happy new year!!

blimey, new years eve is upon us!

its 23.15 and i'm off to sandbar to see in 2008...
best wishes everyone, lets hope it's a peaceful and propitious one for us all....

cynical civic celebrations…

christmas in the city can be overwhelming, even daunting, a smorgasbord of festive delights laid on with military precision by the people who bring you everything else – marketing manchester.

with gluwein and supersized santas on every corner, glittering lights and giant baubles haemorrhaging electricity from the national grid, street traders and artisans proffering gifts from around the globe, ice skating or the big wheel for the more determined thrill seeker, it seems positively churlish not to throw caution to the wind and revel in the festive spirit.

as a triumph of the city over the looming threat of the out of town shopping mall with its corporate piped-in consumerism, a remembrance of a bygone ‘authentic’ christmas as our grandparents enjoyed them, its hard to criticise - the village fayre, the frozen duck pond providing impromptu skating for joyful families, midnight mass and the holy manger at the centre of the festivities, carol singing - the whole white Christmas of our collective imagining. surely its preferable for christmas to remain part of our communities than be farmed out of town altogether like some branch of ikea or diy outlet?

but in reality this is something of a hobson’s choice. for all its bonhomie and lively charms christmas in the city is a beguiling hall of mirrors; a distraction from the baleful truth that we barely celebrate christmas in any genuine sense - merely a hollow sham of a festival disguising the economic necessity nay duty behind the tinsel.

it is practically impossible to miss christmas in manchester, it rolls in early with a military campaign of activities, events and entertainments laid on to create the perfect seasonal backdrop to the actual meaning of yuletide – that of spending vast amounts of cash in the shops. if manchester is the year long capital of consumerism, then december is the culmination of its ambition and raison d’etre.

since the emergence of the monstrous trafford centre out of the stench-filled sewage outflow of dumplington, a weatherproof, family oriented shopping and entertainment complex, manchester has reinvented itself as the family oriented traditional ‘authentic’ experience for all occasions, all festivals, all seasons…

come christmas it reveals a dickensian picture postcard version of the season, crammed to bursting with readymade yuletide memories. the town hall becomes a ‘european market’ of foods, crafts and gifts from northern europe, the epitome of celtic credibility. here for 4 whole weeks locals and visitors alike can gather up all their festive essentials from independent retailers and specialists, avoiding the corporate machine in a reassuring simulacrum of christmas past, of a sustainable fair traded christmas.

or maybe you prefer piccadilly, home base for another nordic fantasy, the white christmas, where families dust off their skates, toboggans and sledges and take a turn around the ice covered lakes and waters of the village square!! recreated for snow hungry mancunians via the magic of an ice machine, for only a tenner a turn in repeat-hired odour eaten plastic shoes…

…meanwhile in st anne’s square a different myth is re-enacted with a simple log cabin housing the 3 wise men et al and the picturesque, historic church playing host to yet more ‘authenticity’, more alternatives to the consumerist nightmare, with more crafts, mulled wine and stollen on tap just in case the sight of the holy family brings on in an unseasonal moment of clarity or an unseemly fit of abstinence! yet all this is just a smokescreen, a diversion from the unholy trafford centre, presented to support the major players and investors who remained loyal to the city; the corporate and multinational big names on the high street. for anyone remembering the city pre bomb, it hardly feels like manchester any more.

yet for all this humbug of mine, there are still pleasures to enjoy that do not depend entirely on the patronage of consumerism, still a few things that can remind one of a time before rampant spending was the order of the day, when fun and festivities didn’t have to break the bank.

here are just a few credit card-lite ways to enjoy or rediscover the city around the madness of the holiday season…

northern quarter still harbours many local gems – oxfam for a great selection of fair trade treats and chocolates and weird and wonderful pre-loved books and vinyl; tib street revitalised and packed with tiny shops including independent florists to decorate your home or say it with flowers; upmarket and down market sex emporiums for the saucy at heart; vintage goldmine 'rags to bitches' for the dandy or glamourpuss in your life; the ever dependable berwicks for all your fairy lights; john greys for string, twine and labels of every size for wrapping those well chosen gifts; love saves the day and oklahoma for decent coffee, cake or delicious toast and jam in between festive foraging…

back in the heart of repackaged manchester, don’t forget the royal exchange theatre for civilised coffee stops and a reliable and beautifully made selection of jewellery, ceramics, artworks, handbags, and artisan knits for those hard to buy for…

or for a reminder of the original message of christmas why not pop into manchester cathedral, a vision of victorian grandeur and the face of anglican moderation; or at the other end of deansgate, the delectable and wonderfully restored rylands library for truly inspiring surroundings, beautiful exhibitions and rare books or just some afternoon tea and scones and secular spirituality in this cathedral to enlightenment. and both these triumphs handily have gift shops so all isn’t lost if presents are still high on the agenda.

for those with more catholic requirements, respite can always be found in the aptly named 'hidden gem', a favourite of my own childhood, the exact opposite of the cathedral in both size and style, a little bit of popery in this most reformist city; or st anne’s church in the heart of shopping city for a more austere aesthetic, which cheerfully plays genial host to daily recitals, tea and biscuit sessions, carol singing and exhausted shoppers alike….our own village vicarage in the heart of the metropolis!

make sure you enjoy what remains of this ‘season to be jolly’ in whatever way you think fit, ‘sale madness’ currently encouraging yet more needless spending, but remember that beneath the smokescreen of the spectacle there are, as always, many other manchesters awaiting your discovery, guaranteed to offer sanctuary, respite or wonder for the tired, cynical, despondent or simply wallet sore!!

Seasons greetings one and all…

turner prize liverpool - the greatest show on earth!

mark wallinger predictably but probably deservedly won the turner prize on monday night.

the turner prize is a bit of a hamstrung beast, a victim of its own success and reputation, with detractors on all sides: a circus freakshow of dubious content to outsiders and a spectacle of trumpet blowing hype to many insiders. despised and abused from all sides, the poor thing cant win, but as a snapshot of where art and visual culture are today and within the public domain, it remains invaluable.

as usual the predicable debate about art and its ‘relevance’, as well as the inevitable media circus surrounding this annual contemporary art prize, threatened to overshadow the actual work and merit of the artists and the aims of the exhibition as a whole - to explore, examine and evaluate the world we inhabit through the lens of the contemporary visual artist.


the turner prize is awarded to a british artist, or an artist from another country working in britain, under the age of fifty 'for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work in the previous twelve months. it is intended to promote public discussion of new developments in contemporary british art and is widely recognised as one of the most important and prestigious awards for the visual arts in europe.'
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/exhibitions/turnerprize2007/

the turner prize was hosted outside london for the first time in its history this year, at tate Liverpool, to mark the countdown to the city's status as european capital of culture for 2008. this in itself made the headlines. how on earth were the great and the good expected to get to a venue outside the capital to view the short listed artists? even worse, i cant help thinking, how were they supposed to enjoy the parties, the wine and the canapés, if they were being held somewhere up north in the middle of nowhere...liverpool, for god's sake!

the controversy about location exhausted, there followed the usual rantings and bleatings about the shortlisted artists, mark wallinger in particular; at 48 the oldest recipient of the prize so far, and only just elegible. previously he was perhaps best known for ecce homo, his resin sculpture of a very human Christ crowned with thorns, a veritable everyman, commissioned for the 4th plinth in trafalgar square - a visit to the following guardian slideshow places his Christ in the context of other 4th plinth artists: http://arts.guardian.co.uk/pictures/image/0,8543,-10204720077,00.html

but it is his most recent work, 'state britain', the work for which he was nominated, that raised the usual gamut of misunderstandings about the nature of contemporary art today, even though due to the specific rules of the turner prize, the piece actually exhibited would be the 2004 'sleeper', better known as 'the dancing bear'. a 2 and a half hour film of the artist wandering around the empty berlin nationalgalerie by night dressed in a bear suit, it is exactly the sort of modern art that exasperates and bewilders the archetypal daily mail reader, egged on by the paper’s ‘sensible man in the street’ style editorials.

a glimpse at a recent daily mail column is typical of their irritatingly simplistic cultural worldview, complaining contradictorily of both its ridiculousness and ordinariness! it also offers a review of sorts of all the short listed artists for 2007, and manages to miss the assorted beauty, poignancy and irony offered by the works of bhimji, nelson and coley, preferring to reduce them to the usual tiresome and predictable clichés. regardless or not of whether a artwork is to one’s personal taste, it is surely not beyond the intellect or imagination to encourage or engage in actual deliberation about the issues surrounding and inspiring visual artists today, rather than endlessly rehash the ‘but is this art’ question?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=488278&in_page_id=1770

all this bear talk notwithstanding, it is for 'state britain', shown at tate britain at the start of the year, that wallinger won the turner prize - a 40-metre long representation, complete with banners and tarpaulin shelter, of brian haws mini-peace camp and protest opposite the houses of parliament from june 2001 until it was demolished by the police in may 2006 under new powers banning protests within one kilometre of westminster. the following telegraph article attempts to disguise its little britain attitude with a defence by its own arts critic, richard dormant, but its description of a previous winner, grayson perry, as a ‘cross-dresser who makes pornographic pottery’ says it all! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/12/03/baturner104.xml&DCMP=ILC-traffdrv07053100

of course the turner prize is a spectacle that courts controversy – it is the flag bearer of modern art, the top of the pops of the visual art world, the ‘lifetime achievement’ section of the Oscars, i suppose. it is a whistle stop tour of who’s who and what’s what in art today and as such an indication of and glimpse into our collective preoccupations and anxieties. for the first time in its history, the prize, and therefore in many respects contemporary art practice itself, is readily available to everyone who lives outside London. go and see it; support the idea of world class art premiering outside of London. you never know, it might become routine – the provinces could become the centre of culture, rather than the after thought…

the exhibition continues until january 13: the work is funny, annoying, melancholic, haunting, inspiring, and some of it a little predictable – just like life itself. if none of it moves you simply nip round the corner to the marvellous ‘taxi project’ by the café, for a touch of Liverpool wit and wisdom in a real black cab. bizarre but brilliant…

practices of everyday life - free pansies in church st, liverpool...

you might remember that i have for some time now been involved with the pansy project, a site specific artwork by paul harfleet which interrogates issues around homophobia, location and citizenship.

i have already ruminated on these pages about the pansy project, its impact on myself and the world viewed and explored through its eyes. its large scale intervention in liverpool’s st john’s gardens was a fascinating creative process of activities leading up to the installation and unveiling of the artwork, a long, bold yet delicate line of pansies cutting through the formal landscaping of the memorial civic gardens. my involvement in these practices led to a breakthrough appreciation and glimmer of understanding into the differences between the actual ‘process’ of art as it happens in the field, as it were, as opposed to the academy, where so often, in a somewhat sterile and sanitised fashion, such work is debated and critiqued.

i also noted my own revelatory moment, as i drew on the phenomenological impact and performative experience of my years as a jobbing archaeologist, where my academic training and field practice informed and engaged the other; where practice and theory could energise each other. this is something that my tentative forays into contemporary art and visual culture have stubbornly refused to grasp, too intellectually intimidated by the mythology of the creative genius to simply experience. my contact with socially engaged practices such as harfleet’s and apartment have begun to allow me to bring my own viewpoint and discourse to art practice; to appreciate the validity and insights that this old boffin might bring to the contemporary. i had forgotten to trust in the archaeological viewpoint and the impact that its decade of reflexivity, its deconstructing of what appears orthodox or apparent, natural and permanent in academic discourse, can bring to interdisciplinary practice and theory.

at the end of that piece i noted that i was looking forward to the pansy project’s next participatory ‘conversation’, in the centre of liverpool, on sunday 18 november, and as predicted it was informative and confusing in equal measure. my thoughts on this are still in flux, subject to many more conversations with two other brunswick bluestockings, maureen ward and chris buckley, who are busy planning a proposal for a shared paper for next summer’s TRIP conference; territories reimagined: international perspectives. more details later, if they are accepted! or take a look at the website; http://trip2008.wordpress.com/

sunday the 18th was predictably cold, really cold, and we set off early in a swirl of scarves and the threat of rain. arriving mid morning in liverpool the streets are already lively and one can sense the gearing up to christmas: the streets are congested, people are seriously preoccupied with hunting and gathering, bags galore, anticipation in the air. who in their right mind is realistically going to stop and chat about homophobia on a day like today…?

paul, robbie and i set up a small table to one side of church street opposite m&s, fill the table with little pots of flowering pansies and erect some small signs that simply say ‘free pansies’. not much happens; people notice us slightly out of reach, eye up the flowers, peer at the sign and back away. only a brave or foolhardy few approach and ask what’s going on….it all feels a little lacklustre and we feel certain we won’t be able to empty our table.

then the cavalry arrive - well, the community police actually - and take stock of the situation. part of the contingent involved in the st john’s planting, they prove to be firmly committed to the idea of promoting the project: move right in, they say, get close up and personal, don’t let them keep their distance. they move us right into the throng of shoppers…immediately we are thrust into the limelight and under liverpool’s nose. suddenly it’s all action, we are surrounded on all sides - mooching huddles of boys, excitable gaggles of teenage girls fresh from triumphs at primark, mums, dads and kids clutching bags and booty on their way to macdonalds, couples on day-long dates, emos hanging out, all hair, eye make-up and skin tight ankles….

from being a detached experiment, we are now live and kicking, vulnerable and on display like our array of pansies. i busy myself taking photos, documenting as much of the process of the day and the dynamics of exchange as possible, enjoying the performance of paul as chief protagonist and ringmaster and the reactions as he draws people close, as they simultaneously accept the gift of a free pansy and the conditions of engagement, as the penny drops in the ensuing conversation that there is indeed no such thing as a free gift, that they have unwittingly become an agent, an actor in the ritual of the hand-out, that an exchange has occurred and that they have accepted not just a flower but knowledge, and with it an acceptance of responsibility. they have been changed and whether they like it or not have lost their innocence, their ignorance, in this faux garden of eden.

just as suddenly its all over - from being a heavily laden blaze of colour, the table is now almost empty, dusk is drawing in fast and the stores have done their days business. only a few bedraggled pots and our own cold and rather bedraggled selves remain – its time to pack up, warm up and return home…

ostensibly at these events paul hands over control to public participants, to passersby in the streets, regardless of whether or not they are aware of the issues imbued in the project, insisting that it is in these accidental social exchanges that the true meaning and purpose of the process is enacted. yet interestingly perhaps there is something of an inversion in this relinquishing of power, as in actual fact paul imposes the pansy on a largely unsuspecting public, effectively handing back the collective insults that are captured in the material and metaphorical body of the pansy – the embodiment of the ‘effeminate’ gay outsider, the pansy or faggot of heteronormative discourse. by the simple act of giving a member of the public who approaches curiously or unwittingly a gift of a pansy (he is always insistent that no donation or monies change hand on hand out days; it is always a giving) he has created a symbolic act or exchange, and queered or altered the relationship and power dynamic between ‘outsider’ and ‘insider’ in society.

The pansy in this context becomes a positive acknowledgement of shared citizenry, responsibility and the possibility of planting a seed of change, of remedy, out of a hitherto negative situation as well as an opportunity to create dialogues and reach beyond the confines of the usual gay networks.

do visit the pansy project web or blog site for images, information and reflections; http://thepansyproject.blogspot.com/; or join the facebook group for informal updates...

the fresh perspective and lucid insights that anthropologist chris buckley has brought to this project cannot be underestimated and i look forward to his forthcoming papers at goldsmiths and TRIP conferences with much anticipation.

bon anniversaire

tomorrow is my birthday. 146 years...it has flown by, especially as 40 odd of it was spent locked in the basement of the manchester museum...but thats another story!

a strange feeling, excited like a small child at the thought of receiving cards, presents and special wishes from one's friends, but also inevitably a day for reflection, and the exaggeration of a familiar feeling of anachronism, existing outside or apart from the aims and preoccupations of the mainstream. of course that is an affectation, as i am aware of the fact that many other people feel this estrangement, and they are not even 146 years of age! but being around such a young coterie of bluestockings, so much younger and adept at todays bizarre top speed attention span and lifestyles, though invigorating and enlightening, can be puzzling and confusing too. sometimes my innate pessimism and jaded outlook gets to them all. i like to blame my age and the fact that the world seems to have changed so dramatically around me, in a century of unprecedented innovation and technological advances; but perhaps i was always bewildered...

anyway, to stave off the birthday blues, i am bustling myself with preparations for a short visit to london with friends and looking forward to rushing around trying to fit in far too much, as always...

things to try to see include the terracotta army at the british museum, louise bourgeois at the tate modern, the riba headquarters for afternoon tea in the resplendant setting of the tea rooms on the first floor, plus a mooch round portobello market (friday being the best day for flea market gems), and sunday around islington street market for oddities and items to bring back.

those not so fortunate to be leaving manchestershire can console themselves with a packed cultural calendar and events to attend.

may i draw your attention to the following -

new contemporaries launch tonight at cornerhouse, or catch the discussion between some of the artists taking part this sunday at 2pm, in in conversation...
shrinking cities continues at cube,
last chance to catch joy on toast at the museum tonight and saturday,
autonomous agents symposium at the whitworth this saturday,

lets compare notes upon my return...

the body vulnerable – an icon disrobed

the independent showed this unusual image on its front page last week, unusual in that it is the antithesis of the prevailing representation of ancient Egypt. the face of a teenage boy, desiccated and exposed, it is a world away from the immortal boy king we have come to know, encased in gold and almost overwhelmed by his symbols of earthly and divine power. that image is instantly recognisable, redolent with the weight of all that is iconic and trite about indiana jones style archaeology – mysterious, distant, othered, ‘the past as another country’. the signifier of the dubious glamour of the tomb raider, the treasure hunter; the death mask of tutankhamen is the sum of archaeology’s enduring appeal.



this new face of the boy king is the flip side to our relationship with the past, foregrounding several burning contemporary issues – the persistent newsworthiness of archaeology, as the vehicle for bringing ‘the past’ to life; the centrality of the image, of the visual as the medium of communication; the abiding fascination with excess, status and power; the impact of the physicality of the body to foster a sense of shared humanity across time and space.




tutankhamen is an archaeological superstar, a global icon, recognisable anywhere in the world. second perhaps only to the dinosaur he is every school child’s favourite subject, epitomising all that is popular about history and archaeology – the actual materiality of the past, the scale and sophistication that we feel we share with many ancient civilisations with their flashy buildings, recognisable urban planning, complicated engineering, familiar and re-assuring plumbing systems, plus a dash of intrigue, mystery and murder for good measure.



the boy king is regal, grand, powerful, entombed with all the trappings of status and success but as this new image illustrates he is vulnerable too, vulnerable both to the machinations of the power politics of the times, a familiar concept to us here and now, and to the weaknesses of his mortal body. it is these contradictions that have kept him in the headlines since the sensation and controversies surrounding his discovery and excavation by Howard Carter in 1922.



these dual aspects to his enduring appeal are aptly illustrated by the twin stories and headlines circulating at the moment. on the one hand we have the unwrapping and delicate preparations to return this newly preserved and revealed body to his final resting place, his tomb in the valley of the kings; on the other we have the export version, the symbols of power that mask and surround the boy/king, the smoke screen of majesty, the sarcophagus, the gold, the baubles and treasures, the marvels of ‘wonderful things’ currently exhibited and already visited by charles and camilla, our home grown dynastic family, our own embodiment of state/religion in the body of the royal family.

the 02 show is undoubtedly a showstopper, the first opportunity in this country since the 1970’s to see the myth and magic of ‘a wonder of the ancient world’, but the real story, the real magic is much simpler, captured in the face of a young man with a slight overbite, face to face with fragile human being, surviving and intruding into our own world via a shared obsession with immortality and celebrity.

the real wonder of archaeology is perhaps captured in this image of his feet, exposed as if he has just drawn his blanket up round his newly naked ears, bereft of all those trappings of power and glittering trinkets that no doubt litter the latest show. i think i might prefer to miss the bling of the dome and pop over to the manchester museum instead where you can wander to your hearts content amongst mummified cats and snakes, spot a pair or two of preserved sandals and if you are really eagle eyed a rather fetching sock that the boy king might appreciate….

manchester the spectacularised city

manchester has always been a situationist city…

my young bluestocking friends eulogy to tony wilson and her recalling of the factory years prior to the hacienda which famously ‘had to be built’ led me to chew over the impact of the debordian tactics and ideas as interpreted by Wilson and those anglo-situationists on the subsequent development of the city and a whole generation. all roads in manchester seem to lead to Debord, whose insights have influenced aspects of counterculture and the liberal left, as well as the rise of punk, anarchism and the ‘adbuster’ generation.

reading his society of the spectacle is still for many a road to damascus revelation, its style visionary, even biblical, and for me his manifesto created a totally different interpetation for both pre and post bomb manchester.

i recognize that the city, any city, in both symbolic and geographical terms, is always becoming. it is a long, continuous process, overlapping and interwoven, a veritable palimpsest with many stories to tell. it is never a finished product, it is always transitional, never whole. i understand that the desire to protect certain nostalgic or historically specific parts of a city can be sentimental and contradict the inherent nature and progress of the city, creating a mausoleum, a museum of a city, stifling the possibility of its becoming anything else: its future.

all things must pass and the cities i most love are themselves often the product of previous ruthless and controversial planning or demolition. every city inevitably renews and invents itself for its own age, but some wisely or accidentally can abandon its former skins to their ‘old town’; a forgotten, neglected corner or other. this is how the pelt of the palimpsest is constantly scratched out, amended or obscured, a new hybrid form created out of the sum of all its parts – a frankenstein city perhaps, a little gnarly but sentient and dynamic nevertheless.

my worry for manchester and other british cities is that in their desire to create their city of ‘now’ they are forgetting the thing they most accuse backward glancing heritage advocates of - that the city is always becoming, it is never resolved. manchester seems to have embarked on an unstoppable mission to create a total city, from scratch. this is as flawed as attempting to safeguard its past forever in a sugary chocolate box package, a folly of ‘painting the forth bridge’ proportions….

manchester the commodified city...

debord articulated his attacks on the spectacle in terms of the damage being inflicted on cities and city life, a common cry in post war paris, as the wholesale reconstruction of areas like les halles, movement of people and eradication of old districts took their toll on the old city landscape. the parallels to the rapid redevelopment of british cities and manchester in particular couldn’t be clearer.

since the 1950’s the story of the british city has been one of dereliction and deterioration, losing its manufacturing bases, its traditional industries, and the wholesale displacement of people from the inner cities, and a consequent crisis of identity. it has been a long slow death for some, and those which have recovered have had to readjust to new global industries and economic conditions, grabbing a stake in the emerging new leisure and service industries, often the only real opportunity for creating new employment and attracting vital investment to rebuild and restructure the decaying fabric of the city itself.

the story of manchester can be seen as part of that trend, readjusting to a long period of decay and neglect with an upturn kick-started ironically by the bomb blast of 1996, which blew a hole in the centre of the city, but provided the opportunity and investments needed to completely restructure the landscape and public spaces into a series of distinct marketable quarters or villages, effectively commercialising all aspects of the ‘city experience’. this is part of a wider trend globally to repackage our cities and debord would argue, our lives into commodified packages for consumption rather than living in any real sense.

the Society of the Spectacle is acknowledged particularly amongst social and cultural geographers such as michael dear for outlining a number of themes which are helpful to an understanding of the modern city, such as the spectacularisation of the contemporary city; the expansion of capital into realms of leisure and everyday life; and the opening up of urban spaces for visual consumption and display.

debord was particularly vocal about the changes that had been wrought on paris and the displacements of people and places brought about by its post war reconstruction, feeling that paris, the paris of his youth, of the old neighbourhoods and ways of life, no longer existed. there are parallels here with manchester’s ‘post-bomb’ reconstruction and what its effects are on the citizens who live in this new type of urban space – he saw the destruction of the cities and urban life as being part of the wider transformations of capitalism and state bureaucracies that he associated with the ‘society of the spectacle’ where all of human life is subordinated to the demands of perpetual economic growth.

these changes are by no means unique to manchester.

in his book the post-modern urban condition michael dear argues that the global political economy has brought about enormous restructuring and instability in the old order, and a shift towards new spaces, associated with de-industrialisation, as well a move away from government / state investment in the public built environment towards public - private partnerships, brought about by lack of state financial resources.

his description of los angeles ‘a collection of theme parks where privatised, partitioned spaces exist for all tastes - communities of industry, leisure, sexual preference and so on’, could just as easily describe manchester, at least as its branders would have investors, tourists and residents believe.

these "packaged dreamscapes" can be seen in the trend towards the "quartering" of manchester - the gay village, the curry mile, the northern quarter, the millennium quarter, the green quarter, the oxford rd corridor: the result of a new type of ordering or mapping of the city, not in an overall structured whole, but as a series of experiences, for shopping, for living, for leisure. debord would see this trend as part of the spectacle’s knack of selling us our lives back as commodities, and represents the spectacle fully realised in a way debord envisioned but hoped could be challenged and destabilised in the acts of resistance possible through identifying and championing so–called ‘counter-sites’: non-spectacularised, marginal places, which resist and contest gentrification.

when viewed within this reading, manchester can now be seen as more a brand than a place, with its own agency ‘marketing manchester’ dedicated to marketing the city as an investment opportunity for developers and global corporations, highlighting all the consumables of the city. it has a year round, calendar strategy, arranging conferences, festivals, street markets, sporting activities, bidding for various circuses like the commonwealth games, generally ensuring that the whole city and its businesses is marketed and profitable all year. this is manchester’s new business – providing never-ending leisure and service industries, entertainments and consumerism. like its most famous football team, manchester is a global enterprise and brand, self serving and all consuming.

to facilitate this we are witnessing an era of almost unprecedented change, the much parodied ‘craney city’, undergoing rapid and massive redevelopment all over the city centre and increasingly on the outskirts as well, with the invention of so-called ‘villages’ and ‘quarters’, providing the obligatory luxury loft apartments, alongside a proliferation of bars, nightclubs and restaurants, a huge array of cinemas, casinos, and ‘retail experiences’. after a decade of this there is little evidence of a slowing down, of an end to this phenomenon - this policy is no flash in the pan, as the recent unveiling of the euphemistically named ‘left bank’ or ‘spinningfields - the new business quarter’ illustrates.

entertainment complexes such as the printworks boasts a multiplex cinema, a luxury gymnasium, several bars, nightclubs and half a dozen restaurant chains, as well as retails outlets. none are local or independent in any sense, none fostering any home-grown entrepreneurism, any intrinsic mancunian character to the area. it lies on the outer edge of the new millennium quarter, the manifestation of the new post-bomb brand, the new spectacular vision and future of manchester as a tourist attraction, complete with the MEN eye, our very own mock ‘london eye’, provincial branches of london department stores harvey nichols and selfridges, a flagship marks & spencers, and apparently and inexplicably, the biggest next in the world! all this and a revamped arndale centre ensures the entrapment of visitors from all over the region for shopping and entertainment, which in turn attracts capital investment and more global brands to base themselves in the city, as well as repackaging the city as a night time economy too, a 24 licensed party, a las vegas for the uk. the recent and unexpected failure to secure the first super-casino around the edges of the commonwealth games site, must be something of a sock in the jaw, crucial as it is to the continuing marriage of private globalised investment with urban regeneration and tourism.

reading marketing manchester’s ‘where to stay guide’ reveals the extent of the spectacularisation of the city at all levels;
"shopping isn’t the arduous task it once was. shopping is the new leisure activity and wherever you choose to go, look out for events, celebrations and festivals with live music, street entertainment",
to debord leisure is merely a delusion, coercing us to play our role in the consumerist system, buying our leisure through these various activities, hotels, bars, clubs, cinemas, shopping arcades and stores like the triangle and the printworks, not to mention cathedral walks, a whole street which as reconstructed after the bomb, is no longer a street but an outside mall, pedestrianised, lined with aspirational stores, and filled most weekends with market stalls, festivals, seasonal packaged activities, moving us cleverly from one shopping zone to another.

‘on this spot nothing will ever happen – and nothing ever has.’

debord said this in reference to paris’s planned new towns of the post war reconstruction, but this motto could easily be transplanted on to Millennium Square, a place seemingly packed with people and things to do, but I would contend, that as a packaged, spectacularised space, nothing actually ever happens here apart from our passive absorption and essential alienation.

‘Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation’ perfectly sums up the square and especially the Big Screen, where we passively watch television in the open air, rather than engage socially with each other.

pre-bomb, the old corn exchange was a bizarre ramshackle place, a hub for hobbyists, geeks, mystics and undesirables, as well as housing a plethora of creatives, publishers, designers and tiny local businesses – the ‘souk’ of manchester, not branded or marketable in any corporate sense. even when first reopened as ‘the triangle’, it began to be colonised by sub-cultures galore; goths, emos and skate boarders, idling, lolling or wheeling and speeding about. before long the space had been broken up with the insertion of bollards and shiny metal ‘handles / obstacles’ presumably to prevent any unruly skate boarding or lolling, and thereby any actual use of space by people for their own unsanctioned entertainment. soon after, the ‘big screen’ was put up, a veritable facilitator of debord’s lonely crowds:

"from the automobile to television, all the goods selected by the spectacular system are also its weapons for a constant reinforcement of the conditions of isolation of ‘lonely crowds’

it has been much noted that capitalist production has shrunk the globe, unifying but homogenising it so that all places are the same, drained of their distinctiveness and reproducing new forms of separation, ‘the spectacle is the technical realisation of the exile of human powers into a beyond; it is separation perfected within human beings’, crucial to any understanding and resisting of millennium square, the symbol of spectacularised, commodified manchester…