Escape from Infrastructure

Went to a special showing of Escape from New York by John Carpenter starring Kurt Russell and Lee Van Cleef. It was part of the movie science program at the Coolidge Corner Theature.  I didn't see this movie when it came out - it was in the late 70. In the early 70s I had been in New York and formed my own vision of dystopian urban future there. For that reason perhaps, when it was released, I skipped the movie - I was probably reticent about the commercial aspects of it  - a Hollywood Hell - and probably shamed that I hadn’t finished a dystopian epic poem by then myself. Manhattan becomes one big Attica in the film…a prison surrounded by water barriers, brutalist concrete walls. It oant escape some viewers that the Manhattan map above bears resemblance to Gaza, now a scene of siege.

Last night was Great to just revel in the commercial aspects of it on the large screen now many years later, and after coming to terms with my own view of the city then. 

The film was introduced by Deb CHACHRA Engineer and materials scientist of olin College of engineering who shared notes on infrastructure of this dystopia -  she gave an interesting view of the movie – understanding that people were there to see Kurt Russell and Lee Van Cleef - that it is about the absence of infrastructure. 

She is author of How Infrastructure works. A Washington Post writer summed up Chachra’s thesis pretty succinctly: You are living in the lap of luxury and you don’t even know it.

CHACHRA gave a nod to a few thinkers in her presentation she quoted Ursula LegUIN the sci-fi writer who said that technology is how society copes with physical reality which CHACHRA recast as technology is the active human interface with the world - it's how society copes with physical reality. 

And she discussed the water supply of New York the power supply of New York the large infrastructure projects that are connected to those utilities.

When a system deals with basic needs it frees up time for the populace to do things, she noted. We have time to surf the Internet [not present generally at the time of Escape’s filming], go to movies, watch the Bean Pot on cable, scarf sliders and cheesy pizza, imbive Athletic near beer, and so on, while other cultures devote [what they used to call] man hours to finding water and food and artificial light.

Infrastructure represents a collective endeavor that supposes people will work together, she . How they ‘work together’ as the story of Power Broker Robert Moses has well documented. It is not pretty as in the case where the Niagra Falls hydro facility takes land from the Tuscarora - an Iroquoian Native American and First Nations people - courtesy of Robert Moses conniving for the ‘good’. “I need a reservoir and you can go find a new camp ground was the tune.

Chachra also discussed the work of Ruth Wilson Gilmore, who writes on the topic of organized abandonment – something that is emerging or re-emerging – depends on your point of view - in our society. Instead of providing for the commonweal, we create a carceral state of advanced policing, she said. “Carceral” is a word I just learned this week.

Artificial light is one of the most important of developed trimmings of modern life sorely lacked by the denizens of Escape from New York. It is oppressive.

Some of the roots of the movie are hard to recal but this old gray hair does: I would say back in the day some serious blackouts that were accompanied by massive looting were foremost in the public consciousness when this film came out-  that and gas shortages and the attica uprising - all those things fed the general feeling - feeling of something like doom which is in the air today, unfortunately. [A funny moment that caused the large Coolidge crowd to chortle was Lee Van Cleef grabs and barks into an old walkie talkie field phone. We are used to phones that fit in pockets, right?]

Final NY Dystopian note: One of the most frightening experiences of my life was a layover at the Port Authority [I was going from an AI show in Atlantic City, back to Boston] in about 1985. The doomed and dystopian addicted and homeless were crying and drooling and in charge. That is the tone and essential message of Escape from New York. But it has some campiness to it, that leavens the pain of watching.

When I originally moved from NY to Boston in 1973, it was in a somewhat oppressed and paranoid state of mind. It was my Escape from New York.  Today, I can motor in my Corolla to Mass Ave and Melina Cass Blvd today, and see Dystopia in the homeless and addled addicted there, so the fright is still in the air. Civilization is brittle. 

Like a lot of things these days, and as in the day of the Robber Barons, “Infrastructure” and lack-there-of is a tool of the larger system we have created. Escape from New York was considered a Left-Wing indictment in its day – the president in the film as played by Donald Pleasance is Nixonian-like. The hero’s most heroic act is to destroy Government Property ( a cassette describing the secret of Fusion), and walk off into the darkness. He is disgusted with the Future. The audience applauded and I happily joined in.

By chance, the following day I have had the fortune to sit in on a discussion between John Batelle and Larry Lessig on "The Internet We Deserve" which dug into the electronic infrastructure that represents "The Commons" today. -J.V.