Yep, That’s a Monument

What is thought of when one hears the word monument? Is it grand, large, importance, sculpture? By definition monument is a noun that means a statue, building, or other structure erected to commemorate a famous or notable person or event. However in Smithson’s article, “The Monuments of Passaic,” published in Art Forum in 1967, he explores types of monuments that are rather unexpected. Construction sights, rusty bridges, and parking lots are now places of importance, standing monuments in the city of Passaic, New Jersey. By placing importance on these overlooked and deserted places, Smithson makes the viewer question what exactly is a monument while mapping and recording urban spaces and sites that are so often ignored by the masses, yet are so important to the makeup of a city and urban space. These deserted places better depict the everyday life and history of humans than any monument could.

As you begin reading the article, the story recalls a bus trip that Smithson took to Passaic, New Jersey in which he photographed desolate places and locations.  “The bus passed over the first monument. I pulled the buzzer-cord and got off at the corner of Union Avenue and River Drive” (70). These unassuming places, normally ruins of some type of architecture, are now regarded in glory as Smithson photographs the sites calling them monuments that “define the memory traces of an abandoned set of futures” (72). Nothing goes unnoticed with Smithson—used car lots become “new territory”, old sandboxes become “model deserts,” and idle machines become “mechanical dinosaurs stripped of their skin.” Smithson is trying to accurately record what, in this mind, should be considered monuments, what should be admired by the masses and revered as phenomenal.

 But why? Why would Smithson go through the trouble of photographing a rusty sign, concrete abutments, and old pipes? How are these structures even important, yet alone worthy of being called monuments? To answer this question perhaps we should look at another definition of the word monument in which it means, “ any building, megalith, etc., surviving from a past age, and regarded as of historical or archaeological importance.” Smithson is taking this definition literally by addressing any building, megalith, etc. as monumental. By calling these sites monuments, Smithson makes the viewer question his or her definition of a monument. Why is this place memorable? What makes a monument important and what we should actually be regarding as important enough to be considered a monument? In the eyes of Smithson, these sites tell more about our future and past than do most traditional monuments in which one person or place is idolized. The past and the future cannot accurately be judged and discovered by remember the acts of just one person. The past and future can only be discovered and explored by remember how the everyday and how people lived and live their everyday life. Everyday life is about rusty pipes, abandoned lots, and old bridges. These objects reveal the everyday more than anything else because they reveal

 By recoding these forgotten places in the city of Passaic, New Jersey, Smithson tries to question the definition of a monument. Why shouldn’t the abandoned lot and old construction ruins not be considered just as important as the Gateway Arch or Washington Monument? Things happened in the places as well, did they not? Through his art, Smithson is trying to draw attention to the everyday forgotten places that make up the country of the United States. They are everywhere, in county, city, and state yet no one seems to deem them important enough to give them a second look. Well in “A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey” Smithson gives them the attention they deserve.

The Colossus of New York: A City in Thirteen Different Parts

In Colson Whitehead’s The Colossus of New York: A City in Thirteen Different Parts Whitehead examines the many intricacies of what it means to be a “New Yorker” living in New York. What examines what it means to live in different apartments, maneuver through subway systems; walk down Broadway, and to create your own skyline of the city. Colson explains what it means to truly be a New Yorker, more so than any tourist book ever could. He writes about street corners, mom and pop shops, and gum underneath the subway seats. He describes the personal relationship that he has with his city, a relationship that is different than every other relationship he has.

            Colson describes so personally his relationship with the city of Manhattan in the section “Broadway.” Walking down the street Broadway, “there will be no destination. No map. Live her long enough and you have a compass” (73). Sometimes the only way to truly understand a city is to walk with no destination. So he walks down Broadway. He walks past children; pass going-out-of-business sales, and past cracked sidewalks. He comments of no matter how much you walk, “you will always end up where you begin,” meaning the city is never going anywhere. You can push against it and flee from it, but Broadway will always be here.

            The things you learn about ones self through living, walking, moving, and breathing in a city is astronomical. “Day by day you contribute to it,” writes Colson and day-by-day it contributes to you and you begin to create your own city, your own skyline. “You start building your private New York the first time you lay eyes on it.” What you witness from the very first time you set your eyes on New York City to the time you leave becomes the city you build. Each person has built a different city in their mind, yet they are all the same place. Each place you go, each person you see, each sidewalk you cross, and each train you take contributes its attributes to “your city.” They way you saw it then is how you will always remember it, even if places go and new buildings are built, you will always recall how it was when you first laid eyes on it.

Proposal of Mapping Neuromancer

In order to map a city with no location, it seems you would have to do the impossible. Mapping nueromancer goes beyond typical physical aspects of terrain, buildings, and streets, and challenges the mapper. into figuring out how one would put such as city on paper. Corner speaks on the idea that to fully map an area, town, city, or country you must imagine and create something outside the normal.


As far as mapping nueromancer goes, I see this as much more of a creative and experimental process rather than just a "tracing," which Corner warns us so spirited against. Mapping becomes the process of projecting a mental image into the "spacial imaginative."


I feel the best way to begin mapping nueromancer would be to do it in different levels, layers, or sections. I believe not only should geographical elements be involved in mapping (which is easy to do in places such as Chiba City, Istanbul, and Japan) but aspects such as people and cultural elements should be considered as well (especially in the ageographical spaces such as the matrix, ROM and nueromancer)


In order to map cyberspace, I have come to the conclusion that it becomes more of an interactive discussion rather than an actual physical map. I believe that only way to map cyberspace is to map by observing the interaction between people and space IN cyberspace. What are the relationships between people? How do they move within the matrix?