Enabling the enabler

MTV Shows

While relaxing at home one night, my TV happened to on MTV's new show "Guy Code." During the episode, Vinny from Jersey Shore caught my attention when discussing bottle service. In the above clip from the episode if you fast forward to 2:30, shortly afterwards Vinny states, "Because, like women, they want to feel powerful in a club. You know what I mean? They don't want to feel like groupies that are just hanging out on the floor. So when they're up on a stage or something, women I feel like- like being high up." I immediately thought of de Certeau's "Walking in the City" and his "concept city." Let's not get into a tizzy about what women actually want, or how they actually want to feel, or who "enables" them (sorry Vinny), but focus on the concept of power Vinny introduces and being higher up. By being higher up and not a groupie on the floor, it's like saying women want a purpose (at the club), but don't want to be just anybody at the club, but simultaneously they do want to be at the club because they chose to attend. Also the concept of being higher up as holding power, I feel, corresponds directly to "Voyeurs or Walkers" section of de Certeau's text.

"The desire to see the city preceded the means of satisfying it" (1343). This particular quote made me ask, is the city merely a representation of desire? If one initially thought of composing a story, then sat down and started typing, wouldn't the story be the representation of the initial thought or idea? After lolling around in this messy theory, I decided that in order for there to be presentation, there has to be an audience (duh). However, if you spoke to somebody next to you, even though your words are a presentation to for the person, to the listener they are representative because they are instantly translated by the listener into their own language and understanding which is no longer yours. The agency of representation is in the copy, the agency is the identification process, identification with initial presentation. By saying this I am creating a furious infinity of re/presentation that holds similarities with the question, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" Representation holds an air of "secondary" about it, but not necessarily fully dependent upon the initial things, tangents are proof of this (I dub myself the queen of tangents). I believe presentations can build things concepts/theories/buildings/etc, but also guide for the development of something completely original, an implicit prompt if you will.