L is for ‘Learning’, and ‘Las Vegas’

from L is for ‘Learning’, and ‘Las Vegas’

Alberti, Sandro; 28 April, 2006 [text45]

Today I was brought to that sinful Paradise that we call Las Vegas. I was delighted to experience the Venetian hotel, a new addition to the Strip since my last visit, although I also got to visit the landmark ‘Caesars Palace’ during a dinner party, poolside. Did you know that, in 1969, executives of Caesars Palace buried a time capsule, but the time capsule was stolen days later?

Las Vegas has thereafter attempted to live in the ever-present, but there is no escaping history, as attested by ‘Ocean’s 11’ (shot back in 1966, and then again in 2001). Caesars Palace. Now there is an interesting starting point. Seemingly situated within the ‘mythology’ of the ‘new’ thematic megaresort era, it actually precedes it by some 35 years, deploying the first in the evolutionary series of the Strip’s thematic tricks. At first glance, it seems quite the same as the Paris, or the Venetian; a symbolic reproduction of a know past. But, alas, this one is a past we can never know, except as a historical reconstruction of a ruin:

“It is amusing to think how few of the great weavers of aesthetic theory had any familiar first-hand acquaintance with works of art and how many of them knew the art they talked about only through engravings…”

[William M. Ivins; ‘Prints and Visual Communication’; 1978]

Very different. And maybe this is what makes Caesars reek of ‘outdated’. The ‘Classical’ forms attempt to evoke neutrality (note that attempts at pure ‘transparency’ emerge with Classical thought). However, these cannot be but partial re-productions, as much a child of 1960s worldview as of the Roman Forum of 800 AD. Very different, it is, to reproduce something that exists (and, maybe, safer). This is the case of resorts such as the Venetian (and Paris), spaces of simulacra that are different from their ‘originals’ because of their scale or position. Their form and materiality remains fully thematic, and, thus, timeless (unlike Caesars Palace, the recreation remains uncontaminated by any recent ‘contemporaneity’ that would soon become outdated; also, it is interesting to note that the other technique that might allow for timelessness, minimalism, is cleverly deployed by Rem Koolhaas in the development of the one ‘contemporary’ intervention here: the Venetian’s Guggenheim gallery). From these ‘iconic’ spaces, Las Vegas has progressed towards another ‘type’, exemplified in the recent-wow Wynn hotel, in which ‘other’ spaces or forms are not employed as a reference. This is the famous site of the Desert Inn, where cult-figure Howard Hughes secluded himself on the top floors (#8-9), before being forced to purchase the hotel in order to avoid eviction (and this in turn led to his initial mega-investments towards what would become a ‘classier’ Las Vegas Strip (a circus without animals or children; read ‘Cirque du Soleil’). But even this rich recent history was not tempting enough to disrupt the use of ‘foreign’ sources in the design (Picasso’s ‘Le Rêve’ and Yellowstone Park; both ‘external’ to historicalspatial methodology, since the first is a painting, and the second is a form-neutralizing landscape). The sources employed are novel, not only in their relationship to man-made forms/spaces, but also in the oddity of their hybrid combination (of the Surrealist ‘umbrella + sewing machine’ type, brought together by a common ‘design-reductive’ process and a concept of ‘interiority’, in which nature serves as the protective boundary for a painterly treasure, and all is made to fit the logic of Wynn-made spaces and forms). Picasso’s painting has been deconstructed and reapplied throughout the interior (the colors worn by the sleeping beauty blossom throughout, covering patterned marble floors in the same manner as she covers a wallpapered background). Outside, the power of ancient waterfalls is subsumed into a structured framework, as authored regularity grids the mineral landscape, and the power of a waterfall yields to cinematographic effect). Above all, the magnificence of a towering mountain is reflected by the monolithic, obsidian-like form of the hotel tower. This final move is not only reductive, but ‘indexical’, based on a sort of metonymy similar to the way a ‘dish’ serves as placeholder for ‘food’. In my opinion, it is the most effective, although least discussed, aspect of the design. And it is not new, since Steve Wynn had done this very same thing to mark the beginning of the current, thematic age of the Strip, with the design of the Mirage hotel (1989; in which the simple façade of golden mirrors captures a most fundamental characteristic of both the local landscape and the built environment). And so this period comes full circle, exhausting ‘signifying’ (symbolic?) possibilites, but not quite near its full potential.

Once upon a time, the MGM Grand wanted to recreate the Emerald City of Oz, but was fortunately dissuaded, learning from the strongly diagrammatic relationship with its environment (from its move from the middle of the Strip to one of the largest traffic intersections in the world, and its reconnection to the old site via the development of the Las Vegas monorail). This place is now about the act of theme-production (and ‘image-movement’), at least as much as interweaving of themes themselves. In some way, there is actually a new all-pervasive theme here, that of ‘Deco Hollywood’. However, this simply reinforces the context of a movie-making machine (that once produced the landscape of Oz, back in 1938). Here, that hybrid practice, successfully implemented through the ‘MTV aesthetic’ and in the crazy-overlap of simulacra at the Venetian and Paris, overtakes the practices of ‘transparency’ that aim to place the viewer in an apparently unmediated relationship to the objects or events presented. And, inasmuch as even the corporate branding (the roaring lion) has become the theme itself, visitors delight in the thought that they can experience the trickery without suspending disbelief (so very responsible!). Yet, in the ever-recurring ‘game of mirrors’, this is all but a representation of the theme-making process, itself a thematic frame that seems to have proven popular with the younger, upwardly-mobile demographic. Perhaps, however, this could be improved upon by truly engaging underlying, ‘diagrammatic’ mechanisms, instead of merely employing their characteristics in symbolic ways.

Returning to the basic typology of ‘iconic’ hotels, there is one peculiar case. The Bellagio is linked to the Paris and Venetian through its recognizable Italian village at Lake Como. However, technology allows for a blurring of significance (the ‘lake’ becomes a ‘fountain’) and of spatial connections (as ‘lake’, the water body is immediately connected to the ‘village-shopping’ in the foreground, whereas as ‘fountain’, it links strongly to the ‘Villa-hotel’ in the background, a connection enhanced by the hotel’s sound system). Not coincidentally, the Bellagio fountain (developed by Wet Design), is part of the range of tried and proven value-enhancers to Las Vegas mega real estate (the rest of the series is comprised by a range of interiorized stage sets designed by Franco Dragone: Cirque du Soleil, Colosseum Theater,…). All are technological, to some extent or another, mostly kept hidden within the dark recesses of the hotels, as independent highlights.

One of these, however, hints at a potential expansion, that could grow to encompass a reinterpretation of the resort thematic: the KÀ spectacle. Not unlike strategy of the MGM Grand, this is a show that delights in the expression of its underlying mechanisms as part of the theme. However, one critical difference here is that we are not dealing purely with a surface representation of production mechanisms, or even repurposed simulacra; here we deal directly with the underlying structure, a framework that has been developed in conjunction with the final theme to be represented.

“The enormous stage is manipulated by a gantry crane, which is essentially a mechanical arm with four 75-foot hydraulic cylinders, altogether weighing nearly 350,000 pounds. While quiet from theater seats, the sound is deafening up close… [The platform can] move up and down. And tilt, and rotate 360 degrees, all at the same time… A second deck, weighing another 100,000 pounds, resonates like an industrial shipyard from the wings when moving into a new position. The audience never hears the racket, as each of the 1950 seats in the theater have 2 individual speakers, blaring the live voices and music coming from several floors down. A total of 524,150 watts of amplifier power fill the space in 16 different seating zones, allowing for the state-of-the-art sound effects to be targeted and directionally customized”.

[‘The Enchanting Anatomy of KÀ’; Las Vegas magazine; 23 April, 2006]

Here the thematic effects work overtime to counter the impact of the underlying structure, achieving, in the end, an integral balance. And although visual treatments could have aimed at concealing the super-scaled substructure, they remain subtle, in a sort of delicate ‘return to theatrical basics’ (a series of monochromatic lighting effects to enhance the action of the performers, as opposed to remaking the environment):

“Lighting effects suggest certain atmospheres, and can also appear to change the scale of the scene, or to merge the stage with the room. Projections add content to the canvas and widen our visual palette at the same time”.

[Robert Lepage; Creator/ Director; KÀ]

If the current development of Las Vegas resorts seems to have taken cues from the development of painterly illusions (flat depictions to perspective to detailing and finally to atmospheric effects), here we glimpse the possibility of retaining atmospheric effect, while discarding all the rest. The XXL architectural structure could still leverage the power of its scale (the same scale that currently makes distances more manageable, through the effects of sheer awe and size-distance paradox, and allows for the hybrid montage of disconnected units, due to the fact that they cannot be unified within a single field of view). Thematic surfacing, if linked directly to integrated technologies, becomes potentially personalized and individually-relevant, particularly if presented within a reduced expressive format.

With this we would actually arrive at the semiotic ‘symbol’, in an end to this journey, beyond the icon and the index. Where meaning depends entirely on the observer, we can finally have the ‘Paris Hilton’ hotel that was always meant to be, across from the Bellagio room where the hotel heiress filmed the sex tape that propelled her to notoriety, within view of the Las Vegas Hilton, the one with the ‘I’ logo.

This article is from:

L is for ‘Learning’, and ‘Las Vegas’