As the life of the great Salt Lake City, the city of my memories, continued on, more and more people desired their own backyard, a bit of space, a piece of mind and action, etc. This is what prompted my family to move to Midvale years ago, a suburban paradise replete with mini-malls and nothing to do. I remember that back then, there was still grazing land. We would feed horses carrots through my friend's fence in his backyard. It's all been filled in, though, with housing, and this is true around the prison. Surprisingly, in the area of the Utah where everyone dreads to be sent, home of convicts and criminals, people are moving in droves.
On my courier runs, I was fortunate enough to drive past the construction of the new Idea store in Draper, a yuppie young city that drew controversy for its zoning practices a few years ago, not allowing second-hand stores to built within their downtown area. A city like this deserves an Ikea. The Ikea deserves a place like this.
During the construction, as I would doze in and out of consciousness while navigating tumultuous 1-15 traffic, I would often pass the Ikea and trick myself into believing that I was actually passing the prison. It took me a couple of minutes to realize where I was, but I was always intrigued by how similar these two structures were, architecually, at least before the yellow and blue paint went on the building. Yet, there still remains architectual similarities between the two, and I am certain it is not accidental.
Simple box-like structures made for the soul purpose of containing people. They both have watchtowers too.
If you combine the two, the prison and the Ikea, then you render a pretty amusing image. Luckily, I don't have to detail it out for you, because it already exists.
That's right. A big-box commercialist prison. I don't know where to begin with this one. Could I make a statement about resistance/containment? Could I put Gramscii's hegemony into the mix? Could I season it with a bit of Adorno? What about Michele Foucault's Discipline and Punish? Yes, yes, yes yes yes.
What this image suggests is how we are prisoners to the commodity culture, as much as we'd like to think we are free. This simply isn't true. While prisons are made to incarcerate those who commit real crimes, the prisons for those who do not commit crimes is Ikea. Adorno would point out how interchangeable these parts of our society are, and Ikea is not a place that is bashful about the interchangability of parts.
The two room layouts above seem to suggest the individuization that those of the Frankfurt School were wary of. The idea that there is a suggestion of something unique and individual, but when it comes down to it, it's all the same, just with different coverings (as shown by the sequence of couches between the two rooms). Underneath these covering, there is nothing different about them. Now, one may argue that you could just go to a different furniture store for a different selection. This is true, but what you are suggesting is that there is an established need for these items. Everyone needs a couch, everyone needs a TV. Houses themselves are built around this concept of furniture need, creating rooms like a family room, and a living room, and a kitchen, and a dining room specifically designed to suit these material needs. One does not necessarily need a couch in the living room, or a TV. As I write this, I am sitting on the floor (I believe being poor allows one to more easily deconstruct the needs of the boojwa). Yet, with the integration, homogenization, synthesis of furniture stores such as Ikea, we give in to the idea that we do need these items.
My own apartment is a battleground for this dialectic. Growing up in my home in Midvale, the family room and living room both had a cubby for the television. Moving downtown, in my apartment built during an era where television was relatively new, the designers neglected to add a cubby or nook for the television. Placed in the room, it juts out awkwardly. It doesn't really fit against any of the walls. The walls were designed more for places to sit and coffee tables rather than an adequate entertainment center. Back then, television had not yet become a part of the daily life of an American.
This concept is an evolving one, constantly dynamic, and we constantly see how the environment has not been able to catch up with the progression. Many automobiles are rigged for entertainment centers, while older ones lack the accessory option. My own car doesn't have a CD player, even though the majority of entertainment media I possess is in CD form. Certain clothing is designed with places one can put accessories such as a cell phone, or an MP3 player, while older clothing lacks these features. The list goes on. We are given items designed to accomodate assumed necessities, and without thinking about it, to fill in these spaces, we buy these accessories as though they were essential to our well-being.
This seems like a double-play of hegemony. Gramscii may have had a governmental party in mind when he created this theory, but in today's market economy, it has shown to work on a commercial level as well. This is basically supply-demand economics. As a people, we rise up when our needs are not being met, but the commercial industry seems to do the same. If they do not get what they want, if you do not buy their product, then other, more essential products are made to accomodate the accessory, until we cave in and buy it. If this isn't effective enough, then these commercial industries find other ways to get our money, such as asking the government for 35 billion dollars. This money doesn't just come out of nowhere. It is taxpayer money, potential consumers who just didn't buy. Well, we might have make that purchase whether they want to or not. This seems to bring us back to the image above of the prison watchtower overseeing the Ikea. We have to buy whether we want to or not.
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