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...
In
this work, I attempt to investigate from everywhere the city,
the city which throughout the 20th century was purpose of the
big migratory movements stemming from countrysides. The city,
become megalopolis, attract the human beings with a magnetism
which seems irreversible. Symbol of modernity, it proposes all
the benefactions of the consumer society - of the satisfaction
of the most elementary vital needs in the realization of the
most crazy desires. Gigantic suitcase in treasures, which harms
it adorns itself with one thousand glittering lights, the city
does not nevertheless offer the comfort or the happiness to all...
In perpetual transformations, the city is constantly worked until
the inmost depths of its depths. Demolition workers and builders
remodel its districts for the needs of the industry, the business
or the automobile, but also to accommodate the newcomers. We
do not know any more very well if the city is built around the
needs of the human being, or if he becomes on the contrary the
slave of this tentacular moloch. Revealing to the oldest passage
of the vestiges of town plannings, construction sites overhung
by their metallic arrows are an integral part of the face of
the city.
Shaken by a ceaseless swarm, the life of the city never breaks
off. Measured from before dawn by transhumants workers, the stomach
abounds in underground passages where resounds the noise deafening
subway trains which assure daily thousands of anonymous travels.
Its air arteries, blocked by uncountable vehicles, develop and
branch out, remodelling constantly the figure of the city. The
20th century was the one of the speed which was led in all the
aspects of the everyday life, and the city looks for the constant
improvement of the circulation of beings, goods, and today communications.
The city-dweller, under the pressure of multiple requests, tends
to accelerate everything to manage to satisfy the maximum. He
does not walk any more, he runs, drives, pedals. He eats up,
by walking, by driving, by phoning... Faster, he sees itself
more effective, satisfied to multiply tenfold his personal productivity.
In the city, the life scrolls as a speeded-up movie. The crowd,
the movement, the lights, the speed and the noise marry of inextricable
embellish with images kaléidoscopiques, in the unpredictable
trajectories. Even during its leisure activities, the subway
is in a hurry, fast and effective - sometimes stopped by endless
lines or traffic jams... The quiet or deserted places rarefy,
even museums - measured by groups of tourists in transit, do
not allow more than rarely the serene pondering. Even certain
big urban cemeteries became frequented places of walk. Having
obliterated the presence of the death in the everyday life to
relegate it behind the walls of the hospital or inside the television
set, the city-dweller - stroller or tourist, roams between the
graves of more or less illustrious strangers with the pugnacity
of a treasure hunter in search of new discoveries, rarely seized
with melancholy. Gardens - Said "public", are too invaded
by individuals' thick clouds in lack of pure air and a nature
contrasting, by its vitality and its colors, with the walls which
in the city, do not stop stopping the glance. Remind itself that
there is an infinity of the sky over roofs, that the nature -
even enclosed, teems with smells and with lives little worried
about the din of the human beings. To walk sound dogs or his
children, to feed ducks or pigeons, even have fun with jokes
of the elephant of the zoo or with the circus are activities
which rest of the noisy movement of the street and some busy
swarm of the crowd.
The children and the old men often seem a little bit foreign
to the city. Outside its activity, still not having - Or never
more, the control of their movements, it is difficult and often
dangerous to them to live with their rhythm... Not really conceived
for them, the city suggests grouping together them between them
to answer better their needs and assure their safety... The city
still makes the other outcasts, those that it attracted and who
found no other place there that that of relegated. Outside the
satisfaction of their most elementary needs, they live - or rather
survive, in its margins, of its rests, waste and remains. They
do not take advantage either of its comfort, or its entertainments.
Unproductive and deprived of everything, outside the consumer
society they have effort to remain in the border of that of the
human beings. Offering itself to the well-to-do until the indecency,
the prosperous city refuses itself to the poorest. Cold and last,
it measures every thing in the alder of its market value, and
every individual in its purchasing power ... encouraging hardly
the musing of solitary walkers under the shade of clouds !
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