A BRIDGE TOO NEAR

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Notes

1 The practice of attaching “love locks” to the structure of the bridge was abolished by mayoral decree in 2015. All the padlocks that had accumulated over the years were subsequently removed.

2 See Austin; Derrida; Man 246–77.

3 See Agamben on the spectacle as “expropriation of the Common” (Coming Community 80 ff.; 80).

4 On “parallels linking” the Occupy Movement and the Situationists’ conception of détournement as both anti-esthetic “chiseling” of esthetic content and disruptive social event, see Odih 2–11; 11. See also Adams 38 ff.

5 In relation to the Deleuzian conception of the eventum tantum as infinitive moment, see Theodor W. Adorno’s principle of non-identity and its emphasis on the primacy of “presentation” and the “priority of the object” in its infinitive presence, its radical irreducibility (18–19, 183–97).

6 Let us emphasize here the importance of word choice in the framing of the banner’s declaration. Instead of opting for the word “migrant,” the authors of the sign chose the more ambiguously polysemic (and problematic) “étranger.” Among the various meanings of the word “étranger,” three are particularly relevant in this context: “foreigner,” “stranger,” and “unfamiliar” (as in “Leur cuisine m’est étrangère,” which translates as “Their cuisine is unfamiliar to me”). The word “étranger” is derived from “étrange” (“strange”).

7 See also Hardt and Negri 396–400.

8 See Anja Kanngieser on the Situationists’ “constructed situation” and its “tactic of the encounter” as conceptual rather than “representational” content (30–38; 38, 36). See also Perniola on the Situationists and the transformation of art into concept(ualization) and philosophy (65–67).

9 See Shklovsky 1–14; Jameson 50–54.

10 See Freud.

11 See also Nail.

12 See Lyotard on “legitimation by paralogy” (60–67).

13 See also Axelos on “the topology of the non-place” (18–39, 61–71; 66).

14 See also Haas; Riche.

15 See Robins and Aksoy.