Flushing junkspace

[imomus]

I spent Tuesday walking through Korean-Chinese junkspace at Flushing Mall and supermarket complex Assi Plaza. Take the 7 train to the end of the line, beyond Shea Stadium and LaGuardia Airport, and you'll find the biggest Asian community in New York, a mixture of Chinese, Koreans, Filippinos and South-East Asians. There's a superdense hub around Main Street and Kissena; somewhat neglected warehouse, mall, hotel and market complexes lie to the south, hemmed in by the highway and the railway line.

My trip to Flushing provided the ideal opportunity to re-read Rem Koolhaas' scathing, ambivalent prose-poem, Junkspace, an architect's mall-howl. For Koolhaas, junkspace is the Muzak of architecture, and like me yesterday (perhaps we're both following Cage, who complained that musicians couldn't hear actual notes, just the relationship between a sequence of them) he blames its proliferation on our lack of attention to space itself, to room itself:

"When we think about space, we have only looked at its containers. As if space itself is invisible, all theory for the production of space is based on an obsessive preoccupation with its opposite: substance and objects, i.e., architecture. Architects could never explain space; Junkspace is our punishment for their mystifications. OK, let's talk about space then. The beauty of airports, especially after each upgrade. The luster of renovations. The subtlety of the shopping center. Let's explore public space, discover casinos, spend time in theme parks..."

Well, that's what I did in Flushing. I schlepped through malls. But because they were Asian malls, their junkspace had been alienated, denatured, made strange. This was disorienteering, spatial and cultural ostranenie. Here, secreted precariously in a part of America, were Asian food courts, DVDs, groceries, hypermarkets, gift stores, hotels, Korean malls with their own specific conceptions of the organization of space, their own colour combinations, forms and materials, their own morale-boosting murals (a trailer generator in a field!), their own readings of the Christian theme (a Korean Christian bookshop!), their own peculiar fetishizations of the grandfather clock, the balloon or the Western toilet (here be washlets and massage chairs)...

But, as Koolhaas says, despite its titanic dimensions, its apparently universal characteristics, its demotic appeal, this junkspace is oddly vulnerable:

"Junkspace is a web without spider; although it is an architecture of the masses, each trajectory is strictly unique. Its anarchy is one of the last tangible ways in which we experience freedom. It is a space of collision, a container of atoms, busy, not dense... There is a special way of moving in Junkspace, at the same time aimless and purposeful. It is an acquired culture. Junkspace features the tyranny of the oblivious: sometimes an entire Junkspace comes unstuck through the non-conformity of one of its members; a single citizen of another culture - a refugee, a mother - can destabilize an entire Junkspace, hold it to a rustic's ransom, leaving an invisible swath of obstruction in his/her wake, a deregulation eventually communicated to its furthest extremities."

That's how I felt in Flushing's junkspace; the only pedestrian in the drive-in, the only Westerner in an empty Asian mall out by some airport, one weird anomaly threatening another.

Comments

[uberdionysus.livejournal.com]

Damn. Thanks Momus, I'll have to go visit. I might or might not have Koolhaas in mind when I walk around, but it's an part of NYC I'm not familiar with.

[mooshstache.livejournal.com]

i wish i had bumped into you there! i would have given you a tour of the mall through my eyes. i would have even treated you to hot pot or hand-drawn noodle(hehe) or crepes or the various taiwanese styled small dishes(yum). i would have taken you to meet my homie, keith, at toy qube. (ok i don't know him too well)and then we would head over to bonzai, the 99 cent store which carries japanese goodies. then we'd go buy bootleg dvds! oh we would of had a joyous gay time. by the way, i was at the whitney and saw you from outside with your megaphone. when i went in you were gone like poof. i searched but could not find you. you sure are unreliable, momus.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Yes, seeing me is a bit like seeing fairies at the bottom of your garden.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

I just sprayed for those. Little buggers eat my bulbs.

[d-g-m.livejournal.com]

We have possums who eat the roses but the cats eat the possums.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Those are some hungry cats—possums are nasty buggers (meaning unappetizing). I get them on my back porch late at night, mistaking them for cats.

[mooshstache.livejournal.com]

you elusive fairy.

[cityramica.livejournal.com]

what on earth is that poster of the women with the covered eyes promoting? before i read the post i thought it was some rehashed plastic surgery art, but if it's in actually usage, no irony....i kinda dig it.

i may have to go here when i'm in NY next month and bring my fabulous new 6x6 camera.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'm sure some Chinese reader will tell us sooner or later. What I liked about the poster was that the women had been "anonymized" with strips over their eyes, and hoodlums had drawn pencil eyes over them.

[kojapan.livejournal.com]

I think it's an ad for lipstick.

[cityramica.livejournal.com]

aw i was thinking it was an ad for kidnappees and their captors, who happen to look EXACTLY like each other....
i don't know, seems so....sinister for lipstick. oh well what do i know i don't wear any.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

Could be an for eye-glasses.

[cityramica.livejournal.com]

p.s. you misspelled 'Filipinos'

[moebius-rex.livejournal.com]

Really interesting, thanks. There are numerous spaces like this in the SF Bay Area as well--seeing this makes me want to take a few shots of the Japantown mall.

I'm used to seeing shots in your journal from Japan and other locations in Asia--one of the things I liked about these shots was the way I instinctively could tell they were not from that part of the world. Not sure what gave me that unconscious tip-off, though. (Maybe the "EXIT" signs in the background of some pictures.)

Love the dingy corridor with the artfully placed flourescents.

[(Anonymous)]

um, I dont know if this makes me a moron, but I didnt really understand this blog much at all, but in my defense there are alot of really big words

[charleshatcher.livejournal.com]

And you know what Freud said about men who use big words....

[dzima.livejournal.com]

I hope Freud didn't use any big words while describing men who use big words...

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

Well in German that's sort of hard to avoid.

[desant012.livejournal.com]

If you really want to feel like "the other", take the D to Borough Park and walk around in your freakiest, most colorful outfit.

[cityramica.livejournal.com]

off topic question:

where would be the best place to get a hold of the Man of Letters DVD? Darla? or can i just buy it from you, somehow?

sorry for the interruption in the thread but i would like to give you american dollars.


m

[dzima.livejournal.com]

My advice is:

Travel to Melbourne, direct yourself to Missing Link on Bourke St, go to the counter and find a stack of Cherry Red DVDs. You'll pay AU$30 for the Man Of Letters DVD.

[cityramica.livejournal.com]

right oh. let me just pick through the cushions for bus fare.

[dzima.livejournal.com]

That bus trip will last a few months I warn you.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

They have it at Kim's Video, St Mark's Place, New York.

[cityramica.livejournal.com]

hm....guess i'll just have to wait til May to buy it.....if it's less than on Cherry Red & Darla. maybe i'll just attach a tiny video cam to my eye and film you instead.

Kim's

[tomt2.livejournal.com]

Kim's is great. It's where I get all my videos.

Re: Kim's

[cityramica.livejournal.com]

yes i used to rent all mine at the one uptown when i was at columbia and being an agoraphobe.

Re: Kim's - it's black and white the best

[tomt2.livejournal.com]

Sadly the others are gone now. I guess agoraphobes these days are all with Neflix although they certainly don't seem to me to have the variety Kim's does, particularly since not everything on video is yet out on DVD.

I have to laugh. A LOT of the stuff available at Kim's is clearly bootleg, although they've been busted for it before. I guess they can claim plausible denial, but with color films which they have on DVD in black and white, it's kind of hard not to tell.

[(Anonymous)]

It's always interesting to see "junkspace" put to new, radical use. I'll have to explore L.A. a little more: I'm sure there are these sorts of things all around.

You know, if you're ever out this way, you should check out the sprawling market complex in Chinatown. It's a horrifying, baffling place. I'll throw some pictures up on my blog after I go down there this weekend. In fact, Chinatown itself - at least, the part "off the beaten path" - is a pretty bizarre, fascinating space. Fake Chinese architecture, little alleyways, no cars...aaand it's almost always abandoned, save tourists. It's like the good people of Los Angeles County decided to maintain at least one walkable, community-based space in the City, and the people of Los Angeles turned their noses up to it. Mark my words, Momus (and the rest o' you): one day, that space will be an epicenter of culture and art in this town.

-Rob (http://pixelmist.blogspot.com)

[csn.livejournal.com]

Modern China has become the largest junkspace in the world. It leads back to where it started--into nothing.

OT: Sunday

[tonearm.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the off-topic, Nick, but -- is your Suuday cameo at PS.1 still on? And what time do you think you'll go on? Is this open to everybody?

Re: OT: Sunday

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Sunday at PS1 is very much on. I'll perform between 5 and 6pm. It goes from 2pm. It's open to everyone, and likely to be crowded, because it's got quite a bit of coverage.

[jasongtokyo.livejournal.com]

Hanging out in pan-Asian malls? You are jonesing hard.

I give you new word. You put on stage backdrop.

親亜細亜派

or

親亜細亜家

[tomt2.livejournal.com]

Have to check this out. Scope St. Marks Place between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. All new Japanese and Korean food stores, filling what was once a theatre and labor hall. The new Asian scene mixes quite well, I think with the punk rock stuff that was there before.

Head north

[tomt2.livejournal.com]

Next time head north a few blocks to the Queens Botanical Gardens. A whole different vibe, and there's a weird park with golf in between the two.