|
|
|
Reviews
| Echoes of Forgotten Places: Urban Exploration, Industrial Archaeology, and the bbbbsthetics of Decay. By Robert Fantinatto and Leesa Beales. Toronto, Ontario: Scribble Media, 2005. DVD: 43 min. with 19 min. of bonus images.
|
Echoes of Forgotten Places is an interesting attempt to produce a new set of values for urban spaces presently seen as negative, if they are considered at all. The focus of this DVD is on derelict industrial landscapes and buildings. In other academic venues, this decay is often seen as proof that capitalism is unable to produce the unlimited growth of which it claims to be capable. As tangible evidence that capitalism is not sustainable and even prone to failures, derelict landscapes and buildings are systematically ignored and, where possible, destroyed, even if that means simply leaving empty spaces. The directors of Echoes of Forgotten Places believe that it is possible to find alternate and even positive values in these places otherwise forgotten by society at large.
|
1
|
The "big idea" that motivated the directors is that these structures are a form of history and of industrial history in particular. Given the impact of industry in recent history on all aspects of society, the directors argue that it is shameful to doom all these structures to demolition and thus to oblivion. Something of them, either through interesting reclamation projects or adaptive reuse, should be retained to keep the history and memory of industry active. The directors make a very specific plea to remember the people who worked in these places, people who made it possible for modern society to be built and function. These structures should, they argue, become monuments to the labor of past ages, not simply to the entrepreneurs or financiers. If nothing else, the directors argue that at a minimum something should be recorded of these places before they are permanently lost.
|
2
|
This recording of vanishing places is what directs the DVD and the gallery extras. Most of the DVD consists of footage showing the directors and others engaging with derelict buildings in or around Toronto, Ontario (they do not mention the locations, but the CN Tower visible in exterior shots gives away the city). People are seen entering and wandering through abandoned structures, ranging from late-19th-century steel mills to structures from the 1960s or more recent times. They investigate the dark little corners that hide the bits of suspended time that are the "echoes" of the title. They unsystematically photograph interesting looking bits and ask questions but never provide answers. They are in awe of the poetics of these places but barely discuss the heritage they claim should be preserved. Aside from some interviews with unidentified individuals (urban explorers explaining their hobbies) and a short 1930s promotional film for the American steel industry in the extras, the DVD has little of either history or historical analysis. The producers are just unfolding vistas of decay.
|
3
|
This is where the DVD will fail for most audiences. In part, the brevity of the DVD may have limited any possible discussion to just cursory remarks. It is likely more the lack of editing and actual content beyond the visuals themselves that limit the DVD. The producers provide little commentary and no discussion of recording techniques or even about what is significant and what is not. Most of the narrative seems intended to heighten the aesthetic experience rather than serve as a mode of explanation. The images do not record "history" or even "heritage." Rather, thanks to the small amount of narrative these scenes have, the audience learns that the photographers are recording impressions of decay in industrial settings and not necessarily the industrial settings themselves. The photographers seem to only find interest when the environment creates an interesting backdrop and when the contrasts between the intention of the builders and what has become of the buildings produce a tangible sense of irony. Surely this orientation to the poetics of decay cannot truly qualify as history, heritage, or archaeology and so limits the impact of any arguments the directors may have been trying to make
|
4
|
There is some value in what they do. Heritage advocates come from many different perspectives and levels of training (professional to avocational). That diversity usually produces conflict over the hierarchies of value and significance that surround heritage production. The Echoes DVD is an attempt to argue for the preservation of a value cherished by the directors and the subculture of urban exploration (people who like to enter derelict structures or abandoned infrastructure to experience gothic, mysterious, and forbidden atmospheres are the likely target audience). The directors and urban explorers focus on the same objects as do other industrial heritage enthusiasts/advocates, but the reasons for saving structures and to what ends are a bit different. If Echoes is able to reach out and successfully argue its point and is able to engage those sympathetic to its orientation, then it should be considered a valuable contribution to mobilizing different segments of public opinion for saving industrial heritage. That the DVD's ethos cannot be the sole voice for preservation should be clear. What the directors claim to be of value does not necessarily have value for larger audiences and would frame preservation policy in less than workable terms.
|
5
|
Also, had the directors been given more time, Echoes of Forgotten Places could have expanded a discussion that would have been of interest to cultural geographers and their ilk but perhaps not to the readership of this journal: the variable experience of time in place. The idea that forgotten places become small pockets of forgotten time gets introduced in both the film itself and in some of the commentary in the image galleries. The idea of pockets of lost time is common in popular fiction familiar to most urban explorers (Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, for example) and is expressed in various terms in cultural geography and other disciplines (Michel Foucault's heterotopia being one such term). Such experiences help sell heritage to different audiences who seek, amongst other things, a sense of difference in time or of "being transported away," certainly something that urban explorers seek when entering buildings.
|
6
|
Unfortunately, the discussion of the experience of time in Echoes is shallow. The directors have a tendency to focus on several different manifestations of multiple and overlapping senses of time without giving much discussion. One such image that the camera dwells on, dust-covered clothes hanging in lockers abandoned years before, suggests a moment in time frozen even as decay continued, a leitmotif throughout the entire DVD. It was the signs of "nature" returning to claim the structures that elicited the most comment about time. Small plants, growing up in pockets of sunlight leaking through failing roofs, suggest that natural time, measured by seasonality, was reasserting itself after centuries of industrial time, measured by clocks. Unfortunately, the discussion of time is limited by the brevity of the DVD and by the short introductions given by photographers' comments in the image galleries. While this sort of discussion will not engage many people for its approach to the experience of time, it would be attractive to the DVD's intended audience.
|
7
|
Overall, Echoes is an interesting attempt to inscribe value back to landscapes on which members of society have turned their backs. By investigating buildings and places now derelict, the directors are trying in their own way to save some expression of these environments. Initially couched in terms of learning about the past and valuing those who once labored there, the DVD falls quite short of actually teaching anything about that past and teaches nothing about process, people, labor relations, or anything else. In fact, the DVD makes almost no reference to any historical people at all, observing instead the detritus of human activity suddenly terminated. It simply appears to be a fascination with surfaces and images, which has become commonplace in a world dominated with images and forms. The shallow narrative and brief introduction of ideas does nothing to deepen understanding of the subject. As such, Echoes' approach to urban decay may help to change the way these places are viewed, but it will likely do nothing for achieving a deeper understanding of why decay took place at all, nor will the DVD likely change the fate of the structures these urban explorers so highly value.
|
8
|
|
|
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|