Manifestography. Urban decay in the midst of exotic wealth.

I am constantly reminded that there is a lot of money, old and new, floating around central Austin. Methinks it becomes oppressive after a spell. But as Roland Bathes once said to Kinky Friedman, if you make friends with the locals make sure to become friendly with those who have deep pockets and short memories. If you maneuver it well enough the earth mother goddesses will look kindly upon you and stick your new friends with the bar tab. To which Kinky is said to have responded with, the hotter the pepper the sweeter the sting. A soft and gentle rain leaked out of the sky like a few erratic drops of urine from an old man's bladder. I looked up to the sky with some hesitation and then ducked my head down and searched for the punctum that would intersect with my dictum. And dodged the savory rain drops by dancing a wild jig that I learned from a bow-legged girl in graduate school who went by the name of Filbert Wayne Moses. My she was yar.  I stopped hanging out with her because I am such a good writer and she was like Kryptonite to me, but also because I've learned by reading spangled and smudged newspapers that all serial killers have "Wayne" as a middle name. No tempting fate. Not when there are donuts and pie afoot for every Jack-man amongst us. Eh? 

So when I came upon these two samples of modern defeatist architecture I decided to document them for inclusion into my dystopian portfolio of the made and manufactured objets existing inside a culturality schism between old order and new, affected disorder. The premise being that there exists ruins and remnants of previous generations mixed in with new constructions but mixed in such a way as to create maximum disharmony and negative resonance in the confines of the space in which both exist. Indeed, they exist in shared space but have differing and burdensome metrics of aesthetic responsibility to the alternate generations. In the example above the windows are made of a wood substance most commonly harvested from local and invasive tree species. Because of "wood's" ubiquity and the facile manner in which it can be worked for incorporation into shelter and structures intended to facilitate commerce it was the preferred material at a time in the development of civilization which Kenneth Clark calls the post modernist dark ages of dual culture paradigm. With a nod to unguents and pervasive use of alcohol for tribal rituals and the facilitation of suicide prevention. Or at least those suicides that are related to boredom and unsociability. The wood becomes a symbol for this particular era of expansion (physically) and contraction (mentally) which earmark the late 20th century and early 21 century as times of total regression of the arts and of primary literature. By using wood to make constructions the ability of the craftsman is evident. But this doesn't imply that the craftsmanship is either good or long lived but only just usable in the moment. Like the music of the Bee Gees or Lawrence Welk. 

Note that the wood pictured in the above plate is subject to comparative rapid deterioration and dis---integration which also becomes symbolic of its limited lifespan and the melancholy reality of its short life span. Especially when exposed to harsh elements and a culture that did not particularly value the idea or act of maintenance. Nabokov often referred to wood and lumber in their original Latin, or when being subject to a desire for humor, Lithuanian, but he is also known to call the material "the fruit fly of building materials whose integrity and affection is as brief as that of the ardor of a teenaged boy." But it's widely acknowledged by art experts such as David Hockney and Elton John that Nabokov could not be trusted with pithy analogies rendered in the Queen's tongue, or English proper. Nor could he be trusted to purchase clothes pins or shoe polish; both of which he thought of as "gag" gifts or party "favors" until his unfortunate series of accidents with both. William Burroughs always told him that a good revolver was quicker and more resolute. 

So, if wood is not worshipped and maintained by tribal communities it eventually fades and brings civilizations to their knees. Brings them lower than Toulouse-Lautrec haunting the bawdy houses. 

When I came upon the windows I immediately thought them to be the work or at least the residue of anti-Mennonites bent on diminishing the effect of quaint, mid-century architecture by accelerating its deconstruction. Which is exactly what Jack Kerouac was alluding to in his grand opus on Byzantine farm house architecture and its effects on modern cuisine de dessert. "Lots of whipped cream. Very little cake." 

Stay tuned for episode two as we use rare excerpts from snooker aficionado, Gustave Flaubert to dig into the hermeneutics of concrete and concrete stepping constructions and how they relate to the Scheimpflug maneuvers. On our next episode of "Photography meets Art Historical Nonsense on the web."  Grayscale printing on ephemeral digital constructs.