Summery
Eurydice at Euston?: Walter Benjamin and Marc Auge Go Underground
“map of memories.”
“The labyrinthine subway network constitutes nothing less than a ‘Memory machine’ in which lines and station names serve as mnemonics, recalling long-forgotten childhood encounters and experience.”
The reading contains thoughts of Benjamin drawing a diagram of his life, before manifesting a “Dialectical image.” His view gets complex as he was thinking of life and intend to fit them into a structure like a family tree since it is rarely possible to accurately define what’s acquaintance for him.
The article is about the psychological statement on the users of the metro, using Geman philosophist, Walter Benjamin, and French anthropologist Marc Auge’s reference. For example, the name of the metro stations reminds you why you used to go there creates a moment to remember the past. This theory is admittable more you live in one city. The name of Richard-Lenoir and Exelmans reminds me of when I used to live there, the flat, supermarket, friends I used to hang out, etc. The metro also creates this grey zone of moral code: it is grey if you suppose to keep silent, if you can’t step across the yellow line, etc.
Another example is how to be the veteran metro rider, which includes how to enter the train on the right spot, how to choose the right exit, and it gets patterned. I believe the metro gives a common psychological statement in any city with a train. The name, behavior, and feeling it provides is similar to what I receive in the Tokyo train system. Understandably, the author mentions that he wants them to do the same experiment in London for that.
In the Metro
The author describes what is it like to be in the metro. Auge expresses the detail of how people act from his observation in the atmosphere.
