CHAIN

CITY

No longer associated with adventure, international tourism seeks to re-create the familiar by offering all the conveniences of home anywhere in the world. Reproducible comforts and tastes are the aspiration of chain hotels and restaurants in every corner of the globe. But what if the world itself becomes reproducible? Chain City seeks to situate the exhibition’s theme —“at home in the modern world”— within the cultural dynamics of tourism in its host city.

Since the era of the Grand Tour, Venice has been the consummate tourist destination. To protect its preeminent industry, Venice must preserve its historic identity while maintaining its significance in the modern world. By many accounts, the island has been stretched beyond its capacity. It is small, slow, inefficient, overpolluted, overexposed, and sinking. Venice is losing its population and its vibrant civic life. The idea of Venice, however, remains as compelling as ever, and while modernity has threatened its physical existence, it has also provided countless opportunities to reproduce the island globally. At its most delirious, the “Venice effect” results in the nearly literal reproduction of the city in other parts of the world. With Venices springing up in Florida, Las Vegas, Tokyo, Qatar, and Macao, the original may be fixed in time, but it is fluid in space.

Presented within the Arsenale exhibition hall, Chain City comprises two opposing video screens displaying simultaneous videos recorded from the bow and stern of a gondola navigating a sequence of canals. The boat ride is narrated by the musings of an off-camera gondolier. The seemingly continuous boat passage has been assembled from footage shot in a variety of global sites, forcing viewers to reconcile Venice’s romantic image with an incongruent reality. Chain City depicts an alternative Venice, transcending the limitations of a thriving but empty global brand. This hybrid Venice may offer a model for a hypermodern city in which authenticity and geography are outdated concepts. For what is more “at home in the modern world” than being at home everywhere while being alien­ated where you live?

Chain City’s script was written by Douglas Cooper. The project was created for the 11th Venice Biennale of Architecture, curated by Aaron Betsky.