“There is no place of power – it is both everywhere and no where.” [1]
Resort:
Easterling explores a level of tourism that exists universally. It characteristically first and foremost has territory over a given amount of land. It establishes a presence over the local demeanor; both domineering and supportive -and for the visitors it has a peculiar interaction of establishing a commonality through placelessness. In this instance, the resort acted as a political masquerade pioneering a level of engagement and interaction between two extremes. A resort typically refers to middle to upper class European decent escape –but more importantly has the opportunity to pull from a global scattering. The fundamentals embark on establishing freedom of engagement, leisure, and expression. We see the less extreme versions in our own cities operating at various scales as parks, beaches, fairs, Saturday morning leisure walks and Sunday visits to the cemetery.
The Island:
Much in the same way a resort functions, Easterling references, the island of Kish off the coast of Iran operating as a “Kish Free Zone.” [2] This zone supports a greater secular environment, permitting relaxed social restraints, trade and tourism. The island like the resort, offers a momentary fiction to the reality occurring on mainland. However, its façade is unsustained and cracks easily.
The Ignored:
Today we see islands operating as a buffer (grey area) from the reality of the mainland. However, historically islands functioned as a containment zone for the banished and unlawful –thus a geographical garbage for the party in power. We see similar types of camouflage containment pertaining to immigrants in our cities today, existing in the “legal shadow.” This type of containment, Easterling writes is an “oscillati[on] between an acceptance of and blindness to its presence.”[3] The interest here is to define and understand what operates within the depths of lawlessness, the ignored, the other.
The Port:
Easterling best describes this idea as the “masquerade of openness effecting by the lifting any restrictive national loyalties or tariffs turns very easily to evasion, closure and enclave.” [4] We see this most prolifically in the maritime city of San Francisco. Although San Francisco’s port is more or less non existent except for commercial and the annual naval fleet, if established a culture of trade and interaction. These port cities overcome by geographical aggression during their peak operational decades and then left dismal for the lawless to establish. These spaces both encourage cheat and cultivate a unique comradery, and a transient squatter lifestyle, contained typically in the de-industrial remnants of our cities.