"And yet we all in the end live, do we not, in a phantom dwelling".
That wrote Japanese poet Basho in 1690.
Ironically, Modernity is one of the greatest promoters of phantom dwellings. But certainly not because some housing developments end up in ruins.
Take this wonderful example of fascist urbanism in Spain. The village of El Alamín was constructed during Franco's regime, probably in the 1940s, and was completely abandoned a few years ago. It is a nice case of high modernist ideology applied to the organization of the built environment: an orthogonal layout, identical houses, a self-contained community. A dream of reason.
It is not hard to imagine the feelings, the bewilderment of the peasants that were resettled there. They surely brought with them all their ghosts: villages razed by war, relatives killed or disappeared, a traditional life transformed forever. They were forced to live in an inhuman space and cohabit with their specters until they managed to leave the village.
When I see the ruins of El Alamín, I see a phantom dwelling.
 by Alfredo Gonzalez Ruibal
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Timothy Webmoor said on May 14, 2008 5:34 PM
Alfredo,
I have always enjoyed the haiku of Bashō. This line, from the Buddhist principle of impermanence, does indeed make us think of the paradox of modernity - such as designed obsolescence of the seeming permanent - and of archaeology. As a discipline we do seem to thrive at the threshold b/w these qualities of permanence/impermanence. Which is more evocative and drives archaeology? Your work seems to pivot around this threshold and question.