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- Title
En-actors at the Vessel: Architecture, Neoliberalism, and Queer/Crip Refusal.
- Authors
Kim, Alex Whee; Overholt, M. C.
- Abstract
In this article, we argue that the Vessel - the architectural centerpiece of New York City's Hudson Yards development - demonstrates the political, economic, and aesthetic properties of neoliberalism. As part of a privately-owned "public" space, the Vessel is productively understood through its structural similarities to immersive theater and game play, forms of ludic media that similarly promote neoliberal values of "choice" and free navigation while simultaneously extracting labor from participants. Out of this construction emerges what has been called a "culture of circulation," in which bodies, images, and capital flow through spatial and digital environments, generating profit for real estate developers like the Vessel's patron, Related Companies. The second half of this paper turns to "queer" and so-called "crip" critiques of neoliberalism and the built environment to explicate how discriminatory ableism is inscribed in the design of the Vessel, even as its designers attempt to bring the structure into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. One activist group, led by artist Shannon Finnegan, provides a useful methodology for "curb-cuttng" the culture of discrimination perpetuated by the Vessel. In proposing that an "Anti-Stairs Club Lounge" be built next to the Vessel, these anti-ableist protesters suggest alternative space-making practices centered on mutuality and inclusivity.
- Subjects
NEOLIBERALISM; VIDEO games; FINNEGAN, Shannon; HUDSON Yards Development Corp.; ARCHITECTURAL design
- Publication
IMAGO Studi di Cinema e Media, 2021, Issue 22, p115
- ISSN
2038-5536
- Publication type
Article