(see also Chap. 18). The status of the icon goes down, but does raising an obsolescent infrastructure to a national heritage status offer any help?
7.8.8 Aesthetics of Infrastructure
Larkin (2013), argues that infrastructures have multiple embedded functions with the
possibility of operating in multiple ways and on different levels. Sometimes, their
material operations dominate such as the capability to provide electric power, supply
water, dispose of waste, or transport goods by containers, and sometimes, as
Mbembe and Roitman (1995) claim, the technical role of infrastructural projects
plays second fiddle to their function in crafting a method of transferring money from
the public treasury into private coffers. At yet other times, governments, and party
leaders, agree to finance infrastructural projects for their status symbol, be it by
embracing public-private partnerships, or to manifest their pledge towards a green,
environmental future, or commitments to develop society.
When infrastructure operates in any of these different modes, it brings together
different groups of actors and produces distinctive kinds of effects.
Ranciere (2006, 2009) defines:
poiesis, as the act of bringing something into being in the world by creating a way of
doing and making, and
aistbesis, how it is those things produce modes of felt experience.
Larkin (2018) therefore argues that these qualities define infrastructures just as
much as art objects, because they are both fantastic as well as technical objects. They
comprise desire as much as concrete or steel, when these dimensions are separated,
they entail missing on the powerful ways they influence our world.
Infrastructures provide a primary technology on which form is created. For
example, the infrastructure of a house comprises the structure: concrete, rock,
steel, timber, pipes, wires which gives shape to the form that rests on top. The
relation is a linear one: infrastructure remains primary, form exists as secondary.
However, this distinction renders it difficult to define a conception of political
aesthetics and the form’s role within. As in literary composition, form follows a set
of imposed conventional terms with meanings through the recognized arrangement
of signs. Form describes a set of properties an object possesses, for example:
1. in poetry - rhyme, stress, rhythm, and metre
2. in literature - style, contrast, chiaroscuro, repetition, alliteration
3. in film noir - chiaroscuro lighting and oblique angles
4. in abstract art - minimalist aesthetics and lack of iconic representation, etc. and
affects the sensory effect of these properties on the audience or spectators.
Similarly, infrastructure possesses form in the variety of ways infrastructures
address, order, and establish interactions with people.
212
7 Economic and Social Aspects of Infrastructure
7.8.8 Aesthetics of Infrastructure
Larkin (2013), argues that infrastructures have multiple embedded functions with the
possibility of operating in multiple ways and on different levels. Sometimes, their
material operations dominate such as the capability to provide electric power, supply
water, dispose of waste, or transport goods by containers, and sometimes, as
Mbembe and Roitman (1995) claim, the technical role of infrastructural projects
plays second fiddle to their function in crafting a method of transferring money from
the public treasury into private coffers. At yet other times, governments, and party
leaders, agree to finance infrastructural projects for their status symbol, be it by
embracing public-private partnerships, or to manifest their pledge towards a green,
environmental future, or commitments to develop society.
When infrastructure operates in any of these different modes, it brings together
different groups of actors and produces distinctive kinds of effects.
Ranciere (2006, 2009) defines:
poiesis, as the act of bringing something into being in the world by creating a way of
doing and making, and
aistbesis, how it is those things produce modes of felt experience.
Larkin (2018) therefore argues that these qualities define infrastructures just as
much as art objects, because they are both fantastic as well as technical objects. They
comprise desire as much as concrete or steel, when these dimensions are separated,
they entail missing on the powerful ways they influence our world.
Infrastructures provide a primary technology on which form is created. For
example, the infrastructure of a house comprises the structure: concrete, rock,
steel, timber, pipes, wires which gives shape to the form that rests on top. The
relation is a linear one: infrastructure remains primary, form exists as secondary.
However, this distinction renders it difficult to define a conception of political
aesthetics and the form’s role within. As in literary composition, form follows a set
of imposed conventional terms with meanings through the recognized arrangement
of signs. Form describes a set of properties an object possesses, for example:
1. in poetry - rhyme, stress, rhythm, and metre
2. in literature - style, contrast, chiaroscuro, repetition, alliteration
3. in film noir - chiaroscuro lighting and oblique angles
4. in abstract art - minimalist aesthetics and lack of iconic representation, etc. and
affects the sensory effect of these properties on the audience or spectators.
Similarly, infrastructure possesses form in the variety of ways infrastructures
address, order, and establish interactions with people.
212
7 Economic and Social Aspects of Infrastructure