So did not catch the inaugural today as was in the middle of my grad seminar--think they would have been willing to stop to watch but were having some good conversation on the spectacle of Maya kingship. Had been thinking about the presentation of such ceremonies all day and logically have made correlations in my head to Mayan ceremonies and those that have occurred today and continue this evening (logically many differences). I came across this image on MSNBC that just sums up my thoughts of the deliberate ideological manipulation of space for public spectacle of office--must admit f'n impressive.
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So, I've been thinking about this some, given the conversations we tend to have about space and spectacle. And I have to say, I'm not sure I agree that this is a deliberate manipulation of space. Yes, the way the Mall is constructed is deliberate, but given the massive number of people who showed up to attend Obama's inauguration, the Mall couldn't contain them all. It seems to me, that this image, is more about how people actively change and adapt the space they are occupying, which results in a spectacle as a bi-product, not as a deliberate manipulation--at least not in this particular case.
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