. All human activities and perceptions are linked to the past. As in the overarching concepts underlying this project’s structure and content, any epoch is analogous to any other epoch. The comparison of 19th century Paris to 20th century New York is highly appropriate and accurate. Every society and culture resembles any other – human patterns of life and thought share intrinsic commonalities.

Cf. "This interpenetration derives its fantastic character, above all, from the fact that what is old in the current of social development never clearly stands out from what is new, while the latter, in an effort to disengage from the antiquated, regenerates archaic, primordial elements. The utopian images which accompany the emergence of the new always, at the same time, reach back to the primal past." (Expose of 1935, Early Version, p. 893)
closing soundtrack:
the rumblings of a subway train fades in the distance.

Multi-Media Essay Notes
To help bridge the space between art and scholarship each author has put together a series of notes to his and her film.

These include the voiced-over words of Benjamin
(Narration) with appropriate citation, other text where appropriate, and a discussion of the author's intent (Author's Note).

A. Fourier Notes

opening soundtrack:
rumblings, apparently the sound of ocean surf

Author's Note
The opening soundtrack suggests a naturalistic background setting, seemingly the tonal roar of ocean waves. The sound is indistinct and not readily precisely identifiable. Possible allusions include: temporal passage (i.e. the tidal rhythm of the waves); idyllic space; slumber; the world of nature. The final soundtrack will clarify the actual source of this soundtrack, contrasting the seemingly naturalistic idyllic rhythm with a constructed urban, quintessentially New York City cacophony.

Author's Note
Dreaming is central to the concepts explored within this project, and provides an accessible metaphor to express many of the surreal and sub-conscious aspects of the personal, mysterious and commercial worlds explored in Benjamin’s texts. Cf. "The realization of dream elements in the course of waking up is the canon of dialectics. It is paradigmatic for the thinker and binding for the historian." (p. 464 [N4,4])
In this film, the initial presentation of the dreamer and the world of dreams is seen within a natural ideal.
Narration
the "city of arcades" is (p. 17)

view of the brilliant green lawn of Central Park (Sheep’s Meadow or The Great Lawn), with the New York skyline behind, against a clear sky

Author's Note
Through this image and text the urban context explored within this project is defined as New York City. The dreamer seen in the previous image, asleep on the grass, is now placed within the larger physical context of the vast urban center. The individual is seen within a larger, communal, and often aggregate, urban context. This image presents the juxtaposition of the brilliant green grass of an idyllic natural space against the quintessential urban architecture of the New York City skyline

cf. "These notes devoted to the Paris arcades were begun under an open sky of cloudless blue that arched above the foliage; and yet—owing to the millions of leaves that were visited by the fresh breeze of diligence, the stertorous breath of the researcher, the storm of youthful zeal, and the idle wind of curiosity—they’ve been covered with the dust of centuries. For the painted sky of summer that looks down from the arcades in the reading room of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris has spread out over them its dreamy, unlit ceiling" (pp. 457-458, [N1,5])
Narration
a dream that will charm the fancy of Parisians well into the second half of the century (p. 17)

Author's Note
In this text by Benjamin the arcades themselves are identified as dream-like, with a capacity to "charm" the urban community. This project’s goals are made explicit in this text passage and image, allowing the viewer to readily understand the working method of this initiative; the text reads "Paris" yet the image is clearly New York.

In the text as cited here, the temporal epoch remains ambiguous. Although Benjamin’s "second half of the century" refers to the 19th century, in the context of this project the text can readily be interpreted as the 20th century or even as the 21st.

The mosaic panel depicting the New York City skyline is particularly resonant. The view of the skyline seen previously in this film was an "actual" photographic representation; the skyline is here rendered as a more dream-like "artistic" illusion. This somewhat spectral depiction of the urban construct can be understood as having an increased capacity to "charm" due to its "artistry" or "impressionistic" qualities. The physical construct of the mosaic is also very relevant to the themes explored in Benjamin’s text and in this project. The construction of a larger image of urban construct and space from small fragmentary tesserae describes the physical nature of this mosaic, but also describes the essential construct and content of Benjamin’s The Arcades Projectand the goals of this multi-media essay.

The mosaic is also suggestive of the pixelated character of the photographic representations seen in this digital format, and thus suggests the nature of the images seen in this exploration of Benjamin and urban culture. This project is a mosaic – in structure, context and concept.

Cf. "This work has to develop to the highest degree the art of citing without quotation marks. Its theory is intimately related to that of montage." ( The Arcades Project, 458 [N1,10]) and for a similar description of an artificial rendering of a vista see Benjamin’s description of "the painted sky of summer . . . in the reading room of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris" (pp. 457-458, [N1,5]) cited above.

This image also explores the commercial capitalistic urban enterprise. In this instance in New York City, but it is clearly analogous to the Parisian experience described by Benjamin. The dream that charms Parisians is one composed of plenitude and commercial opportunity. Here the very image of New York is found on a bank, the epicenter of capital and commerce. The banks name, inscribed on the buildings façade below the mosaic frieze, "Savings Bank of New York" suggests the intrinsic relationship between the city of New York and the commercial activities of the bank (the world of money) – here literally written in stone. The multiple meaning of the term "saving" in religious, physical or commercial contexts (i.e. salvation, lifesaving, savings account, etc.) can suggest Benjamin’s exploration of the interrelationship between the capitalist quest for wealth and consumption, mystical or spiritual experience and personal physical and emotional sustenance.

In this image, once again we encounter a sleeping man. Yet this image is only minutely suggestive of a world of dreams, idyllic slumber or surreal escape. The homeless figure asleep at the foot of the bank, below the depicted skyline, alludes to the dark side of the commercial world. Not all enjoy a world of "charm" and "fancy." The world of plenitude is not available to all – many have access to enjoy the products and pleasures of a world of commerce and consumption, but others are impoverished by this capitalist world. They may dream of enjoyment, success and plenty, but the reality (as seen in this image of a homeless man) is often harsh and disturbing.
Narration
An Illustrated Guide to Paris says: "These arcades, a recent invention of industrial luxury, are glass-roofed, marble-paneled corridors extending through whole blocks of buildings whose owners have joined together (p. 3)


Author's Note
This view of New York City construction particularly stresses the use of glass in windows and skylights. Glass is of special interest as this material relates to issues of fragility, light, surveillance, voyeurism, transparency and artifice. Glass is also central to Benjamin’s discussions of mirrors and artificial lighting (see Convalutes R and T), and is relevant to Benjamin’s analysis of photography (i.e. lenses, glass plates – see Convalute Y)

Cf. "It is the peculiarity of technological forms of production (as opposed to art forms) that their progress and their success are proportionate to the transparency of their social content. (Hence glass architecture)." (pp. 465 [N4,6])
The motion of the film pan in this sequence stresses the expansion of such buildings "extending through whole blocks," providing a quickened, visual sense of urban growth.
Narration
for such enterprises. a world in miniature." (p. 3)
00:35 image: Lee Lowrie and Rene Chambellan’s sculpture of Atlas holding the globe from Rockefeller Center
Author's Note
This sculpture depicts "a world in miniature" in a famed, quintessentially New York City, urbane, Art Deco guise. Rockefeller Center was constructed as an urban international mall, with street names and shops reflecting the worldwide community. The reference to the mythological Atlas suggests that "contemporary" (be it 19th century Paris or 20th century New York) culture echoes primeval human experiences and concerns conveyed in ancient myth.

Cf. "Only a thoughtless observer can deny that correspondences come into play between the world of modern technology and the archaic symbol-world of mythology." (pp. 461 [N2a, 1])
Narration
For the first time in the history of architecture, an artificial building material appears (p. 4)



Author's Note
The crane hook set before the New York City urban landscape points to the technological innovations, products and processes that have made such construction possible.
Narration
iron (p. 4)

Author's Note
The image and text stress the interaction of the physical attributes of the construction medium, the overall final completed building project and the lives of individuals (as construction workers and as building dwellers).
The importance of iron as a building material and the very physical nature of this construction medium -- its newness, solidity, structural strength, rigidity – is presented in contrast to the previous discussion of the import and materialist characteristics of glass – transparency, fragility, antiquity. Based on their material attributes, it is possible to understand iron and glass in a gendered male/female typology, possibly with their unity in a sexual bond creating the new urban construct. Iron and glass are central to Benjamin’s study of the physical construct and culture of the arcades and to 19th century Paris as a whole, and are equally influential in an understanding of 20th century New York’s urban space and society.

Cf. "Now it is the same with the human material on the inside of the arcades as with the materials of their construction. Pimps are the iron bearings of this street, and its glass breakables are the whores" (The Arcades of Paris, p. 879)
Narration
It undergoes an evolution whose tempo will accelerate in the course of the century. (p. 4)

Author's Note
The speed of the visual sequences suggests the explosively rapid growth made possible through iron and building technology.

An analysis of iron as a technological innovation that can create massive change is a "dated" phenomenon, clearly related to the past and to Benjamin’s exploration of the 19th century. At the dawn of the 21st century, this discussion of technological innovation and cultural change readily suggests the recently experienced late 20th century rapid and drastic cultural revolution brought about by the computer. This discussion of technology and cultural change provides a self-referential analysis of the digital and web-based format of this film project.
This text ambiguously refers to an unspecified "the century."
Narration
The meshing of the passions, the intricate collaboration of (p.5)

Author's Note
The combative and/or collaborative emotional and spiritual life of individuals is contrasted to the abruptly angled interaction of urban architecture.
Narration
passions méchantistes with the passion cabaliste, is a primitive contrivance formed – on analogy with the machine – from materials of psychology. (p. 5)


Author's Note
This image and text sequence explores Benjamin’s interest in mystical and theological issues (often within the context of Judaism), and Benjamin’s lifelong intellectual bond and personal friendship with Gershom Scholem, the leading 20th century academic scholar of Kabbalah (Jewish Mysticism).
The Sefirot chart is a kabbalistic diagram of Divine emanations suggesting the structual format of the relationship between various components of the unified Deity. The Sefirot enable a heavenly, supernal, celestial God to interact with the earthly, human world and conversely describe the structure whereby man can interact with the Divine.

The physical similarity of the angular intersecting girder construct of the bridge and the linear format of the Sefirot diagram is accentuated through the superimposition of these two images. The bridge as a mode of connection and two-way transversal (here a New York city bridge allowing human city-dwellers to go back and forth within the urban construct) is clearly analogous to the Sefirot as a mode of human-Divine linkage and inter-relationship.

These images and text suggest how Benjamin’s study of the urban construct as a built, created, artificial world and his discussion of the bonds between the physical environment and human cultural experience can be seen within a larger context as an investigation of theological and ontological issues.

As conveyed in this text and as explored through the superimposed images, our understanding of human and Divine experience can be understood through examining construction and through metaphors of constructed elements. Bridges, machines, the human body and psyche provide mystical understanding and awareness.

This discussion of Kabbalah stresses Benjamin’s concentration on dreaming and dream-like states and on euphoric experiential moments relating to mystical religious or sublime understanding, rather than to a more strictly rationalist approach.

cf. "My thinking is related to theology as blotting pad is related to ink. It is saturated with it. Were one to go by the blotter, however, nothing of what is written would remain." (p. 471, [N7a,7])

Specific emanations within the Sefirot chart provide additional nuances of meaning. The discussion of human and divine creation/building and the analysis of the relationship between physical construction and intellectual conceptualization are discussed in this entire text/image sequence. These themes are specifically alluded to by the emanation of Binah -- which can be translated as understanding or wisdom, but which is derived from (and can be spelled the same) as the Hebrew root-word for building or construction – Boneh. The inter-relationship of these terms also suggests the well-known rabbinic dictum which plays on the similarity of the Hebrew terms for "Your sons" – baneikh and "Your builders" – bonaiekh (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berakhot 64a).
image of the iron construction of the bridge suggests the previously discussed male imagery associated with iron – girder as rigid member. The iron bridge as a male conduit suggests the kabbalistic conceptualization of the Yesod emanation as a phallic image sexually linked to the female Malkhut allowing for a divine/human connectedness. Sexual allure and activity are strong themes within Benjamin’s discussion of the arcades, and they are here suggested within both a physical human and a mystical, spiritual context.

Gershom Scholem and Walter Benjamin enjoyed a decades-long very close intellectual and personal relationship, and Benjamin’s discussions of or allusions to Jewish and mystical themes was clearly shaped by this interaction. The bridge and Sefirah chart as symbols of interaction and exchange also suggest the Benjamin-Scholem friendship. Scholem is extensively responsible for initiating the increasingly widespread interest in Kabbalah in both academic and popular spheres within the past decades, and with Adorno was responsible for publication of Benjamin’s works acting as an intellectual heir.

Notes Continued >>