Dissertation: Glasgow; Lefebvre

glasgow: city of rebellion

Joseph i.p. smith msa praxis

contents a group introduction (4-5)

1 introduction

2 My glasgow

Lefebvre’s triad; representation(al) practice

my representation(al) practice; moments

3 Spatial stratification and

privileged, exploited, residual; V Conflicting Narratives, Class Co

Note: 1) the word count will be over but this is because of captions and titles. the captions are italicized to distinguish them.

2) a second 3D drawing has been subsituted for a section, since it communicated the site more effectively.

map 0:1: Basemap from Digimap ancient roam (1890) juxtaposed with diagrams by author.

class consciousness in Glasgow

Violent; onfrontation; Glasgow in Film

4 conclusion on the threshold

b bibliography

z group conclusion

1

LEFEBvRE’S TRIAD

Ultimately, this essay developed into an exploration of the relationship between space and consciousness, or indeed spatial consciousness, with the city of Glasgow as the grounding material subject. Hopefully, the philosophical nature of Lefebvre’s the production of space will allow this slight divergence from more conventional architectural discourse/methodology, and its political nature a platform from which to construct a provocative argument. The illustration/photograph outputs provide a useful anchor in this regard and have been used as a tool to communicate my own empirical observations of Glasgow, as well as a spatial foundation to underpin corresponding filmic and textual analyses.

The main concepts I explore from Lefebvre’s text is the spatial practice-representation-representational triad and the moment. The hypothesis I constructed from this is as follows: representational space occus only in moments of contingency, in which the hegemony of the preconceived representation is broken.

This contingency and the pure lived, representational experience it unearths could be referred to collectively as the moment. I will unpack this hypothesis in the next chapter via five personal examples of such moments experienced during my visit to Glasgow. Following this, I will thread this idea through a broader exploration of Glasgow’s spatial/class consciousness, with focus upon its notorious ‘deprived’ areas and the issues underpinning their notoriety such as poverty and violence.

First of all, it is useful to delve further into Lefebvre’s triad using the following diagram:

diagram 1.1: neutral triad

representation(al) practice The near indistinguishable terms of representation and representational imply that, although fundamentally different phenomena, their distinction is fluid and often intangible. Indeed, the human condition is perhaps one constantly fluctuating between the two; we live in representation(al) space. The way this experience manifests itself in time and a given context constitutes representation(al) practice, completing the triad. the question is what intervens, what occupies the interstices between representations of space and representational spaces. a culture, perhaps? (Lef,1991:43) Considering representation(al) space a culture, representation(al) practice would be the ‘playing out’ of this culture in time and space, according to its preconceived characteristics/parameters. This is, I propose, essentially theatrical space: a ‘representational space, mediated yet directly experienced, which infuses the work and the moment... established as such through the dramatic action itself’ (Lef,1991:188). Culture presents a stage, over which it bears audience, upon which its actors perform their lives under its omniscient gaze.

This makes representational space problematic, in that this ‘directly experienced dramatic action’ realises the representation of its culture, thus reinforcing it. As Tschumi (1996:124) says of the hunter and hunted; guard and prisoner; space and body; ‘only when they confront each other’s reality are their strategies so totally interdependent that it becomes impossible to determine which one initiates and which one responds.’ Culture is both a product and producer of human actions and, although representations dominate, it does not necessarily detract from the authenticity of representaional experience within.

diagram 1.2: weighted triad:modern consciousness

This is not to denounce this phenomenon as an oppressive puppeteer; for indeed, it is culture that gives places such as Glasgow and identities such as Glaswegian a form; a character. It does, however, pose two questions, the first implicated already in the hypothesis: what constitutes/gives rise to these pure lived moments that transcend culture’s stage? The second, even more problematic one: if this cultural space is mediated as Lefebvre implies, then what, or who, is it mediated by?

2

My g

glasgow

My representation(al) practice

Drawing 2.1: my representations (drawn prior to going there): > mapping the city as physical and social artefact > mapping routes - representation predicates action

Drawing 2.2: my practice: > route through tesco and sketch of locality * Drawn in the space being represented (red spot) - action predicates representation > Complete with coffee stain (not contrived!) - action in process of representation

Drawing 2.3: my representational experience > Getting soaked through within a couple of hours being in Glasgow > aggravating this further by stepping in a puddle > Upon returning to the hostel, finding that the dye on my shoes had ran into and stained my socks a lovely muddy brown

My MoMents Further to the rain and resulting saturated shoes I experienced other contingencies in Glasgow. As attested to in the previous chapter, these were moments in which my representation of a given space was broken by an intruder of some sort. Restricting myself to five, there emerged two categories: 1) subtle intrusions of a human quality and scale into environments otherwise devoid of one; 2) formal intrusions in the built environment which invoked intruiging contradictions. In each case, especially for the first category, the moments opened up a void in my representation which I desired to fill in with a narrative of some sort, justifying but simultaneously celebrating the lack of coherence.

The physicality of these moments could be explained by comparison to a power cut: say it is a dark evening and we are slouched at home in a comfortable chair, fully absorbed in an enticing film, its images flashing across the screen before us, its soundscape pulsating from the speakers either side, then...

That blank space is the void that opens up when the power goes out. In this void we are suddenly confronted with our raw, uninhibited reality, and to a certain degree the absurdity of the augmented one left behind. Key is that this happens instantaneously; there is no interstice in which to process our transition from one to the other, which is, the transition from a representation of space to our representational space. Such is human consciousness that we can be as engrossed in the filmic representation on the screen as in real space- indeed the eye of the camera and therefore our eye is often that of a character in the filmic space- thus this abstract space becomes real as far as perception is concerned. We realise in this moment of the power cut that the electical current running through these components and the city around us is as fundamental to our reality as the blood coursing through our veins.

Pallasmaa (2012:33) claims that: In our culture of pictures, the gaze itself flattens into a picture and loses its plasticity. Instead of experiencing our being in the world, we behold it from outside as spectators of images projected on the surface of the retina.

Experience of space in the modern world is often a filmic one in itself. ‘Lived moments’ are a similar phenomenon to the power cut described above, only rather than the current powering electrical components it is that powering representations of actual space that break down. As implied, this current is loaded with cultural constructs, namely sociopolitical structures that inform our way of seeing and interacting with given space and the bodies within it. So in these moments, rather than the actor on the stage of our culture, we are simply a physical body within a physical space, for which the audience is our own intellectual consciousness. And in transcending this theatrical stage, as with the power cut, we often realise the absurdity of this reality we just left behind.

Drawing 2.5: ‘Focused vision confronts us with the world whereas peripheral vision envelops us in the flesh of the world.’ (Pall,2012:14)

Diagram 2.1: Moment mapping. Definitions elaborated in chapter 3.

Drawing 2.5: Base Camp; Mclays Guest House; An example of spatial texture (violence).

MoMent 1: vibrant street culture

by author

flikrhivemind.net

(discoverglasgow.org): ‘tongland’ (in globe)

by author Photo 2.1; Figure Ground Map 2.1: Bench in Calton, an area notorious for deprivation, criminality and the tongs. someone worried their beloved garden furniture might get nicked, then again, someone who still wants to sit outside?

photos 2.2a-d: territory

route

route ‘every sunday morning, the Billy Boys [of Bridgeton] deliberately went out of their way to march through their enemies’ territory on their way to church...the Billy Boys did not enter the church itself. they felt, apparently, that their job was concluded when they had created the sunday morning riot.’ (patrick,1973:153)

MoMENT 3: GARDEN WITH A vIEW

photo 2.3: public garden space behind an estate, with a view of the M80 and imposing towers of Small Faces’ ‘Tongland’. someone’s sitting space or just a random unwanted table and chairs?

“a skyline shaped by starchitects” (Glasgow City Marketing Bureau)

Photo 2.3a-b (Small Faces,1996): the imposing sighthill estate was used as the setting for ‘tongland’.

Drawing 2.3

Drawing 2.6: axonometric of sighthill/North Dennistoun Key: Bounded area route

MoMENT 2: SKyLANDER

photo 2.4: Contingent object in pacifying environment; an anarchistic gesure which broke the unconscious experience.

Who put it there? on purpose or by accident? is someone putting a series of them in unsuspecting places around Glasgow- vis-a-vis ‘Space Invader’?

Drawing 2.4: imagined narrative

this drawing illustrates how residual space is often strictly divided, in this case by the m80, an old railway line and the fenced compounds of the contemporary industrial park to the north and older industrial area, on the other side of the tracks.

We wanted to get south past the high rise towers but had to walk a long way round to do so; just as residents would have to. the colossal tesco and its car park are also cleared scaled to favour automobile users- commuters from other areas- rather than pedestrians- those who live nearby in the estates.

MoMent 4: glasgow cross

Photo 2.5: Glasgow Cross, a landmark that distinguishes the merchant city from the east end; a key point of convergence at the historical heart of Glasgow.

(Digimap ancient roam 1890): prior to automobile dominion Glasgow’s transportation mainstay was its tram system.

Muir (2000): Glasgow 16th C.: the Cross is at the heart of its historical centre. the tolbooth tower was the location for public executions.

Photo 2.5a (Glasgow then & Now): 1901 Drawing 2.7: Figure Ground sketch of the junction: Spatial Violence- the tower pierces the centre of the road around which traffic flows relentlessly. This flow appears to carve out the shape of the surrounding buildings.

MoMENT 5: CHoCoLATE-Box

photo 2.6: idyllic tenement streets in the Northwest city centre- representation broken by contingent object.

Drawing 2.8: Glasgow’s gridded centre has a large number of attractive historical streets, lined with sandstone tenements. the more an environment tends towards beauty and grandeur however the further it retreats into representation. Difference breaks the illusion.

3

spatial stratification and class consciousness in glagow

John’s confrontation with Canta

Neds (2010)

PRIvILEGED, ExPLoITED, RESIDUAL ; vIoLENT My neutral hypothesis (pg.3) could be left as such, however it may be utilised to make a political argument, that spatial consciousness - representation(al) practice - constituted as it is by cultural constructs, comes loaded (in capitalist society) with a class consciousness, which produces and is reproduced by a stratified spatial process manifest explicitely in (post)industrial capitalist cities such as Glasgow. This stratification creates subjects (classes) so disparate that they can be said to converge only in representational space, i.e. lived moments.

To unpack the first implication: ‘what is this class consciousness in Glasgow and how does it manifest in its space?’ and, in doing so, address the question posed in chapter 1: ‘what or who is this process mediated by?’ I will propose the following triad: Diagram 3.1: abstract (Capitalist) space PRIVILEGED SPACE: Spaces of accumulation and consumption. Where the ‘haves’ exist and expend their wealth. Glasgow’s gentrified shopping streets, residential neighbourhoods, tourist attractions, etc. expLoiteD spaCe: spaces of production. Where the ‘have nots’ exist and natural and human resources (labour) are exploited for purpose of the accumulation/consumption of wealth/products in privileged space. Glasgow’s shipyards, factories, etc.. resiDUaL spaCe: Non-privileged spaces not directly exploited in the accumulation/consumption process. Glasgow’s poorer neighbourhoods since its post industrial decline: housing estates and so on..

Key is this triad can be read both in terms of ‘spaces’ and ‘classes’; the privileged class exist (for the most part) exclusively within privileged space and vice versa; without one stratification the other cannot sustain itself. As with the representation(al) practice triad, there is ambiguity in and overlap between the constituents - ‘Abstract space is not homogenous; it simply has homogeneity as its goal’ (Lef,1991:287) - and it is thresholds/divisions between spaces/classes that are crucial. 76

BIRTH oF THE TRIAD: INDUSTRIAL GLASGoW This triad became operational in Glasgow when ‘productive activity (labour) became no longer one with the process of reproduction which perpetuated social life...whence abstract social labour - and abstract space (Lef,1971:49); the advent of industrial capitalism when modern class divisions were born. Given this system is an abstract - contrived - one, where the subjects constituting each space are differentiated predominantly by their being born into it, there must be something sustaining those divisions. As (Lef,1971:289) states ‘there is a violence intrinsic to abstraction, and to abstraction’s practical (social) use’ and (ibid:49) ‘the dominant form of space, that of the centres of wealth and power, endeavours to mould the spaces it dominates...often by violent means.’ In other words, the divisions are sustained by violence.

Industrial Glasgow was dominated by exploited space: factories and shipyards on the banks of the Clyde- the industrial artery from which capilaries of working communities (many ‘slums’) and smaller industries branched, overlooked by the privileged ‘merchant city’ across the water, mansions and upper/middle class enclaves atop the hills.

Hence spatial stratification derived from underlying geographical characteristics. violence in this period was ubiquitous and needs little elaboration: the most severe poverty imposed upon workers along with brutal oppression by the state of any opposition (Steven,2006). Given the vast outnumbering of the privileged class by these exploited workers there was considerable tension exerting on that crucial dividing line; something more intelligent than dehumanising and battering must have been at play.

As to how it was sustained, Damer (1989) offered a thorough analysis which can be summarised as three key stages/processes: 1) Lenin’s ‘aristocracy of labour’;- increasing wages and social privilege for a small portion of skilled workers-cum-labour leaders and their gradual spatial segregation (i.e. the middle class and the suburb); 2) The ‘moralization’ of the proletariat;- indoctrination with bourgeois ideology, the ‘carrot’ of becoming a labour aristocrat and, never too far away, the ‘stick’ for any form of dissent; 3) The ‘demoralization’ of the ‘paupers/reserve labour army’ and ‘lumpenproletariat’ such that they were detested by and in turn detested the proletariat. In a phrase: divide and conquer.

Crucially, this logic is not a simple dialectical relationship between capitalists and workers - privileged vs. exploited space; this would exert all the tension/violence of exploitation upon that divide. The proletariat i.e. those in full employment have to be put in a position of perceived privilege and superiority, which given the surplus of labour (abetted by immigration when required) means competition for those positions, which feel rightly earned by those who attain them, and the failure self inflicted by those who do not. Hence a triad, in which residual space is not marginal but fundamental.

privileged space

ExPLoITED SPACE

‘Charing Cross, 1901’ from (Kellet,1967) ‘the pawn Close, 1868’ from (Kellet,1967)

to scale

approx 16m2, 2 bed ? person apartments st. James’ road, City improvement trust tenements, from (Wordsall,1979) Abbotsford Place ‘Fine middle-class tenements built 1831-6’ from (Wordsall,1979)

Diagram 3.2: abstract (Capitalist) space; Industrial Glasgow Key: (violent) divisions privileged exploited residual ‘the state not only requires the reproduction of a flow of healthy and well-trained workers, but it also requires the reproduction of the relations of production...a correctly motivated working class, one which is impregnated by bourgeois hegemony, one which believes that the capital relationship is normal.’ (Dam,1989:25)

SUSTAINING THE TRIAD: PoST-INDUSTRIAL GLASGoW The logic of divide and conquer implies not only physical violence but, even more so, ideological violence- the primary mechanism of class division. Since industrial Glasgow declined, the system has become increasingly global but ‘social relations do not disappear in the ‘worldwide’ framework..they are reproduced at that level..spaces governed by conflicts and contradictions’ (Lef,1991:404). Privileged space watches these conflicts and inequalities through the medium of screens and scratches its guilty itch with charity, however, because of the abstraction of these representations (which are easily distorted), the globally stratified system of class relations - today less the imperialism of nations (as with Glasgow ‘second city of the victorian empire’) but the imperialism of global capital - goes on undeterred.

So, in macro terms, Glasgow today is privileged space. As a microcosm, however, the class divisions and corresponding ideological constructs formed in industrial Glasgow have endured many socio-policial tranformations throughout the 20th century, evolving in this process, but remaining fundamentally the same to this day. Conditions have gradually improved for working people and the middle class has grown considerably, leaving its mark of suburban sprawl upon the peripheral landscape of Glasgow; privileged space, interspersed among the ‘sink’ estates and system build (modernist) high rises built to rehouse people displaced by slum clearance; residual/exploited space. photo 3.1 (by author): foreground: new suburban estate (private/social mix) middleground: system build background: springburn periperhal estate (circa 1960’s)

photos 3.2a-b (by author): system build estate, sighthill; automobile infrastructure fragments, at the expense of pedestrians in favour of cars (& those who can afford them)

‘many of the houses built to replace the 1960s slums are now slums themselves...scots are among the least healthy people in the eU. part of the reason can be traced to damp cold homes. there is also a link between poor housing and education...these effects can endure for a lifetime (Jones&robson,2001:1) Fig. 3.1: from (Jones&Robson,2001:138): Changes in housing

Fig. 3.2: from (ibid:31): Inrease in Homelessness

‘a fundamental underlying cause of the rise in homelessness is the imbalance between supply of and demand for housing...this problem derives from under-investment in social housing since the early 1980’s...there has been an over emphasis in policy on owner occupation.’ (ibid:2)

The relative growth of privileged space within post-industrial (neoliberal)(Harvey,2012) Glasgow, along with ever greater stratification (enabled by the automobile), has produced an illusion of prosperity and harmony for those within it, whilst inequality (e.g. in housing - see above) has otherwise grown. Privileged space has its own share of (ideological) violence in order to sustain this illusion; if it became too harmonious it would lose the insatiable desire for accumulation/consumption on which the whole system is reliant. This is Huxley’s Brave New World: oppression of excess, in which the pursuit of happiness is sustained by unhappiness itself, perpetuated by the colonisation of space/consciousness by advertising and consumer culture; the ‘concrete manufacture of alienation’ (Debord,1994).

Residual and exploited space on the other hand is that other 20th century literature dystopia, orwell’s 1984, in which the masses are surveilled, policed aggressively and fed ideological misconceptions about the ‘other’, be it ‘problem people’ or ‘wars on terror’, in order to divert frustrations away from their true aggressors. photo 3.3b (by author): residual space: there’s cameras, every single street... it’s like Big Brother on the telly, they’re watchin’ every single move. (Jason) (Deuchar,2009:154)

photo 3.3a (by author): privileged space: ‘Glasgow, one of Europe’s most vibrant, dynamic and stylish cities, has been named the number one UK destination “on the rise” ‘ (Glasgow City Marketing Bureau,2014)

Fig. 3.4: from (ibid): Changes in employment and strike action.

Key: Unemployment, Key Glasgow Strikes

Bourgeois

Fig. 3.3: from (Hicks&Allen,1999): Shifts in class structure. Key: politically mobile class

‘During the [1960’s] unemployment in Glasgow ran at almost twice the rate as that for Britain as a whole’ (Pat,1971:169)’ The traditional industries have been wiped out...average unemployment in the Govan area is about 25 per cent, a figure which camoflages much higher pockets of very much higher joblessness...the indicators are evident; the money-lenders; the ‘hard men’, have become salient again.’

(Dam,1989:156).

Diagram 3.3: abstract (Capitalist) space; post-industrial Bougeois hegemony was successful in its crusade ‘to Glasgow sectionalize working-class housing tenants in such a way as to faKey: cilitate the control of the working class in general...dispersed miles (violent) divisions away from work in bleak housing estates without any facilities’ privileged exploited (Dam,1989:52). Though there were honest motives, to better the residual lives of tenants moving into new estates, beneath these was paranoia about their potential volatility- given Glasgow’s track record of political mobilisation and the bleak economic prospects (thus social unrest) facing industrial decline on the burgeoning world stage (Education Scotland,n.d.).This considered, their placement on the margins of the city and lack of traditional street pattern (fundamental to the worker mobilization and collective ethic of past) could be considered politically contrived. Though the spatial/architectural qualities of these estates/high rises are well worth study, their architectural conception is mostly marginal; amalgams of ill-informed planning dogma loosely based upon (but often missing the point the gang eventually told him to ‘fuck off’ because ‘i of) modernist and garden city theories; the ‘radiant garden city’ used too many big words’...’at the time i was reading up (Jacobs,1965). of greater imporance was their political concepon revolutionary socialism, and i was starting to come tion, which as Curtis (1984) illuminates was a dominion of contracup with bizarre ideas about taking over police stations.’ tor rather than architect or local authority power; the beginning peter mullan (harkness,2011); divide and conquer. (or rather continuation of) private capital power dictating public projects. Their resulting flawed production was doomed to be aggravated further in reproduction given the lack of facilities, exacerbated by a ‘Town Council resolution...[which] forbade the provision of licensed premises on municipal housing estates’ (Pat,1973:146) and the fact they were filled with displaced tenants (not simply from homes but also from communities - families - friends), many seduced by a suburban dream but in reality left without job prospects, isolated and with nothing to do; ‘hardly surprising that one of the few foci for their anger should be a noisy neighbour, a ‘problem’ person’ (Dam,1989:52).

(ratcatcher,1999:37:50;41:40;1:22:30) suburban dream in its purest form: a ‘slum dwellers’ dream of escaping poverty for a better life.

(ibid:51:51;52:36): Darker symbolism: ‘slum rats’ on the moon; not all escape poverty. and to some, they are an infestation on their new colonies.

Just as the bourgeois class mechanism endured in Glasgow, its nemesis - the rugged, determined working class consciousness; ‘emphasis on self-assertion and on a rebellious independence against authority’ (Patrick,1973:170) - died hard with it. once disarmed by spatial fragmentation and economic hardship ‘the only alternative, and one hallowed in the traditions of Glasgow slum life, [was] to respond with violence.’ (ibid). once a cultural force, this violence was now demoted to mere ‘sub’culture whereby dissillusioned (mostly) young people would express their discontent the only way they knew how; upon the only people they knew how to: each other.

MAPPING PRIvILEGED, ExPLoITED, RESIDUAL SPACE Map 3.1: Digimap, Zoopla heat map + GoogleMap, edited by author with annotation.

Quotes from Glasgow City Marketing Bureau, Patrick (1973) and Deuchar (2004) Key: high property value privileged spaces exploited/residual spaces

(ex)ploited space ( maps): one of two remaining shipyard (Bae systems); wh was once the main of Glasgow’s econo is now a spectacle watched from luxur apartments.

bing

s at stay omy

y

privileged space (ibid): the fine tenement streets of Glasgow’s West End

residual space (ibid): the sighthill estate (‘tongland’); see moments 2+3

CoLLIDING NARRATIvES; CLASS CoNFRoNTATIoNS: GLASGoW IN FILM Glasgow had a reputation for violence which I intially set out to unmask as a (mis)representation manufactured by outsiders and its own privileged class, stigmatizing its ‘problem places/problem people’. Though certainly true - unfortunately so for the many people it has wrongly inflicted negativity upon - this does appear to be a genuine element of the city’s character, not exclusive to a ‘dark underbelly’ but far more prominent in its consciousness; ‘many felt that violence was what defined Glasgow, and took pride in its hard, macho image’ (Deu,2004:41). This was not unique to Glasgow - gangs can be considered a product of cities of industrial capitalism, which violence was intrinsic to - however whereas others such as Manchester and Liverpool diversified into tertiary industries (economically) and music/ teenage culture (socially) Glasgow stagnated, its youth remaining young adults searching for something to emulate among the alcoholism (‘two to three times as high as in equivalent cities in England’ in the 1960’s (Pat,1973:169)) football obsession and employment struggles of their hardy parents. Thus Glasgow had a specific character; spatial consciousness, of which this was a crucial component.

If not taking the stance of denouncing such a character, there was equal danger of glamourising it. small Faces and Neds did this to an extent, but only so much as to reflect this element within the subjects’ personas, focusing predominantlly upon the more pressing issue: the quest for purpose by young Glaswegians condemned to living in a world offering little answers, rather belittling and battering them into submission to the preconceived stereotype of non-educated delinquent; ‘problem person’. fireworks in football boots

confronted by gang (ends up joining them) on walk home immediately following this rejection

‘Football boots? No he’ll not be interested in those...I don’t think you should come round here again, alright? Good. Off you go.’ (Neds,2010:31:10)

after integrating into newfound identity, completes transition symbolically with this act

‘Ya wan’ a ned? al gives ya a fuckin’ ned.’ (ibid:46:20)

John, the protagonist in Neds, grew up on that treacherous line that is class division; far above his peers academically his confident optimism was quickly eroded upon entering a tough high school. A minor altercation earned him rejection from his middle-class friend’s mother, following which he found new identity in the ‘young Car-Ds’, a transition eased by his older brother being a well established member. Mullan (Harkness,2011) attested to such events in the film being loosely autobiographical; although fictional, such narratives were culturally accurate. Lex, the main of three brother characters in Small Faces, also found himself following Bobby (the eldest) into gang involvement, however by way of accident: shooting Tongs’ notoriously violent leader ‘Malky Johnson’ with an air gun and living in the same neighbourhood in Govan as rival gang Glen’s honcho ‘Sloane’. As (Deu,2004:46) stated ‘territoriality was so deeply engrained within communities that it often defined the young people’s sense of location.’ Small Faces opened with Lex’s representation- a cognitive map of gang territories and characters interspersed among spatial cursors such as the Clyde and foreboding towers of ‘Tongland’. The nature of tenementsclose grained apartments with communal stairwells and places to congregate on the street (the front steps where Lex stood) was fundamental to the rapport developed, whereby Sloane offered Lex (and brother Alan) protection for his misdemeanor in exchange for favours, first of which was breaking into Kelvingrove Art Gallery, where Sloane ordered Alan (a talented artist) to add his face into one of the gallery’s portraits. This illuminated the tension/fludity between Glasgow’s Diagram 3.4: John’s class shift. ‘masculine manual-working-class profile’ (Dam,1989:170) and more intellectual facet of its persona - remnants of its ‘Scottish Enlightenment’ days perhaps - ‘it’s a different kind of working class culture in Glasgow...a very rough one’ but also an ‘intelligent culture and it quite cherishes things of the mind’ (Maurer,1996).

‘Fifteen years and no a single grape! vines...in the middle of Scotland!’

(Small Faces,1996:54:39), the metaphorical implication being that the odds against succeeding; producing anything of beauty in Glasgow, was ingrained in the very climate of the place, yet its people went on regardless; a terroir of gritty determination, violence and chip fat. territory in Neds; symbolic location in the film where the rival gang’s territories meet. (ibid:31:10)

Alan and Fabio realised their dreams of, though not without adversity, art school whereas James, the lead in ratcatcher (1999), was not so lucky. A key

Sloane

Lex’s representation (small Faces,1996:1:53)

sloane, the thug with a penchant for literature. ‘they’d say, “hey, ‘hey you! Bobby’s brother? Come on up, can ye draw me then? Draw bring the wee man too.’ (ibid:23:45) me against the wall wi’ a bit of chalk?” (ibid:31:35) Lex

theme in this film was escapism; against the backdrop of a harsh inner city slum during the dustmen strikes of the 1970’s James and those around him endured their difficult environment in anyway possible. Indifferent to football (or alcohol) like his da, music (ma), television (sister), animals (friend Kenny), or trouble causing and harassing a vulnerable girl (the local group of boys) James had to find some other distraction to give this world meaning. The girl in question (Margaret Anne), he was rather fond of, hence his reluctance to participate in demeaning behaviour towards her; ‘he’s quite sensitive, but he’s not supposed to show it’ (Andrew,2002). An answer came following his eldest sister’s lead- catching a bus and (unlike his sister who was going somewhere) simply finding out where it went. In doing so, a spark was ignited: his suburban dream (pg.25).

Whereas other filmic characters were motivated by action, pride/status and so on, James was a dreamer; he found more stimulation in his practice of representation - his imagination - whereas others were drawn more towards representational practice.

This is not to suggest James did not seek representational experience; discovering his dream house was an explicitely tactile experience, and all the more ingrained in his consciousness for it. Likewise, John had an equally vivid imagination (i.e. his passion for reading), however John’s representations tended to predicate action.

To return to the hypothesis, it could be said that characters in these films experienced moments; traumatic ruptures that shook their sense of self, drastically transforming their representation(al) practices . This was exemplified in red road, where the narratives of two disparate subjects collided irreconcilably, and may be extrapolated as a confrontation between classes: Clyde, the Diagram 3.5: tactile manual worker who would likely have worked the shipyards, fallen (as they did) upon hard times; an urban fox forced out of his natural habitat, grafting a way in the inner city by sheer resilient opportunism; watched over by Jackie, a well meaning agent of residual (1984) space surveillance, more interested in preventing harm coming to the subjects on her screen than abusing her position of power; that is, until she is confronted by an unwelcome face from the past.

Fabio’s father’s failing vines; A downpour ensues at this point. (ibid:54:51)

(ratcatcher,1999:5:02): ‘the canal in ratcatcher, for me, is also a character - it’s a place where kids do things they’re not supposed to do (andrew,2002)

(ratcatcher,1999:5:02): ‘it is impossible to think of a nihilistic sense of touch’ (pal,2012:25).

(Neds,2010:1:19:42): ‘the will to power is strong in vision’ (pal,2012:21).

Diagram 3.6: moment Categories: Quotidian rupture = something contingent which breaks the representation in everyday experience; invokes suprise/shock/humour and so on. (e.g. see moments pg...to...) traumatic rupture = something which confronts the subject in a violent way, resulting in a dramatic change (e.g. Jackie & Clyde in red road - pg...to...)

Contingent spectacle = an event which is collectively conceived and/ or witnessed but with an unpredictable outcome (e.g. the 100m in the forthcoming Commonwealth Games in Glasgow) revolutionary consciousness = a break in the cultural construct such that ‘anything becomes possible’ - for Lefebvre this is the interstice in which a transitional space is produced (e.g. Glasgow shipyards strike 197--)

Mapping reD roaD I got asked in Cannes a lot about bleak housing estates, by people [film journalists] who probably have quite privileged lives – nice houses, decent holidays. they’re looking at characters who haven’t got a lot, are living in poverty, and it annoys them, i’m sure- andrea arnold (Leigh,2006).

Diagram 3.7a-d: Jackie & Clyde’s colliding representation(al) practices and ‘traumatic rupture’.

Diagram...: Disparate consciousnesses overlap only in representational, in this case via traumatic rupture.

Diagram...: Jackie (proletarian) and Clyde (pauper/Lumpenproletarian)

colliding narratives: narratives Diagram...: Jackie & Clyde’s Narrative: Filmstills from Red Road, (2006)

class confrontations (trauMatic ruptures) class confrontation: Diagram...: Jackie & Clyde’s traumatic rupture

spatial

‘this shit happens everyday...that’s life! You shouted at the little girl the day she died... at least she was loved...some people don’t get that.’ -Clyde (red road,2006:1:38:23)

social

4

oN THE THRESHoLD

Similar to the Situationists (situations), Tschumi (violence) and more recently Till (contingency), Lefebvre (moments) was striving for a reinvigorated conception of space; a reinvigorated society free from the oppression of capitalism’s abstraction. As Debord (1994) argued provocatively, the ever greater privilege brought about by capitalism’s ongoing technological advances only serves to separate from the world and from each other. This augmented reality constituting privileged space is dependent upon the subordination of exploited and residual space, a relationship sustained by violence; Glasgow’s gentrified, pacified ‘International City’ centre and Tesco car parks are possible only by the marginalisation of the city’s ‘problem people’, such that they take their frustrations out on each other; the screens increasingly colonizing these modern enivronments only by systemic violence in another part of the world (Lee,2014).

In this process, the space dominated often gains that sense of humanity lost by its tyrannical counterpart. out of Glasgow’s great hardship, as with other cities of industrial capitalism, came a collective spirit subsequently unrivaled in the developed world, but more than exceeded in the developing world of today.

If ‘there is no architecture without violence’ and ‘violence, after all, is an ancient pleasure’ (Tschumi,1996:121;123) then the lack of violence in contemporary architecture and urbanism is telling. The unchallenged smooth space of automatic doors, automobiles and augmented screens creates ‘a temporalisation of space and a spatialisation of time’ (Pal,2012:24) that puts people on autopilot, their conversations on autocue and their lives on hold. Without violence in privileged space the space ceases to exist (representationally), and the violence inflicts itself elsewhere, amplified in its abstraction.

The point is that representation(al) space is one of relativity; cultural and experiential coordinates determine ones perception and practice such that they can only conceive in terms of their past. Every subject is a unique product of culture and experience, which manifests in them an equally unique perspective. The more smooth one’s space, the more it abstracts itself into a film - theatrical space - because only representations of space have no texture. For ratcatcher’s James, his suburban escape is so powerful precisely because the lack of texture - the dirt, stench and draining social practice of the slum - became foreground; he was unlikely to have smelt the rubbish heap accumulating in his back yard but he did smell the clean air of that open field. For someone born into the house he coveted, on the other hand, the clean air and open field became background- they may have formed happy memories in it and come to cherish it, but they will never truly experience it - this texture - as James did.

Texture is violent, as is representational space, because it implies a collision between subject and space, in which the subject conceives not their culture but the emptiness of their raw, ininhibited reality; a finite mush of matter that lives and will soon die; ‘‘i’, which is inseparably individual and social, is in a space where it must either recognize itself or lose itself’ (Lef,1991:61). Fictional characters such as Lex, John, Jackie and Clyde, and the real people of Glasgow past, present and future they represent, knew this threshold all too well. In their traumatic ruptures they found someway to recognize themselves, James, however, did not; testament not so much to the magnitude of this representational space, but to that of representations- of dreams.

ratcatcher (1999)

.

Diagram 4.1: Differential space; ‘a new space cannot be born (produced) unless it accentuates differences. it will also retore unity to what abstract space breaks up - to the functions, elements and moments of social practice’ (lef,1991:52).

Fig 4.1 (Deu,2004): Primary/Secondary

Diagram 4.2: Characters in the films, and marginalised young people in Glasgow who Deuchar interviewed, often had crises - ongoing struggles or ‘traumatic ruptures’ - which had to be reconciled in some way. this reconciliation often came from gang cuture - a ‘surrogate family’ for example - or, where the opporunities existed, sport such as football, which satisfied the desire for physicality (representational practice) and status but in a safer environment.

SELECT BIBLIoGRAPHy BooKS Damer, S. (1989) From Moorepark to ‘Wine Alley’: The Rise and Fall of a Glasgow Housing Scheme, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Debord, G. (1994) the society of the spectacle, New york: Zone Books.

Deuchar, R. (2009) Gangs, Marginalised Youth and Social Capital, Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books Limited.

Faley, J. (1990) Up oor close: memories of domestic life in Glasgow tenements, 1910-1945, Wendle bury: White Cockade in association with Springburn Museum Trust.

Harvey, D. (2012) rebel Cities, New york: verso.

Jacobs, J. (1965) The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Jones, C. and Robson P. (2001) health of scottish housing, Aldershot: Ashgate.

Kellett, J.R. (1967) Glasgow: A Concise History, London: Blond.

Lefebvre, H. (1991) the production of space, oxford: Basil Blackwell.*Core Text* Muir, J.H. (2000) Glasgow in 1901, oxford: White Cockade.

Pallasmaa, J. (2012) the eyes of the skin: architecture and the senses, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Patrick, J. (1973) A Glasgow Gang Observed, London: Eyre Meuthen.

Reed, P. (1999) Glasgow: The Forming of the City, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Tschumi, B. (1996) architecture and Disjunction,Cambridge: MIT Wordsall, F. (1979) the tenement: a Way of Life, Edinburgh: W. and R. Chambers.

filMs Neds. (2010) Directed by P. Mullan. [DvD] New york: Entertainment one. pefect sense. (2011) Directed by D. Mackenzie. [DvD] Herts: Arrow. ratcatcher. (1999) Directed by L. Ramsay. [DvD] Los Angeles: 20th Century Fox. red road. (2006) Directed by A. Arnold. [DvD] London: verve Pictures.

Small Faces. (1996) Directed by G. MacKinnon. [DvD] Los Angeles: Fox. Unemployment in Clydebank. (1973) Directed by C. Wallace. [online] Glasgow: Scottish Television

webpages Geoff Andrew. (2002) Lynne ramsay. [online] [Accessed on 20th April 2014] http://www.theguardian.com/film/2002/ oct/28/features Education Scotland. (no date) Decline of the shipyards. [online][Accessed on 25th April 2014] http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/scotlandshistory/20thand21stcenturies/shipyards/index.asp Glasgow Caledonian University. (2006) Radical Glasgow. [online] [Accessed on 25th April 2014] http://www.gcu. ac.uk/radicalglasgow/ Glasgow City Marketing Bureau. (2014) People Make Glasgow. [online] [Accessed on 24th April 2014] http://peoplemakeglasgow.com/ Alistair Harkness. (2011) Peter Mullan’s Neds revisits 1970s Glasgow gang life - interview. [online] [Accessed on 20th April 2014] http://film.list.co.uk/article/32006-peter-mullans-neds-revisits-1970s-glasgow-gang-life-interview/ http://www.imdb.com/ [information about films watched and forum discussions- sometimes local insight] Dave Lee (2014) Apple in conflict mineral ‘name and shame’ crackdown. [online][Accessed on 24th April 2014] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-26144981 Danny Leigh. (2006) I like darkness [interview with Andrea Arnold about her film Red Road]. [online] [Accessed on 20th April 2014] http://www.theguardian.com/film/2006/oct/18/londonfilmfestival2006.londonfilmfestival1 Monika Maurer. (1996) A Quick Chat with Gillies and Billy MacKinnon. [online] [Accessed on 20th April 2014] http:// www.kamera.co.uk/interviews/mackinno.html Ali Muriel . (2012) Mystery of Glasgow’s Health Problems. [online] [[Accessed on 25th April 2014] http://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/nov/06/mystery-glasgow-health-problems

Diagram B.1: text mapping Key: texts social issues