Modern cities are spaces where modes of labor and consumption have a complex impact on human life and identity. Studies that analyze modern cities through the lens of production and consumption provide an important step toward understanding the new forms of experience and identity that have been formed in these cities.
Modern urban lifestyles have attracted the attention of many scholars. For a long time, the dominant view was that of the productivist school, which focuses on labor as a mode of life. They first noted how modern production systems with new technologies drew large-scale labor forces into cities from all over the world. They also explored how people with diverse habits became workers who moved uniformly to the rhythms of large-scale machinery. Michel Foucault, for example, studied how disciplinary strategies were used to turn workers into docile bodies who performed ascetic labor in accordance with collective discipline. The production school of thought also accused workers of losing their inner world of sensory and emotional experience while being exploited as mechanized laborers and being reduced to objects. From this perspective, the modern city seems to be a giant production machine that does not allow for any pleasure or fantasy.
In response, the consumerist school began to criticize the productionist school, arguing that modern urbanites have not been reduced to objects that have lost their inner world. Colin Campbell, for example, argued that even the Puritans, with their asceticism, had their own illusory hedonism in the form of consumption. There is inevitably a temporal gap between the desire to fulfill a need and the actual fulfillment of the need. In the modern city, however, this gap is not a frustration, but rather a subjective illusion of a future state in which desire is fulfilled. In contrast to the production school, Campbell believed that the development of new technologies gave rise to the expectation that this fantasy would become a reality rather than a mere dream. He posited that this expectation generated pleasure, which fueled the modern consumer mentality.
In recent years, researchers have attempted to reconcile the views of the production school, which focused on the mode of labor, and the consumption school, which focused on the mode of consumption. Walter Benjamin, who first drew attention to the complex nature of the modern city, has been rediscovered as one of the pioneers of this research. He acknowledged that the introduction of new technologies intensified the alienation of labor. However, he believed that the meaning of consumption could not be reduced to the act of making purchases that bring profits to capitalists. Consumption is a more complex experience than that. Benjamin illustrates this through his exploration of the modern city. In the modern city, the old and the new, the natural and the man-made, are juxtaposed and intermixed, and the pace is fast. A variety of illusionary attractions have also emerged in modern cities. Railroad travel allowed people to experience landscapes as continuous panoramas that had been experienced as still images before the modern era, and arcades, streets of merchandise made of glass and steel, blurred the lines between inside and outside, reality and dreams. Benjamin believed that these experiences brought shock to modern urbanites, and that these shocking experiences awakened new emotions and senses.
In addition, changes in social relationships are also an important factor in understanding life in the modern city. The modern city is not just a change in physical space, but also a change in human relationships and social structure. After the Industrial Revolution, people flocked to cities from rural areas, which led to changes in family structure and community life. As traditional family structures were dismantled and new forms of social relationships were formed, individual identities and social roles changed. These changes made life in the modern city more complex and multilayered.
Benjamin argued that the complex nature of the modern city was reflected in the new art form of cinema. A novelty spectacle that emerged at the end of the 19th century, for Benjamin, cinema is a medium that corresponds to the workings and rhythms of the modern city. In that the film is made up of fragmented films that flow at a constant speed to create movement, it recalls the mechanical rhythm of a conveyor belt in a factory, and it is difficult for actors, who must perform in front of a camera rather than an audience, or for crew members, who are only involved in their own specialty, to grasp the overall picture of the work. The modern city dweller who is alienated from labor due to the division of labor is also revealed in the filmmaking process. But at the same time, film is also a medium that evokes new emotions and sensations in modern urbanites through a kind of shock experience. Experiencing a movie that consists of an unpredictable chain of images is similar to the daily experience of a modern city, where disparate objects are mixed together in a complex and irregular manner. The formal principles of cinema, such as the connection of different time and space, the changing point of view whenever the camera moves, and the intersection of slow and fast images, create a mental shock. Movies bring experiences that go beyond the normal range of sensory perception of the human eye. Benjamin called this shock experience the “visual unconscious,” likening it to hallucinations and dream experiences. By experiencing the visual unconscious, audiences can discover new meanings for everyday spaces. Gathered in a movie theater, the audience shares this experience collectively, while simultaneously enjoying a personal dream world.
Benjamin’s view of the modern city and the cinematic experience provides a theoretical framework that can be used to bridge the production and consumption schools of thought. Benjamin shows that the modern urbanite is an objectified worker, but also a dreamer with an inner world of his own. The modern city, according to Benjamin, is a complex space where the object world of exploitation and the subject world of dreams intersect. In this way, Benjamin’s view helps to correct the one-sided view of the modern city.
From this perspective, the modern city is not just a space of production and consumption, but also a stage where new forms of human experience and identity are formed. This is still important in modern urban life. While labor and consumption are still the primary activities in the modern city, it is also a space where various cultural and social experiences intersect. Therefore, understanding the modes of life in modern cities has important implications for understanding the complexity of modern cities. These studies lay the groundwork for a deeper and more multifaceted understanding of urban life.
These additions have expanded the text and enriched our understanding of modern urban life.
