Those that have attended more recent events at the CAID will have undoubtedly noticed several dramatic alterations to the building’s exterior. According to administrators, recent theft has encouraged the implementation of several very significant security measures. These measures include the addition of closed circuit cameras to various walls, and the barricading of the side entrance, that, at one time, opened directly onto the backyard of the institute. These very physical alterations signify a significant reconfiguration of the space. Unfortunately, this very reconfiguration seems to have debilitated the space’s worth; it’s value in the public domain.
Although these alterations are still relatively recent, and the various effects have yet to be calculated by any concise means, it seems fruitful to consider the CAID by differentiating between two very distinct periods of operation. For the purposes of this essay, the space will be considered both before and after the addition of these security precautions. It will be considered, foremost, as a beneficial and valuable public space, and, second, coinciding with the transition to said security measures, in light of the ramifications that will hypothetically plague the CAID in the immediate future. Here, the transition seems to be analogous to the various transformations in public space, rather, the move away from public space, that Mike Davis delineates in the prescient text City of Quartz: Excavating the Future of Los Angeles.
In an important section of the text entitled, “Sadistic Street Environments,” Davis works to explain the various innovative techniques used to deter public land usage. Included in the arsenal of various ingenious, and, it must be said, utterly disturbing, tactics used by those that wish to “harden” the city surface in response to the poor, is the use of outdoor sprinklers to soak the homeless, the designing of barrel benches that prevent the impoverished from sleeping, and the installation of $12,000 dollar bag-lady-proof trash cans (Davis 233). Here, as in earlier portions of the text, Davis adequately examines a certain desire for separation existing amongst those with the capital to partake in such expensive measures:
Where the itineraries of Downtown powerbrokers unavoidably intersect with the habitats of the homeless or the working poor, as in the previously mentioned zone of gentrification along the northern Broadway corridor, extraordinary design precautions are being taken to ensure the physical separation of different humanities. (Davis 234)
Viewed from this perspective, it seems that similar security measures currently in progress at the CAID, serve a curiously similar function. This becomes even more evident in consideration of the third security measure that the CAID has implemented within the past couple of months. Although the first two measures are more understandable components of a plan to reduce crime, in that they seem to prevent the intrusion of unacknowledged guests, and serve to provide a system by which the activities of attendees are constantly monitored, the third measure seems quite conflicting.
Very recently, the CAID administrators decided that it would be appropriate to implement a fee to pay for damages incurred, although it is still quite unclear as to what these damages actually are. It seems that, in consideration of this measure, capital is being used exclusively to marginalize or, more appropriately, to further the marginalization of a group to which a certain criminality is often attributed. That is, the administrators expect that crime or risk is associated with those that will be unwilling or unable to pay the three dollars required for admittance. Considering that this fee was implemented in conjunction with the other “security” measures, it seems quite evident that administrators at the CAID assume that monetary capacity serves as appropriate grounds for differentiating between the criminal and the acceptable person. This, as Mike Davis suggests, is the very problem plaguing many urban developments that have occurred in Los Angeles. As the public domain moves in the direction of privatization, certain classes, those unable to afford admittance, are neglected. Public space becomes something that must be purchased. One must congregate in malls or other megalomaniac structures that insist one be financially stable or well off.
It seems that this is a more general trend in spatial affairs. Inevitably, when a particular space or situation is deemed or can be identified as economically viable, dominate capitalistic modes work to incorporate this space into the realm of the profitable. Funk Night, an event that has grown increasingly popular in recent years, seemingly for its very “anti-capitalistic” atmosphere – formerly, an attendee did not have to purchase alcohol or admittance at the event – has been realized as a pool of untapped capital. It matters little whether one considers the precautions at the CAID preventative measures or not. Whether or not these measures where designed to control a potentially problematic situation is of no apparent significance. What is, instead, of increasing importance, is the very ways in which the space has transformed. No longer is the CAID a free public domain at which students and homeless alike can drink and listen to funk music without physical or monetary restriction. Instead, students and others who can afford to pay for drinks and admission are admitted, while all others are excluded. It seems that these measures have actually debilitated the supposed ideal. Furthermore, one can assume that where the drive to acquire capital is asserted most forcefully, the public domain will dwindle.
What becomes equally as interesting, at this particular junction, is the means by which capitalism produces defeating processes. Although capitalism is often, and appropriately, I might add, equated with the all consuming; the invasive entity that effects/affects all, it seems that the CAID provides an interesting example of the means by which capital driven enterprise might actually be self debilitating. As stated previously, part of the initial appeal of the CAID was the amalgamated mass of people that collided on Friday Funk Nights. At the institute, one could expect to see college students, the homeless, and more elderly constituents. This heterogeneous, socially and financially differentiated mass was part of the draw of the event. There were few limitations, and no visible administrators to impose restrictions. Interestingly, in a badly disguised attempt to draw on this pool of capital, the administrators are actually operating against the very economy of the CAID. In debilitating the atmosphere, the appeal of the CAID, it can be assumed, as was noticed during previous attendance, that fewer will inhabit the space. This is not to applaud the group that attends, for capitalism exerts its forces elsewhere; in the liquor or beer purchase at the local convenience store; or the purchase of gas and food. Rather, this is an effort to suggest the cyclical nature of the capitalistic cycle as it is related to current youth movements. It seems that the only means one can exert suitable economic control over such spaces, is to subsequently debilitate the very capital pool that the space once fostered.
