This struggle takes shape around a "vision" that, in its complexity of physical/metaphysical, real/surreal convergences, effectively contests the complex matrix of vision/sight, spectacle/illusion, and use/consumption of capitalism's abstract space. It is a communal vision and space, one which punctures directly through abstract space on multiple levels. It critiques not only capitalism's use of the visual in order to control through imagery and illusion, but also, capitalism's use of use in its offering up of objects to the gaze in order to create desire and need while at the same time prohibiting access to these objects (whether by placing them behind a store window or TV screen, or a border), and therefore denying any possible use of them. As Henry Lefebvre puts it in The Production of Space, this is a process which inserts an abstraction into the construction of meaning that dominates through manipulation of vision, consumption, and manufactured need (319). Participants in the spectacle society "turn themselves, their presence, their 'lived experience' and their bodies into abstractions too" (93).

"There is no place that is not haunted by many different spirits hidden there in silence, spirits one can 'invoke' or not. Haunted places are the only ones people can live in—and this inverts the schema of the Panopticon."

—Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life

LISTEN:

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years ago: East SanJo
[16:32; 19 megabytes]
My mom, my homeboy Jose's mom, and his tías, recall their clubbing days
(backyard BBQ, East SanJo: June 2006)

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riza y riza
[13:43; 15.8 megabytes]
Marlene Salcido responds to rumors, innuendos, myths, & technological phantasms digitally transmitted via cellular telephone over the distance of one city block
(loading docks, alameda & college, chinatown — LA: 13 august 2006)

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la otra voz del otro sonido
[33:56; 46.6 megabytes]
Audiocollage from a Zapatista encuentro de La Otra Campaña / El Otro Lado
(multikulti — tijuana, mx: 19 october, 2006)
special thanx: CSUN MECHISTAS—Rudy, Ali, Marcos, José, Sirena, Jasmine, Karina
+
Eddie, Zapatita, y Mixtla

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ham space
[04:48; 2.1 megabytes]
Chican@ Studies graduate students engage in a highly sophisticated analysis of the eating habits of Chican@s and the role of taquer@s in subverting dominant space, as they organize a conference panel presentation on performance, radical spatial pratices, Burger King, and jamón. Abstracts and transcripts available upon request at select taquerías around the greater LA area and other realms of loquería.
(csun, aztlan: 12 december, 2006)

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lenguanimurbis
[01:00:00; 56 megabytes]

| muzik / film :
u n d e rworld; carmen delia dipini; steely dan; michael haneke—code unkown |
| vox populi :
neltí gonzales; babylon brother; juan diego in drag; cecilia wray & russian redliners; joe brisbane (the redline prophet); los pericos de so pas |
| lugares / espacios / sueños :
los angeles mta redline universal city station ~ groundworks cafe, traction street, los angeles ~ gonzales residence, echo park, los angeles ~ billy wilder theater, armand hammer museum, westwood, los angeles ~ main street, b/t 4th & 5th, los angeles ~ los angeles mta redline ~ south pasadena public library |

mil gracias a Neltí Gonzales por sus ideas, su tiempo, su energía, y la voz