Westfield (Josh Freedman-Berthoud)
Falsedichotomies is proud to resurrect Guest Dichotomies with these reflections on London’s largest shopping centre from Josh FB. If anyone is interested in contributing anything to the Guest Dichotomies section, please be in touch. Look out over the weekend for reflections on Obama’s victory and next week for more Israeli election analysis. That long-promised piece on Indignation is on its way as well, as is the second part of the marriage series.
On the dreary, cold misery of a wet Wood Lane, Westfield looms, a soulless grey monolith; hard and dark and aesthetically redundant, a slab, on which the eye neither settles nor moves, towering to nothingness with no profound purpose whatever. A quick glide up an innocuous escalator, though, and the world changes: here is the death of God itself.
It is impossible not to marvel at what we – each and every one of us – have achieved in this creation. A smug sense of superiority and self satisfaction becomes us as the eyes are drawn upwards, to the vast domes of this most beguiling of buildings. A cavernous wonder, here is a cathedral for the self; a magnificent complex of proscenia within which we are both the actors and the crowd, strutting and stopping, walking and watching as we admire ourselves admiring what we’ve become. This is you. And don’t you just know it.
The rolling waves of the ceiling – though such a prosaic term fails it badly – are an angular matrix of glass and white plastic; a white city proudly illuminated and toned by neon and brightness. Triangles form pentagons and pentagons bend to sleek contours as the cap to this hubristic extravagance rolls and washes away towards a horizon of Next and Prada. Craning necks, though devoid of pain or sensitivity, turn and twist, eyes on stalks, to anticipate what lies beyond, so far in the distance that it belongs to another time altogether. Vast and expansive, this arena grips the devoted crowds by the heart, numbing them of pain and joy, filling them instead with a sense of absolute faith.
Gliding along marble floors, bleached in the glowing tones of Hollywood lighting, cleansing faces of individual imperfections, an inauthentically beautiful herd drifts, each struck dumb by their own sense of place in this vast order. Shops roll past, gently shimmering with an iridescent hue. Glass and plastic, ever expanding, stretch out as far as the imagination will allow. This is us and it defies nature itself.
And no one’s buying anything. Instead they float by, propelled by the stupefying energy of the place, towards nothing in particular; the journey, it seems, is an end in itself. Except that we are already there – and we shall never, ever leave. Glazed eyes and stupid grins lead shells in aimless circles, ever onwards, as mouths gawp and speak and stutter. Shop names are emitted in open, reverential tones, as though they denoted distant realms of enchantment. “Where are you going?” “To Sony.” And a firm nod of acceptance. “Sony. Yes. I’ve heard a great deal”. Reassuring in its numbness; like Prozac, the highs and lows are sliced away, leaving nothing but cleansed healing. Drugged and drunken on the inebriating vastness of it all, the congregants’ collective soul is filled with a sense that everything is alright. No regret. No remorse. Whispy clouds over the soul, calmed to a plastic acceptance, like cheap perfume in a bright corridor.
We can’t believe our luck! This must be how it feels to win the lottery. Look, look! A Spanish villa by Niketown. Don’t ask why. Just accept it and glide on, on to the distant realms of Nandos and Debenhams. The biggest shopping centre In Europe (as though there were worlds besides this). Smug and content, we smile together, but happiness doesn’t come into it. We’ve been touched by the splendour of a material God, purged of our sins, though it wasn’t as hard as that sounds. Just that quick, escalated ascent .
Shapes and silhouettes streamline the space. Information banks replace guides. Touch screens supersede conversation. Aesthetically moulded plastics sit like portals to another world. Arachnid constructions of acrylic and light shine from plinths and pedestals, their purpose unknown. “I’m here”, they say, “now watch.” And you do. Indefinitely. No more squares or bumps, glitches or fault lines; matter is represented instead with perfect imperfections, smooth figures and symmetrically isolated patterns. Plant banks and money shops, railings and menus, rolling ceilings and lilted floors and glancing, vapid display cases all perfectly choreographed to wink and wave as you pass. This is where to belong. Where we all want to be. Where items aren’t bought but purchased and sales consumed as lifestyle choices. This is you, now, forever.
Quick. Let’s get the fuck out, while we still can. Stranded in the higher realms of the cathedral, a gallery overlooks a magnificent stretch of nothingness, but descent from enlightenment is not as easy as its opposite journey. A suicidal jump is considered, though one suspects it would end not with a crack but a swoosh, as I’m spirited away to a distant branch of Apple or Orange. There can be no death, where life is so contained.
But I do get out. And, like a miracle, others have escaped with me. And as I’m stung by the cold breath of the city air and coated in wet saliva of damp and chilling rain, I leave the cold slab behind me and stumble out into a noisy little shithole. And I thank God for poverty and depression, dark streets and fear and pain. I’m gladdened by the darkened corners of my life – because at least they hurt when I pinch them.
