This class would be an investigation and resurrection of the spectres
of LA History through theory, urban remapping and site-specific art/activist
projects.
Part one would consist of theoretical and historical reading about Los
Angeles (Norman Klein's History of Forgetting? Cadillac Desert? Joan
Didion? others?) and would try to focus on communities, spaces and ecosystems destroyed by hegemonic political and economic powers in LA.
Examples might be the original Llano del Rio Collective, the Chavez Ravine neighborhood pre-Dodger stadium, punk rock Hollywood Boulevard in the 80's, dead orange groves and restaraunts that served bear meat. We might even
get pre-historic and study the geology and palentology of the area,
for a truly panhistoric look at the specters of the landscape.
Part two, after researching we would locate and visit the sites of burial of past L.A. we want to focus on, map and reimagine them in preparation for a final project / intervention. The key here is to examine the forces
behind the disappearances (gentrification, water rights issues,
anti-communist feeling, legal changes etc...) and analyze how these
forces continue to impact the same space in LA. But furthermore, we would try to show how that past is still encoded in those spaces and continues to haunt them.
Part three, would involve a creative remapping of these "haunted"
places in order to resurrect the history. For example, (and this might be too simplistic) but
opening a guerilla punk club on Hollywood boulevard for one night
might "resurrect" the punk LA 80's, especially if it disrupted the
normal flow of commerce & tourism and used key sites from the LA punk movement.
Other projects could include site specific art to be
embedded into the landscape permanently, buried time capsules, online
zines/webpages, spatial takeovers or other forms of art that remake
the terrain to reflect its spectral history. Monuments? Projects would be open-ended and
could be collaborative or individual, depending on interest in a given location.
All these events could happen / be installed on one day and it could be called Spectral
LA 2010 or something like that.
Part Four The end "product" if we want one, might be an online map of historical Los
Angeles, with a list of our artistic interventions (and some of these art
interventions would hopefully remain permanently or semi-permanently)
as well as a website with information, video clips & photos of the "Spectral LA Night"
Methodology: "A historian who takes this as his point of departure stops telling the sequence of events like the beads of a rosary. Instead, he grasps the constellation which his own era has formed with a definite earlier one. Thus he establishes a conception of the present as the ‘time of the now’ which is shot through with chips of Messianic time."
-- Walter Benjamin
Comment
Sure, I would want to be on the organizing committee too. Let's start posting some ideas about specific lost communities and texts that would address them, so we can formulate a reading list. We might just do a chapter or two from the Mike Davis, and a chapter from a few others...
12 Feb 2010 3:09PM
Great. I a glad you are involved, Sandra. It seems like this is your forte. I am interested in history of L.A. urban planning. (Mike Davis's City of Quartz was exactly what I was thinking but need some more research... ) zendochterman, would you also like to be involve in organizing?
7 Feb 2010 8:16PM
I would like to be part of that "committee" of organizers. I'm swamped until the end of February, but could possibly take a more active role in helping to organize the class beginning in mid'march. A group I know has done interventions around this theme: For a plaque on chavez ravine check out:
http://www.hijadela.com/projects/prs/invismonum/chavez.html
6 Feb 2010 7:47PM
Naoko,
Awesome you're getting involved. I am definitely not "leading" it. I think that a committee of organizers would be a good idea, especially since there are so many areas of LA & lost histories that we could cover as well as so many ways to approach the site-specific projects. Ideally, it would be as self-organized and collaborative as possible. What texts & projects would you like to see, Naoko?
I think Caleb you were interested in helping organize it now. Are we still looking at a tentative April start date?
6 Feb 2010 7:07PM
I would like to help organize this class. zendochterman, are you planning to lead this class? Or are thinking of it as more self organized?
5 Feb 2010 11:00PM
Well let's all figure out a reading list together. What lost communities would you want to look at?
I have a couple ideas:
Norman Klein's History of Forgetting (good chapter on Chavez Ravine)
http://www.amazon.com/History-Forgetting-Angeles-Erasure-Haymarket/dp/18...
Mike Davis's City of Quartz is a classic, especially dealing with gentrification & homelessness (and still relevant to contemporary downtown development).
http://www.amazon.com/City-Quartz-Excavating-Future-Angeles/dp/0679738061
Here's a photo book on Chavez Ravine in 1949, before they put in Dodger stadium
http://www.amazon.com/Chavez-Ravine-1949-Don-Normark/dp/0811840573/ref=p...
There's supposed to be a really good book about this but I forgot the title...
Punk Rock LA 80's: We Got the Neutron Bomb
http://www.amazon.com/We-Got-Neutron-Bomb-L/dp/0609807749
Also, I know Chinatown was originally closer to Union Station and torn down to make way for it...don't know about this book, but it could be a start, especially for the more visually inclined. (Probably not much of a history)
http://www.amazon.com/Chinatown-Los-Angeles-Images-America/dp/0738569569
We could also try to find folks who used to work with the South Central Farm to come talk with us.
I've also been fascinated with Montecito Heights and displaced Victorian homes...although none of those are actually from Bunker Hill.
31 Jan 2010 4:21PM
what is the reading list for this class? thanks.
20 Jan 2010 1:42PM
Here's a great resource to start see the development of the city over time:
http://hypercities.ats.ucla.edu/
It's an interactive map of LA with some history built-in & a layering of different time periods to reflect changes in the urban space.
12 Jan 2010 5:30PM
sorry about the typos & words pressed together. i cut and pasted it from an email.
10 Jan 2010 4:26PM