Quasi-Objects (the Ambassador)

This course will be devoted to the establishment
of an interpretive paradigm (the concept of
quasi-objects), and the analysis of a historical
moment (3400 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles,
1920-present).
The "theory of the quasi-object" is introduced by
philosopher Michel Serres in his 1980 book The
Parasite, and refers to "an astonishing
constructer of intersubjectivity." Conveyed with
style and great subtlety, Serres' notion is
explicated, diagrammed, and refined a decade later
by sociologist Bruno Latour, before being taken up
in a 2015 essay by architectural theorist Jorge
Otero-Pailos, who uses the term to describe "an
object necessary for us to organize ourselves
socially." We will work through these three short
texts, and think about the way in which
philosophical writing is so often reduced to
shorthand and instrumentalized by practitioners in
the arts.
The Ambassador Hotel opened in 1921, and served
as the centerpiece of Los Angeles' glamorous
Wilshire Boulevard corridor until 1968, when
Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in its
kitchen. Besmirched by the tragedy, the Ambassador
was sold in 1971 and endured a state of gradual
decline until its closing in 1989. For years, the
hotel was the subject of a debate between the Los
Angeles Conservancy (which sought to preserve the
site) and a succession of groups interested in
developing the 24-acre lot that it sat upon. In
2005, the Ambassador was finally demolished in
order to make way for the LA Unified School
District's Robert Kennedy Schools complex. While
it was claimed that the $600 million complex would
incorporate central aspects of the Ambassador's
iconic design, what resulted was said to resemble
"an odd mixture of progress and guilt." More
recently, a group of concerned citizens protested
a street artist's mural on the RKS campus, which
they found to be racially insensitive. Themes of
censorship and "systemic issues of power
and.trauma" played out in the LA Times and
elsewhere.
The goal of this class is to examine the ways in
which stories about the Ambassador have been
implanted in objects that then exert influence
over peoples' ideas, actions, and relationships.
We will consider the purpose and methods of
preservation in art and architecture, and the
capacities of public art. A final assignment will
involve the development of a proposal for an
artistic intervention at the site.