![]() ![]() I was drawn to the feelings – the hauntological affects – of the dead mall.ĭuring the late 20th century, the mall was considered a mecca of consumer-capitalist civilization (Dovey 2008 Ritzer 2010). A mallsoft track was quietly introduced as someone softly narrated, “Hey everyone this is Dan Bell, and this is my video tour of the Forest Fair Village Mall in Forest Park, Ohio.” There was a certain aura, a feeling – a pull of the chest, an uneasy and difficult-to-place sense of nostalgia. The sound of buzzing lights hummed in the background. The video began with a shot that panned over a vast arcade and food court with kitschy 90s nautical themed blue and red decor, then zoomed in on signs with stock imagery of grilled sandwiches and smiling faces that have been stained with time, and looked up at a neon light – “GREAT STEAK” – switched off and sitting above a stall, eerily clean despite being empty. Music by Dan Mason.” The thumbnail was of a mall – marked by a lack of people and shops, of life and vitality, of mood lighting, plants, fountains, and soothing Muzak. I came across a video, “DEAD MALL SERIES: FOREST FAIR VILLAGE MALL Ft. One of my first encounters with the dead mall was on YouTube. ![]() Keywordsĭead Mall, YouTube, Reddit, Affect, Hauntology The dead mall and its enthusiasts alert us to our affective potential they remind us of our ability to imagine the future. Enthusiasts sense the affective intensities of decaying 20th century consumer-capitalist futures that haunt these ruins – they sense “hauntological affects”. They call themselves “dead mall enthusiasts” – an intimate public that shares and expresses worldviews, memories, and affects centered around the figure of the dead mall. An internet scene has grown in these ruins. But these promised worlds never arrived, they have fallen into ruin and nothing has come to replace them. The affects of these dreams imbue the mall – a sense of hope and optimism for a new world promised by consumer culture, global connectivity, and technological advances. Dead malls are dreamworlds, portals to the dreams of the past (Buck-Morss, 1995 2000) – a time when the mall was a mecca of mass consumer-capitalist society. ![]() These malls are either left abandoned to decay, to be slowly reclaimed by nature, or are dying with few shops and fewer people, open but eerily empty and quiet. ![]()
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