World Heritage List now includes inequality

The Onion brings us the latest news from UNESCO:

PARIS—At a press conference Tuesday, the World Heritage Committee officially recognized the Gap Between Rich and Poor as the "Eighth Wonder of the World," describing the global wealth divide as the "most colossal and enduring of mankind's creations."

"Of all the epic structures the human race has devised, none is more staggering or imposing than the Gap Between Rich and Poor," committee chairman Henri Jean-Baptiste said. "It is a tremendous, millennia-old expanse that fills us with both wonder and humility."

The wealth gap, compared to some monuments (The Onion)

"And thanks to careful maintenance through the ages, this massive relic survives intact, instilling in each new generation a sense of awe," Jean- Baptiste added.

The vast chasm of wealth, which stretches across most of the inhabited world, attracts millions of stunned observers each year, many of whom have found its immensity too overwhelming even to contemplate. By far the largest man-made structure on Earth, it is readily visible from locations as far-flung as Eastern Europe, China, Africa, and Brazil, as well as all 50 U.S. states.

At first I was going to make a joke about how the wealth gap could be part of the Intangible Heritage list, which includes "traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors". Among which inequality is certainly one.

But although neoliberalism and postmodern urbanism have tried their best to make class differences literally intangible by making poverty invisible, the inability to see the wealth gap is a selective blindness, shared only by the rich. From the archaeological point of view, the unequal distribution of wealth in the 21st century will leave very tangible material traces, especially in the development contrasts between the global south and the global north. The wealth gap is indeed a 'structure' in the sense that it organizes people's ability to consume material things, where they can go, even the chemistry of their bodies. Archaeologists who find skeletons from our era will be able to infer class from the chemicals in our bones. A monument more visible (but hopefully not more permanent) than the great structures of the past.

Only Kinect: Monument as Playground in Munich

Last month interactive technology company seeper set up a system of motion sensors and projectors that allowed passerby to 'play' the medieval Karlstor next to Stachus in Munich (via Wired).



The level of hype in this video is pretty comical, but playing the Karlstor looks like fun! Especially after a couple glasses of gluhwein. Repurposing familiar monuments like this is good. So often we feel like old things, especially monuments, rule us. This game creates a kind of inversion of that psychology, creating a dissonance that lets you see old things in a new light. Games like this are also very conservation compatible, since it's non-invasive: a good tip for people minded to turn ancient monuments into modern spectacles.

I did a little snooping and it turns out that the production end is pretty straightforward - the Kinect is an off-the-shelf attachment for Microsoft's Xbox video game console, released last month, that does motion tracking and even face and voice recognition. Microsoft's attempt to one-up the Wii. Combine it with a projector and a little modelling savvy, and interactive games projected onto the urban environment are (or will soon be) within many peoples' reach. There's a ton of interesting implications popping into my mind already: interactive scenes or puzzles as part of museum or monument tours, urban gaming, the fusion of the video game and live-action role-playing experience.

All this, and archaeologists don't even use film yet. Time to leapfrog a couple generations of technology methinks.

Accidental Monuments: Saddam's Palaces, Repurposed

BLDGBLOG has up a great interview with Richard Mosse, a photographer who has recently visited, and photographed, a number of Saddam Hussein's palaces. He is especially interested in capturing the ways they have been repurposed by the American military units that now occupy them. Mosse has an interesting take on monumentalism:

my proposal was to make work around the idea of the accidental monument. I'm interested in the idea that history is something in a constant state of being written and rewritten—and the way that we write history is often plain to see in how we affect the world around us, in the inscriptions we make on our landscape, and in what stays and what goes.

Read the rest!