Guest blog by Edwina Attlee

In the 1980s there were over twelve thousand launderettes in the UK, today there are less than three thousand. As part of my research into homes away from home in the city I am looking at these seemingly obsolete spaces and asking questions about our experience of using them. In a world where the emptying out of our insides (on social networking platforms such as Facebook or Twitter) seems to be perfectly acceptable behaviour, it is worth looking at one of the first places in which we washed our dirty linen in public.

The launderette (and by extension, the spaces crossed by washing-lines) exemplify the mixing of private and public and inside with outside. When we make a trip to the launderette, we engage in a process of carrying-out, from the home to the public space, the most intimate and bodily items that city-dwellers own. These worn, dirty, and personal fabrics travel outside the house to be cleaned; they cross the boundary between privacy and exposure.

In spite of being a space of possible exposure, the experience of using a launderette is often pleasurable; it is a cosy-exposure. Launderettes are warm, soapy, humming spaces where you are often left alone for an hour or two with just the machines and the spinning clothes to keep you company. They are technical spaces, and spaces of necessity, but they also occupy a space like Pierre Mayol’s neighbourhood, a space that is neither entirely public nor completely domestic. The launderette is a space of waiting; of idling, daydreaming and thinking. It is a space of space. Mayol writes that the home and neighbourhood “are the only places where in different ways one can do what one wants.”

There are other spaces in the city which combine the functionality and irrationality of the home. The launderette is an irrational space because it elongates and subverts the space-time relationship normally at work in the city – this is the relationship characterised by the commute to work; the crossing of the farthest distance in the smallest amount of time. As such this home away from home may also function as a space of absence, a space for daydreaming. Michel de Certeau writes: “I read and I daydream, my reading is thus an impertinent absence.” In the everyday reading of the city the launderette allows for a kind of delinquency. 

Edwina Attlee


References

Pierre Mayol, ‘The Neighbourhood’, The Practice of Everyday Life, Vol.2. Living and Cooking (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), p.11.

Michel de Certeau, ‘Reading as Poaching’, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988) p.173.

The Bridge Over the Moat, Anonymous, 1896, silver gelatin print with original graphite retouching


EXHIBITION REVIEW

Haunting the Chapel: Photography and Dissolution
Daniel Blau Gallery, London
1 September - 6 October 2011


At its invention, photography was considered otherworldly: the stuff of ghosts. The spirit photographs of the late nineteenth century exemplified this impression of the ethereal, as haunting figures were made to appear within portraits after the discovery in the 1860s of the effects of double exposure by William Mumler. ‘Haunting the Chapel: Photography and Dissolution’ exposes these spirits of photography through a cross-century selection of altered, or altering, images. Besides original examples of spirit photography - including one of Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote a pamphlet defending the veracity of the medium - the exhibition features x-ray images, photograms, silver prints and cyanotypes, documenting as much the dissolution involved in photography’s very processes as the disintegrating nature of its subjects. 

The skeleton of a building on the ‘Rue du Bac’ sits between decay and demolition. Nadar’s ‘Foyer of the Paris Opera after Burning in 1884’ is deserted and still; elsewhere an anonymous building is licked with flames. There are Gothic cathedral exteriors and ornate, but empty interiors. A dilapidated stairwell from 1870 disorients like Escher, with unperceivable depths. The intricacies of a ‘Mandalay Palace’ (c. 1890) are eaten away by black patterns. Ancient gardens tangled with plants and palms appear in the travel photography of Emile Gsell (1838 - 1879), the first to represent on film the temples of Vietnam and Cambodia. Architectural juxtaposition occurs between a silver print of New York’s 1920s skyline and black and white vernacular images of rural farms, or the bunker-like dwellings of volcanic ‘Stromboli’. U.S. Army aerial shots show the gridded city lights of 'Toyama, Honshu’, or the spiralling smoke of an Oil Refinery that has just exploded. These last images are haunting for their purpose in recording, their documentation of destruction, which appears, from a distance, abstracted. 

Such pieces of early photography sit alongside more recent works - a freckled portrait of Berenice Abbott by Walker Evans, or a Chris Marker still in which the side of a man’s face on roadside concrete is cut diagonally by a falling jet of water. But it is the early specimens, often anonymous, that are mysteriously compelling--discovered, you imagine, upon abandoned desks. The exhibition represents that which is about to be lost, or those who already have been, teetering on the point of disappearance, knocking at the door of the atrocious or the alienated, holding the hand of the fragile. The curators have chosen to frame the exhibition a quote from Borges's ‘The Immortal’: ‘They are moving because of their phantom condition; every act they execute may be their last; there is not a face that is not on the verge of dissolving like a face in a dream’. With the long exposure times of photography’s early technologies, bodies in Italian piazzas or French town squares have become almost-extinguished silhouettes. Kinetic blur jolts the just-frozen moment, and the fall of the shutter fails to quite capture the movement of figures in time.

Hannah Gregory

EXHIBITION: 15 August - 4 September 2011
Tristan Bates Theatre, 1A Tower St, London WC2H 9NP

The Museum of Broken Relationships is an award winning exhibition of seemingly ordinary yet incredibly poignant objects. Donated by individuals from all over the world, each object tells the story of a past relationship.

More information from Tristan Bates Theatre.

FILM SCREENING: 22 August 2011
Opera Holland Park, London

A Summer Celebration of Iranian Film will include cultural exhibitions and an outdoor screening of The Song Of Sparrows (dir. Majid Majidi).

For more more information and details of the forthcoming 2nd London Iranian Film Festival see the UKIFF website.

No guesses at what type of building dominates the Warehouse district in New Orleans. Today, however, there is no trace of industry in the area, which is slowly being populated with art galleries, boutique hotels and residential loft conversions. As the district awaits further gentrification, a number of abandoned buildings stand to preserve the last memories of a working-class past. 

The (currently empty) New Orleans Orpheum Theater

In between the Warehouse District and French Quarter lies the American Sector. From the 1910s to the 1960s, this area was the heart of the New Orleans jazz scene. Once the centre of jazz performance, publishing, recording and broadcasting, the area has almost entirely lost its once buzzing musical life. Many key venues in Jazz history are now dollar stores or hotels. Other buildings lie in abandon, dreaming of their illustrious past. Other places faced the wrecker's ball long ago.

Saenger Theater

According the large sign above the entrance, the grand opening of the Saenger Theater is promised for 2011. Unfortunately there was little evidence of work or a new tenant during my visit.


Next post: Post-Modernism's shrine.

Canal Street - Algiers Free Ferry

New Orleans is a pedestrian-friendly city, providing you're not in a rush to go anywhere, and has a public transport system comprising of buses, streetcars and ferries. Foot passengers travel for free on the ferry (above) across the Mississippi to Algiers, so I went to have a look at the little town.

A plaque beside the ferry terminal building sets the scene:

Algiers, established in 1719, is the second oldest neighbourhood in New Orleans. Originally called the "King's Plantation," it was first used as the location for the city's powder magazine, a holding area for the newly arrived African slaves, and the first port of call for the displaced Cajuns. Developed as a town by Barthelemy Duverje, Algiers expanded due mainly to the shipbuilding and repair industries of the dry docks and the extensive railroad yards. A large part of the town surrounding the Courthouse was destroyed by fire in 1895 but rose again like a Phoenix from the ashes. Many Jazz and Blues "greats" have called Algiers home including Lester Young, Memphis Minnie, Henry "Red" Allen, George Lewis and "Kid" Thomas Valentine. The charm and architecture of old Algiers is New Orleans' "hidden jewel."

Algiers levee

Although damaged by winds, Algiers was not flooded following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, thanks in part to the raised levee that separates the urban area from the river.

Stilts

Evidence of the historic flood risk of the area is nevertheless evident. Most houses are raised around three feet from the ground and stand on brick stilts.

Renecky Shoe Co.

Few shops remain in this now largely residential area.

Gas Station
Abandoned vehicle
Cactus bath

Time seems to have stood still in this historic district.

New arrivals have spruced up their homes and gardens, while older residents are content to sit on the rocking chair on the verandas of their ageing houses.

A number of properties are in a less sound condition, and patiently await renovation before they crumble.


Next post: a return to reality in the Warehouse and American districts.

The CBD viewed from the banks of the Mississippi

The most important piece of geography that any visitor to New Orleans must learn is that the Mississippi is the highest point in the city. All land moving away from the river begins to descend below sea level. Before a settlement established in New Orleans, the river would flood each spring. As it receded, silt deposited and eventually created raised banks. This natural deposit formed the basis of the first levees, or flood defences, shown here reinforced with imported stone on the water side (above) and covered in grass on the town side (. The old town is set back from the riverfront, and the main Jackson square is already several feet lower than the waterside promenade. An additional flood defence wall separates the car park (below) from Jackson square.

The height of the Mississippi levee a little further downstream is clear in this image taken at street level as a container vessel sails by (above).

Steamboat Natchez

With its strategic position at the frontier of the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico, the history of New Orleans is centred on its port activities. An automated container port has replaced the scores of smaller vessels that once moored in the city. Today, Steamboat Natchez plies for tourist trade with daily jazz cruises. Before the ship paddles off, the engines provide power for a steam calliope, an automated musical instrument similar to a barrel organ, that pipes music across the waterfront. Before final departure, the steam whistle shrills over the Crescent City, and another voyage begins.

Jacob Paskins



Next post, a trip to Algiers.

Streetcars, Canal Street

Many parts of New Orleans, such as Desire Street in Faubourg Marigny, are no longer served by a streetcar. The city was once well-served by a network of streetcars, but during mid-twentieth century they almost entirely disappeared. While the historic St Charles Avenue streetcar still rumbles slowly along the route laid out during the 1830s, new vehicles and routes are now being reinstated. From the Canal Street terminus, streetcars serve two routes to City Park and the Metairie and Greenwood Cemeteries. A third line is planned to serve Rampart Street and will eventually stretch downriver. Unlike the old green St Charles street car, these red replicas are air-conditioned, have a disabled access lift, and run relatively quickly.

Sin City

Harrah's is the only licensed casino in New Orleans and appears to be one of the most popular attractions in the area. Legalised gambling is the anodyne pass time of visitors to the city, which was once known as 'Sin City' in the late nineteenth century because of the population of sailors in town and the high levels of crime and prostitution.

The casino, sitting under the two domes, was built in 1999. A hotch-potch of cheaply produced classical motifs, this massive ensemble fills an entire block and is difficult to avoid with its garish illumination and blaring music which is pumped out of speakers along the entire length of the building.

In the background, bank buildings and expensive chain hotels dominate the business quarter. In the foreground, the railway lines serve the Riverside Streetcar and a mile-long freight train, which announces its approach each day with a blasting horn at around 11.30 am.

World Trade Center

The 1960s World Trade Center is a colossal symbol of the failed riverfront development. Dominating the skyline, this office block is almost entirely unoccupied and provides a significant obstacle for pedestrians who wish to cross from the Central Business District to the Mississippi river.

The banner advertises the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas and IMAX cinema, located near to the WTC, which provides a slightly more appealing visitor attraction than the Riverside shopping mall a little further up the promenade.



Coming next, a look at the Riverfront reveals why New Orleans turns its back on the Mississippi.

Visit the new website of the Autopsies Group's very own Cine-Tourist.