Beyond Geography in light of global transformations, based on the observation and collection of information and documents on the part of a group of students. Yet the complexity of Valeria Burgio the themes and the need to elaborate and extend the research entailed a lengthening of the calendar. So much so that the project lasted three years instead of three months, transforming into a diachronic observatory. his allowed its authors to monitor on both a local and global scale the changes in politics, social behaviour and Migropolis draws to a conclusion at a decisive moment for Italian immigration Migration of Images media language related to immigration. politics. On July 2, 2009 the Italian Senate approved a law on public safety grouping he observation of the media indicated the popularity of certain igures, together illegal immigration and organized crime. his new legislation instigates particularly in the period between May 2008 and July 2009. he incontrollable mass delation and incites a hunt for foreigners through the institutionalization of increase of disembarkations was equated to Barbarian invasions, while the the “ronde” – groups of citizens taking charge of patrolling their cities and watching Lega’s electoral campaign of April 2008 used anti-colonialist slogans over public order. It also forbids those without residency permits from marrying to deine the migratory wave, presenting itself as defender of a people Italian citizens or even recognizing their own children. he facile equation of the and its local culture (ig.1). hrough the imagery of a planned armed illegal immigrant with the criminal quickly enters popular imagination: whoever conquest, slogans alerted the indigenous population of the possibil- is born elsewhere is guilty and every functionary must denounce him or her. Like- ity of their extinction in the face of an invasion strategically organized wise, whoever rents a house or favours illegal immigration is liable to administrative by criminal minds1. Symbolic vessel of indubitable efect, the iconic barge prosecution, including families hiring caretakers or domestic collaborators awaiting of desperate souls was targeted by the Italian government and treated as regularization. Due to the governmental presence of the xenophobic Lega Nord a Pandora’s box within which all the evils of the day are sealed: unem- party, this law is the crowning achievement of a political conduct which has made ployment, crime, terrorism and the Maia. he rejection policy, initiated in May the ight against immigration the heart of its propaganda. 2009 by the third Berlusconi government, appeared as a Titanic gesture capable Migropolis originated as a project limited in time to the third trimester of 2006, of changing the course of natural events. Accompanied by a triumphalist rhetoric, when the Italian government was lead by the centre-left. It was intended to be a the measure was likened to a Roman emperor fending of hoards of Barbarians. synchronic cross-section of the local Venetian situation – a reading of the territory “It’s a triumph!” shouted the Minister of Internal Afairs, Roberto Maroni, during Index Chapter Subchapter 040500 040501 1308 040000 1 Later also Silvio Berlusconi declared to the press that illegal immigrants arriving in Italy are not victims of injustice but “are scientiically recruited by criminal organizations” (May 12, 2009). 1309 a press conference the day after his injunction to send illegal immigrants back to Libya. he Mediatized Images that open each chapter of Migropolis are the same images he President of the Council, Silvio Berlusconi, envious of such mediatic success, that form the iconography which conditions public opinion and justiies local, immediately claimed the merits, underlining his policy of defence of the Italic race. national, European and global politics. In reality, the disembarkations of foreigners 2 “he left wants a multiethnic country. We don’t.” , he declared, thus turning a on Lampedusa, which make headline news and triggered the government’s blind eye to an already existing reality and recalling one of his previous declarations emergency measures, bring only 15% of immigrants to the country. Contrarily, the on the “superiority of the West with respect to Islam” – phrases with which he rest arrive via tourist visas (which expire after a few months) obtained at European had backed the US attack on Afghanistan after the fall of the Twin Towers. In Consulates in their countries of origin. he iconography of the foreigner spread by their book Rotless, the former president of the Senate, Marcello Pera, and Josef Western media is complementary to the iconography of desire which characterizes Ratzinger had presented the phenomenon of migration as a natural law. Using an the vision of the West on the part of who is waiting to emigrate. he relationship osmotic model, they claimed the lows of migrants into Europe as proof of Western between migrants and “receivers” is thus based on the intersection of reciprocal supremacy since “if the members of culture B demonstrate to freely prefer culture A prejudices. 3 and not vice versa, then there is reason to believe that A is better than B” . One of the reasons Venice presents itself as a territory of particular relevance Hence, current rhetoric is animated by these two easily comprehensible images: for the analysis of the migratory phenomenon is because the same narration of one based on the natural forces of attraction exerted by the rich and lorid West the struggle between invaders and indigenous population is applied with regards on the poor castofs of the earth who cannot help but migrate, and the other of to tourism. he newspapers chosen for the study are predominantly local and use escalation, like a Biblical catastrophe or a wave of invaders with Imperialist aims. similar terminology based on concepts of invasion, exceeded limits, the danger A sense of inevitability is the common ground of these two concepts. he govern- of a “critical mass” and the need to defend the autochthones. Be they tourists or ments respond with emergency measures aimed at contrasting a tendency which in migrants, foreigners are mistrusted and feared. contemporary language seems to have more to do with natural phenomena than with movements of peoples. he subject is depersonalized and dehumanized. It is Migropolis assumes Venice as a terrain of privileged observation from which the boat loaded with illegal immigrants which is sent back, not the people aboard, one can infer global dynamics and anticipate trends. It is a limited ield of action and little value is given to the words of the Geneva Convention requesting the case from which to observe changes in force at a larger scale. Despite its strong local by case analysis of each situation in order to ensure the right to asylum. identity, recognized and imitated throughout the world, Venice is one of the most Generic Venice 2 Declaration of May 9, 2009. 3 Pera M, Ratzinger J, Senza Radici, Mondadori, Milan, 2004, p. 16. For a critique on this “acid test” see Rashed M., “Esistono le civiltà?” in Micromega n. 5/2008. 1310 1311 multiethnic cities of contemporary times. Multiracial and multicultural, it is a site survival within an urban territory in transformation. he city was fragmented into a of collision and conluence of two migratory lows – one composed of an army of series of shots portraying corners of slums which were accompanied by no verbal ex- workers, the other of mass tourism. hus beyond its cherished and weighty past, planations. Clusters of images were however inserted within a logical semantic grid 4 Venice may be read as a Generic City . Venice no longer has a natural but an assembled population. he assembly consists could be nailed within a structure. And yet despite the fact that End Commercial is of those who are attracted with various incentives – tourists, expats – and those who considered to be about New York before September 11th revolutionized its very help to sustain its attraction – builders, cooks, masseurs. Venice is now inhabited by the existence and identity, it is not about New York. he most recognizable elements of pampered and the pamperers. its landscape are omitted in favour of the most ordinary details, while photographs his is not a quotation, but a paraphrase. he original text references a city in of other American cities are well dispersed and camoulaged amongst the New York the Arab Emirates5. he plausibility of the substitution of the name Dubai with pages. As Victor Margolin acknowledges “rather than characterize a city or cities that of Venice, demonstrates that Migropolis’ paranoiac game functions. In fact, with a series of iconic images that highlight important landmarks or distinctive the autochthonous population of Venice, that which should constitute the ixed scenes, the three authors present a view of urban life that focuses on the generic, the base of its identity, drops from year to year in favour of a temporary community anonymous, and the inconsequential” 7. of “pampered” – the tourists – and “pamperers” – the workers employed in the It is no coincidence that the same white blankets loaded with mer- tertiary sector. he high rate of commuters creates a city where the inhabitants are chandise, featured amongst End Commercial’s photographs of illegal temporary, precarious, and for this reason do not develop forms of loyalty to the New York street vendors, obsessively recur throughout Migropolis in territory. As the requests on the part of consumers of entertainment increase, so the images taken along Venice’s Riva degli Schiavoni (ig.2). here is no does the development of the demand, concretized in the ediication or enlargement solution of continuity between the two books and it would be limiting of hotels, resorts, casinos, restaurants and shops selling pseudo-authentic rubbish, to say that the irst is an urban study of New York while Migropolis fo- from made-in-China Murano glassware to masks produced by Albanian artisans. cuses on Venice. Both cities are considered not for the characteristics which make he shocking idea that Venice can be likened to any other city originates from them recognizable and unique, but for their genericness and for their ability to be Wolfgang Scheppe’s preceding project6. With particular reference to New York, crossed by transversal themes, like the luctuations of the real estate market or the End Commercial observes micro social changes as well as forms of adaptation and lourishing of street trade aimed at a tourist target. 4 For a deinition of Generic City see the homonymous text by Rem Koolhas in Koolhas R., Mau, B., S, M, L, XL, 010 Publisher, Rotterdam, 1995. 5 Rem Koolhas, “Frontline” in VOLUME 12 / Al Manakh, (Bouman O., Khoubrou M., Koolhas R. eds), Stichting Archis, Amsterdam, 2007, p. 195. 6 Scheppe W., Bohm, F., Pizzaroni L., End Commercial, Hatje Cantz, Stuttgart, 2002. 1312 that functioned as both index and navigator. hus, the interpretation of every image 7 Margolin, V., “Urban Underside” in Design Philosophy Papers, n. 4, 2003. 1313 he diference between the two projects lies in the process and methodologies. End crosses the entire globe, but reverberates through the very same facts on diferent Commercial was inductively developed: the authors took and collected thousands levels: the city, the nation, the continent and the world are faced with the same of digital photographs and then ordered them according to a logical-interpretive challenge. scheme. Among the thousands of photographs selected from the digital archive, A local analysis is key to understanding the global context. he map of a city one folder contained many of Venice. Migropolis originates from an explosion becomes atlas. he “Global Atlas of a Situation” is a reading of the “normality” of this very residue and is the necessary continuation of End Commercial. Yet of Venice and its belonging to the rest of the world. In 1972, Robert Venturi through a strong and predetermined structure, it opposes the predilection for simultaneously invented a new way of practicing urbanism and didactics: Learning improvisation typical of street-photography. Hypostatized onto a Monopoly board, from Las Vegas was the result of a Yale University course culminating in a class this structure functions not only as an ex-post reading key, but also as a heuristic trip to Las Vegas. Venturi’s theoretical assumption was that the city is not simply research scheme. Begun as a collaborative proposal to the students participating in a a subject of analysis, but also the pretext for the development of a theme. Venturi university workshop, Migropolis rests on a solid didactic foundation. he thematic claimed that Las Vegas must be considered “an archetype rather than a prototype, grid constituting the structure was the subject of theoretical elaboration, as well an exaggerated example from which to derive lessons for the typical”8. In fact, as a hypothesis to submit to critical assessment through practice. he students underneath the local fabric of every city lie elements of supranational scale, be they developed an awareness of current social themes and adopted the instruments spaces of religious aggregation or cathedrals of entertainment, churches or casinos. suitable for their understanding and communication, with the result that the book hough Migropolis examines the Venice prototype, a model imitated and repeated does not solely contain photographs, but is an intercrossing of expressive means, throughout the world, the book’s true challenge consists in revealing this city as an maps, graphs, photographs and texts. archetype discordant with its classic identity, that is, in demonstrating its exemplary Analyzing a city always implies, on one hand, the search for elements which make nature and its position as anticipator of the efects of globalisation. it unique, and on the other, a close examination of the generalizable characteristics which reveal its belonging to a spirit of time rather than to an invariable genius loci. Venturi himself admits that photographs of speciic buildings were not suicient his identiiable spirit of time within Migropolis is that of increasing globalization, for an understanding of Las Vegas. hus his students integrated photographic entailing the growth in movement of people, capital and goods, as well as the reportage with a series of maps of the city, similar in proile but equipped with onsequent need for protection and barrier raising. his phenomenon not only varying legends: tourist maps, business maps, message maps and maps taken from Migration of Territories 8 Venturi, R., Brown, D.S., Izenour, S., Learning from Las Vegas. he Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form, MIT Press, Boston, 1977, p. 18. 1314 1315 casino brochures (ig.3). Just as in Learning from Las Vegas, the map of Venice is repeated innumerable times throughout Migropolis, both for the Geographic abuse, that is the re-reading of a territory according to a grid which is detection of individual routes and the examination of the territorial apparently foreign to it, is one of the base methodologies of this book. Situationist distribution of certain kinds of commercial activities, the hotel evolu- psychogeography consists in the systematic observation of the efects that diferent tion and the itinerant operations of migrants. he repetition of the city environments produce on the state of mind12 . his entails the deconstruction map reduces its sense to a minimum and blurs its limits. he result of particular urban zones which are no longer read in light of their usefulness, but is an emphasis on the underlying stratiications and the charting of in the psychological reactions and sensations they arouse. It is a form of playful yet businesses rather than on topology. Migropolis deinitely owes much to atlases of radical criticism of functionalist and rationalist urbanism. he conception of the globalisation, increasingly essential tools for the understanding of changes in force, ideal city, formulated by Ivan Chtcheglov13, thus involves the planning of urban areas through the analytic systems created by international relations, political science and connected to diferent inclinations of the soul: there is a Bizarre Quarter next to environmental studies. But most of all, it is indebted to the Situationist tradition and a Happy Quarter, a Noble and Tragic Quarter next to a Historic one, and so on. he 9 particularly to psychogeography. Herein, the Situationist dérive is mainly applied subdivision of the game board, which functions as a navigation guide for Migropolis, to the case studies for which the students used a double methodology respects precisely this analysis of territory according to thematic clusters rather than to record the routes followed by tourists and migrants: detection to geographic continguity. here is an Entertainment Street which includes the global through GPS signal registration and photographic sequences. It is demand for cruise ships and the exceptional igures of the Venetian tourism low; important to recall that Venice was the site of the irst Situationist a Conlict Street which connects a xenophobic turn of the Italian government and 10 dérive, conducted by Ralph Rumney who collected a meticulous the attribution of super-powers to mayors; a Borderline Street which considers photo-documentation of the stages of his route (ig.4). Rumney’s is Venice in light of European politics of recent years, as well as the deaths of illegal one of the few remaining Situationist photo-dérives but, as most of the tourist case immigrants aboard ships departing from Greece and the episodes occurring on studies show, over the course of time, the dérive through the alleys of Venice has be- Lampedusa and in Ceuta. he crossing over from local to global and vice versa is come nothing more than a well-beaten cliché. he very tourism promotion agencies continuous and comes about through this resemantization of the territory according themselves invite visitors to “lose themselves in the alleys of Venice”, while the bro- to widespread moods and international problematics. chure for the Seven Seas Radisson cruise line recommends “half the fun of shopping 9 Cfr. Debord G., “héorie de la Dérive” in Les Lèvres Nue, n. 9, 1956 and republished in Internationale Situationniste, n. 2, 1958. 10 Rumney, R., he Leaning Tower of Venice, Silverbridge, Montreuil-sous-Bois (Paris), 2002 (1957). 1316 in Venice is getting lost on a side street: it’s like a giant shopping mall!”11. he choice of Monopoly as a reading grid is obviously not accidental. his game 11 Invitations to lose oneself in the tourism discourse are well examined in Davis R. and Marvin G., Venice. he Tourist Maze, UC Press, Berkeley, 2004. In particular, see the description of Radisson advertisements p. 288. 12 he aims and methods of psychogeography are presentated in Debord, G., “Introduction à une critique de la géographie urbaine” in Les Lèvres Nues, n. 6, 1955. 13 Chtcheglov, I. (aka Ivain, G.) « Formulaire pour un nouveau urbanisme » in Internationale Situationniste, n. 1, 1958 (1953). 1317 plays with two variables central to this project: money and territory - the luctuation images are manipulated and take on symbolic rather than descriptive meanings. of the real estate market due to the liberalization of the residential and tourism he wind carrying sand from the Sahara to Italy, and from Italy to Europe, is not sectors. Once again the ailiation with Situationism is evident. Guy Debord simply presented as meteorological data. Rather, it serves as an introduction to the invented Kriegspiel, a game wishing to be a small-scale reproduction of the dialectics contents of the book. 14 of all conlicts . Paraphrasing Carl von Clausewitz, the game is the continuation of Geographic accuracy is abandoned for a rhetorical use of geography. hrough the life with other means, a way to understand and to train to face it – a “revolutionary distortion of a known image, a position is asserted: Gorée left to drift in the southern training”. he game is thus a model of reality and its continuation. It serves to lagoon of Venice signals the presence of a “foreign body” – the total number of comprehend and, simultaneously, to act. he subversion of traditional geography on illegal immigrants present in the city. Lampedusa composed of the European states the part of the Situationists also occurs through the use of “metagraphy”, a practice is not just an island, but a “gateway to Europe”, whose administration is pressured consisting in the insertion of far away or inexistent territories onto “real” maps. It is not only by local forces but also by the entire European Union. hese two islands a form of geographic détournement, a collage that places incongruent territories side represent dystopian scenarios. Both are territories of transit, one of slaves awaiting by side in order to create possible geographies. Chtcheglov for example, inserted to embark for the Americas, the other is the landing place of ships crammed with Persia and Greenland among the stops of the Paris Metro. he operation seems desperate souls attempting to gain access to Europe, work and wealth. Playing surreal and unmotivated, but it is in fact charged with strong critical signiicance. with geography also implies the questioning of the absoluteness of its rules and Adding and subtracting territories from a map is a way of criticizing the arbitrari- the construction of new ones. At times Migropolis subverts the normativity of the ness of borders and the aleatory quality of nation-states whose boundaries, won or units of measurements and Venice becomes a unit for the rest of the world. When lost through wars and conlicts, wind up merely as lines traced on paper. Migropolis the local is called to represent the global, scale and proportion lose their relevance. continuously deconstructs geography. he maps rarely have any presumption of hus Venice goes beyond its traditional division into sestieri and its detopologized being scientiic or of relecting current reality. More often, they construct imaginary space ends up mapping the conlicts of modernity, with the result that it becomes geographies that are anything but utopian. In the southern lagoon of Venice loats identical to the rest of the world. the Island of Gorée, which has somehow slipped into the Adriatic via strange tectonic shifts. An island, in appearance Lampedusa, hides within its altered contour the forms of the nation-states that constitute the European Union. Satellite 14 Debord, G., Becker-Ho, A., Le jeu de la Guerre, Gallimard, Paris, 2006 (second edition). he game was patented in 1965, sold as a limited edition in 1978, while in 1987 it appeared as an instruction manual written by Debord and his wife Alice Becker-Ho for Gerard Lébovici’s editions. 1318 1319