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Face City

Columbia University

Face City examines Bangkok through cinematic "close-ups" and meditative states, conjuring a new, nonorganic city body. The human face is a relatively immobile receptive surface for incoming sensations rather than outgoing action. Facialized, the body is understood as a stable sensory-motor apparatus rather than an assemblage of organs for action. In Thailand, Theravada Buddhist meditation practice has taught practitioners to still their bodies and minds to reach states of attentiveness to sensory-motor chains of stimulation and reaction. The cinematic close-up and meditative attentiveness facializes objects and space. The facialization of the city is staged here in a Vietnam War-era hotel in the heart of Bangkok. The Vietnam War era in Thailand introduced American mass cinema culture and new building types along with thousands of soldiers on rest and recreation. In this new transnational space, Face City became possible, one that intersects America and Thailand as states of mind.

Key Words: Bangkok • face • Buddhism • cinema • hotel • Deleuze • architecture • sexuality and space

Space and Culture, Vol. 9, No. 3, 235-244 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1206331206289363


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