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129
from grand Hotels to tiny treasures
their homes. Given that identity is constructed in and through
place, the shrinking city phenomenon is to be expected, as peo-
ple leave places they no longer want to be associated with. Like
sex workers, Görlitzers have fought back against their stigma-
tization by taking pride in their work and in the success of the
films made there: “[a]ls bei der Oscarverleihung 2015 der Streif-
en The Grand Budapest Hotel den Goldjungen gleich vierfach
erhielt, unter anderem für das beste Szenenbild, knallten auch
in Görlitz die Sektkorken.” [“When in 2015 The Grand Budapest
Hotel received four gold statues, among them for best produc-
tion design, the sekt corks also popped in Görlitz”] (Heinz 2015).
Ruin porn works, then, by creating what Apel calls an “de-
industrial sublime” that acts to temper anxiety about decline
by containing it aesthetically and locating it elsewhere. Places
such as Detroit and the Grand Budapest Hotel in Anderson’s
film serve as “a geographic repository for society’s irreconcilable
emotions about the present and future of capitalism” (Steacy
2016, 255). If we recall that the title and set of Anderson’s film
locate it firmly in a failed Eastern Europe, then it behooves us to
recognize that this failure is by no means a thing of the past and
that, as Agata Pyzik eloquently argues in her 2014 Poor But Sexy:
Culture Clashes in Europe East and West, there is a pressing need
to “take stock of the myths, stereotypes, and ‘great narratives’ of
the Cold War that [continue to] haunt East-West cultural rela-
tions today” (Zychowicz 2015, 155). After “exploring the plight of
young people under socialism against the backdrop of the years
after the more recent economic collapse of 2008,” (ibid., 156),
she declares:
So yes, the East is still more beastly than the West, but per-
haps it has become more so during the “transition,” finally
fulfilling all of the negative stereotypes the West had about
it while it was ruled by its decaying communist parties […]
The dissolution of communism in the countries involved led
to a social desert, in which people are more than others im-
mersed in a capitalist “state of nature.” (Pyzik 2014, 3–4)
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book Siting Futurity - The “Feel Good” Tactical Radicalism of Contemporary Culture in and around Vienna"
Siting Futurity
The “Feel Good” Tactical Radicalism of Contemporary Culture in and around Vienna
- Title
- Siting Futurity
- Subtitle
- The “Feel Good” Tactical Radicalism of Contemporary Culture in and around Vienna
- Author
- Susan Ingram
- Publisher
- punctumbooks
- Location
- New York
- Date
- 2021
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-1-953035-48-6
- Size
- 12.6 x 20.2 cm
- Pages
- 224
- Keywords
- activism, Austria, contemporary art, contemporary theater, protest culture, radicalism, social protest, Vienna
- Category
- Geographie, Land und Leute
Table of contents
- Preface 11
- Introduction 19
- 1. (Re)Forming Vienna’s Culture of Resistance: The Proletenpassions @ #Arena 39
- 2. Converting Kebab and Currency into Community on Planet #Ottakring 57
- 3. Lazarus’s Necropolitical Afterlife at Vienna’s #Volkstheater 81
- 4. Hardly Homemad(e): #Schlingensief’s Container 101
- 5. From Grand Hotels to Tiny Treasures: Wes Anderson and the Ruin Porn Worlds of Yesterday 119
- 6. Capitalism, Schizophrenia, and #Vanlife: The Alpine Edukation of Hans Weingarter 143
- 7. #Hallstatt: Welcome to Jurassic World 161
- Bibliography 189
- Filmography 215