Music and Place
The Cultural Potential of Beethovenstadt in Bonn
Carola E. de Jong
rMA Thesis Cultural Analysis March 2016 Supervisor: dr. J.V. Sturm
2
Table of Contents
Introduction 3
1. Bonn and Beethovenstadt: Co-existing Places 7
Cighi’s Place Deconstruction Model 7
Beethovenstadt as image 10
Beethovenstadt as place 13
How Beethovenstadt critically reflects on place 17
2. The Emergence Process of Beethovenstadt 20
Assemblage in relation to Beethovenstadt 21 On original emergence or historical birth of place 25 Generated component part: the audio guide 26 How Beethovenstadt critically reflects on assemblage 29
3. Maintaining Beethovenstadt with Music 31
Existential authenticity in relation to Beethovenstadt 31 Contribution of music for Beethovenstadt 33
Missing music – missing authenticity 35
Beethovenstadt, existential authenticity and music 36
Conclusion 38
Bibliography 40
3
Introduction
‘Wilkommen in der Beethovenstadt Bonn!’ This is how German speaking visitors are greeted by a free brochure in the birthplace of composer Ludwig van Beethoven. The salutation at the start of the walking tour may seem insignificant, but it is by far not the only expression of ‘Beethovenstadt’. When I went to Bonn for the first time in 2013 to pay a visit to the
Beethoven-Haus, I was surprised by the quantity of Beethoven’s presence there. Not Ludwig van Beethoven’s actual presence, of course, since he passed away in 1827 in Vienna; I aim at images of the composer, stories about him, his music and his relation to Bonn, the annual Beethovenfest, many public locations named after the composer like a parking garage, a high school, and much more. Apparently I am not the only one who notices:
Yesterday I visited ‘Beethovens Geburtshaus’ - the birthplace of one of the most celebrated classical composers in history. (…) While I did admire seeing these instruments, the thing that struck me most was in the Gift Shop. In various sizes and colours were T-shirts with Beethoven’s face on them, along with the words, “Ludwig Lives!” This was printed in jest, I’m sure. But that Beethoven still ‘lives’ in Bonn, is perhaps a notion which is not as outlandish as you might think.
What I mean by this is that Beethoven is everywhere. Everywhere! This chap, Ludwig, was born in the street next to mine. But it doesn’t end there... There are several Beethoven-themed streets, e.g. Beethovenstraße. There’s the Beethoven concert hall, where the Beethoven Orchestra of Bonn plays Beethoven Symphonies. There is (at least) one Beethoven Hotel, a ‘Bar Ludwig’, two Beethoven statues (traditional and slightly more optical-illusion modern art) and a Beethoven grammar school. The town motto is “Freude. Joy. Joie. Bonn.” which pays homage to Ludo’s most famous piece, the “Ode to Joy” in his Ninth Symphony. There’s really no getting away from Beethoven.1
Or in the words of journalist Chris Thurman: ‘You can’t go very far here without bumping into Beethoven in one tourist-friendly form or another.’2
Music may literally induce fans to travel and, as can be witnessed, the municipality of Bonn is clearly prepared for Beethoven lovers to visit their city. The phenomenon that people travel to places because of an association they have with certain music is described as music tourism. Recently, music tourism appears to have grown rapidly in the 20th century with, in some cases, far-reaching consequences for the locations involved.3 I find it peculiar that Chris Gibson and John Connell have not examined Beethovenstadt in their comprehensive study on music tourism (2005), since it is such a phenomenon in my opinion. In general, music tourism in Bonn is only mentioned superficially in literature and it is not analysed, while I believe that it deserves to be addressed in detail. If it is not for the sake of explaining all the details in
1 Ross Creelman 2013.
2 Thurman 2015.
4 Bonn, this undertaking is at least owed to Beethoven: Beethovenstadt demonstrates how enormously the composer is honoured, in past, present, and probably also will be in future.
In this thesis, I aim to critically analyze the cultural potential of Beethovenstadt.4 I will
not discuss my object solely within the context of music tourism because that reduces
Beethovenstadt to an image of, or a marketing term for Bonn while I think that its dimensions go beyond those of tourism. In my opinion Beethovenstadt as image does not provide a fitting representation of the contemporary reality. What, then, could be a productive way to analyse this main object under study in order to gain new insights on its current manifestation? In chapter 1, I propose the alternative that nowadays Beethovenstadt has its own existence as a place, not solely physical but also not entirely imaginary. The term ‘Beethovenstadt’ is already used in the nineteenth century as a nickname for Bonn by its citizens, but I conceive that today it has grown into a separate entity, albeit based in Bonn. Ideas about place have changed over time, and an increased complexity can be witnessed in its conceptualisation. I use Catalin Cighi’s Place Deconstruction Model (2008) for analysing Beethovenstadt. Cighi addresses the need to conceptualize place as a combination of things - material, immaterial, representational - that are often held apart or even ignored in other theories.5 He combines these theories and therewith attempts to unravel the complexity of the concept by combining significant place concepts and showing their interdependence; how they influence each other, how they flow from one to another, and how the understanding of one depends on
understanding of the other. Although Beethovenstadt initially turns out to be a Commodified Place Image of Bonn with Cighi’s model, I argue that it comes alive as a distinctive place object. With the model I discuss the fruitfulness for both Beethovenstadt and Bonn to regard them as separate. Moreover, analysing my object as place6 reflects on what place is or can be.
4 Throughout this thesis I use the word ‘Beethovenstadt’ and not, for instance, Beethovencity or Beethoven-City,
Beethoven-Stadt or any other possible spelling. I decided to not translate this word into English, because the German-way emphasises its distinctiveness. Besides, Beethovenstadt is located in Germany and this spelling corresponds to how Beethovenstadt is mentioned by the tourist office and newspapers.
5 E.g.: Tripartite definition of place by Agnew 1987; Tuan 1974 on topophilia; Entrikin 1991 on the betweenness
of place; Relph 1976 introduces placelessness and Augé 1995 non-place; Buttimer and Seamon 1980 present a humanistic focus; Heidegger’s notion of dwelling (1971) is taken up; Foucault 1977 focuses on how power regulates place; Harvey 1989 presents a neo-Marxian perspective; Keith and Pile 1993 focus on place and identity; Urry 1990 focuses on tourist place;Stokes 1994 on music and place; and Massey 1993 introduces a global sense of place.
6 Despite the contemporary tendency towards obliteration of local place by global homogenous space, Harvey
(1989) points out that ‘place is becoming more, rather than less, important in a period of globalisation’. He stresses that ‘the specificity of place (in terms of its history, culture, environment and so on) is crucial in perpetuating processes of capital accumulation’ (Phil Hubbard and Rob Kitchin 2011). See also Steven Hoelscher 2011.
5 As prospect after his literature review on the concept of place in the Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Human Geography (2011), Tim Cresswell suggests that future work on place needs to theorize and exemplify its assemblage qualities, as it is developed by Manuel DeLanda (2006) in his theory. In chapter 2 I attempt to make this extra step: I analyze Beethovenstadt with assemblage in order to reflect on the emergence processes of place. While combining Cighi’s model and DeLanda’s theory, I gain insight into how
Beethovenstadt comes alive and takes shape. This is important to know for discussing in chapter 3 what the role of music is in the maintenance process of place.
For although leaving aside Beethovenstadt as music tourism in this thesis does not mean that I withhold to address music altogether: my main research question concerns the
contribution of music in Beethovenstadt. Ray Hudson (2006) mentions that:
… there is ample evidence to support the proposition that music has the ability to conjure up powerful images of place, feelings of deep attachment to place. Given this, it is perhaps surprising that music and its relation to place has been a rather neglected topic in human geography. (…) Clearly here was a vacuum waiting to be filled, and in recent years a range of human geographers have become increasingly interested in issues of music, place and identity in a range of empirical settings, theoretical frameworks and policy contexts.7
Beyond the obviousness of why music should or could be involved in Beethovenstadt – as a means to emphasize the fact that Beethoven was a composer -, why is it there? To be clear, I will not analyze the representation of music or Beethoven the composer.8 Likewise, many researchers focus on changes in music or artistic sacrifice in response to commodification of music tourism, for instance Su Xiaobo (2011). Instead, I reflect in chapter 3 on the
contribution of music to or in Beethovenstadt in a different manner, with Ning Wang’s concept of existential authenticity (1999) – a state of being that can be produced or pursued through tourism activities.9 I argue that existential authenticity is fruitful for accounting the (potential) role of music for maintaining Beethovenstadt. I do this to reflect on the broader meaning of music in place making processes. To paraphrase Hudson: How can music be thought of in relation to the (un)making of place?10 This thesis aims to solve my main research question what the contribution of music is for maintaining Beethovenstadt as place. As Sara Cohen (1991) mentions: ‘[m]usic … plays a unique and often hidden role in the
7 Hudson 2006: 626.
8 A recent research on representation of popular music in UK museums is done by Marion Leonard in 2010. See
for an example of research on the representation of Beethoven: Alessandra Comini 2008.
9 Carol J. Steiner and Yvette Reisinger 2006. 10 Hudson 2006: 627.
6 production of place.’11 In addition, with this examination I hope to counterbalance the obvious
privilege of the eye in previous research.12
I would like to make a few remarks before I start my journey to liberate Beethovenstadt. To speak with Gibson and Connell, ‘[t]he combination of music and tourism is on the whole a pleasant one’,13 and tracing Beethovenstadt has meant travels of my own. I went several times
to Bonn: in April and July 2013, during Beethovenfest in September 2014 and 2015 and July 2015. There I assembled all promotional material I could find related to Beethoven’s Bonn. I experienced as many Beethovenstadt-‘attractions’ as I could think of, even some that are not promoted at all. Sometimes ‘Beethovenstadt’ is explicitly mentioned, but often it is an implicit destination. In the bilingual and free guide to Bonn (versions of 2013/14 and
2015/16), Beethovenstadt is explicitly mentioned on page 12 in relation to exploring the city by foot: ‘Discover Bonn’s numerous sights on a walking tour through the historical city centre’. An audio guide is advertised as one of the main Beethovenstadt attractions.14 The audio guide consists of a touchscreen PDA containing visual images in accordance with the stories told through the headphones in 17 ‘chapters’ and an introduction. It has a constitutive quality in the creation of Beethovenstadt: it is through the audio guide (amongst many other options) that Beethovenstadt can be experienced. It grounds Beethovenstadt as place. I transcribed the audio guide during my visits to Bonn and use it more than once for analysis during the voyage.15
11 Cohen 1991: 288. Cited in Hudson 2006: 627. 12 See Sophie Forgan 2005: 583.
13 Gibson and Connell 2005: ‘Preface’.
14 Developed by itour GmbH for the city of Bonn, dating from 2011; before that, the information office offered a
CD-player with booklet since 2006, see Dieter Brockschnieder 2011.
15 Apart from observing Beethovenstadt with the audio guide, I want to at least address that there are also
elements which are not promoted, commodified or mentioned by the tourist office but which could be experienced as part of Beethovenstadt while wandering through Bonn, such as the Beethovenplatz (in the neighbourhood with street names of composers), Hilton Beethoven, the Beethoven monument in Rheinaue, the International Telekom Beethoven Competition Bonn, the Beethoven Gymnasium, portrait graffiti all around the city centre, and the Stadtmuseum. Traces can also be found in some shops in Bonn; not just in the tourist office and museum shop of the Beethoven-Haus (which are fully packed with Beethoven souvenirs), also in the Karstadt, the Galeria Kaufhof, the Thalia Bookstore (located in the Metropol) and some kiosks. In one of the youth hostels, Max Hostel, posters can be found of the German homeless street magazine fiftyfifty with the text ‘Auch Beethoven würde die fiftyfifty lesen!’ while a Beethoven statue holds an edition of the magazine.
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Chapter 1 Bonn and Beethovenstadt: Co-existing Places
In order to answer my main research question, I first need to analyze how Bonn and Beethovenstadt relate to each other. Thus this chapter is about two objects: Bonn and
Beethovenstadt. In other words, I want to find out what Beethovenstadt is as object; what kind of object it is. Following theory in Geography and Tourism Studies, Beethovenstadt would be regarded as an image of Bonn. However, in this chapter I propose as alternative that it is valuable to separate Bonn and Beethovenstadt, to not regard Beethovenstadt as an image of or a marketing term for the city of Bonn. Beethovenstadt is partly an imaginary object, I argue that it comes alive as a distinctive place by analysing it with Cighi’s Place Deconstruction Model. With the model I address why it is fruitful, not only for Beethovenstadt but also for Bonn, to regard them as separate. My proposal is not motivated from an effective perspective, it is my interpretation of what is currently happening in the image production of the city. Today, Beethovenstadt has grown into a separate entity, albeit through commodified elements. My idea is that nowadays Beethovenstadt can be experienced as separated from Bonn. The distinctiveness of Beethovenstadt has grown over the years.
Before I dive into Beethovenstadt as place, the chapter starts with an explanation of the model, followed by an examination of Beethovenstadt as image. I discuss why the conception of Beethovenstadt as image is problematic, both for Bonn and Beethovenstadt respectively. Afterwards it is time for my suggestion to instead consider Beethovenstadt as place. I examine how it is possible for my two place-objects to exist in the same space, followed by the
benefits of this conception for Bonn and Beethovenstadt respectively. I end the chapter with a reflection on some shortcomings regarding Cighi’s model for analysing my objects.
Cighi’s Place Deconstruction Model
Cighi bases his ideas on a systematic literature review of the concept from diverse disciplines such as human geography, anthropology, communication and tourism studies. I find his model useful for analysis because it not only addresses but combines emotional, symbolic and
spiritual aspects of place, as well as phenomenological geography and physical environment. It considers place as not just physical, or symbolic, or representation; it consists of all these layers that have to do both with an observer and the specific time of an observation. Hence, place is treated as it is: a complex multi-layered concept.
8 Cighi’s model is advantageous for reflecting on Beethovenstadt as place because it
articulates what to analyse and suggests how the analysis should be conducted. See figure 1 for a clarifying illustration of the model. The concept of betweenness of place, derived from Nicolas Entrikin (1991) accounts for the tension between the necessary extreme positions of decentered and centered perspective (on top and below respectively in figure 1).16 The
decentered section identifies three building blocks: Crude Place (raw, observable; on the left), Constructed Place (interpreted, represented; in the middle) and Commodified Place
(packaged, projected; on the right) in which place is perceived, thought about and acted out in words and action respectively. The three building blocks outline very different experiences of place, varying in intensity and degree of immersion. Each building block serves as a focus mechanism to identify the different ways in which an individual learns, speaks and thinks about place, and modifies his behaviour related to it. I find the recognition of back and forth influences between the different building blocks productive in Cighi’s model, shown in the figure by arrows. Furthermore, the detailed examination of every building block based on various theories is constructive. The centered section focuses on the observer’s past, present and future elements, shown in figure 1 by ‘Memory’ on the left, ‘Here & now’ in the middle and ‘Expectations’ on the right.17 The link between the centered and decentered perspectives is the Gaze, which is described by Cighi as the totality of ways of experiencing place,
resulting both from external and internal factors.
To analyse my place objects – Bonn, and later on Beethovenstadt – with this model, I consider and scrutinize all three vital, interrelated dimensions of place: temporal, spatial and societal.18 These are denoted in figure 1 within all building blocks and they are connected by
stripes. The analysis in each dimension of each building block identifies those elements that taken all together and overlapped constitute the complex idea about place. The three
dimensions should be adjusted according to necessary parameters of analysis: perspective or the point of observation, and scale or the unit of observation; scale for place, span for time
16 Universalism/generic/scientific theory/external/remote/detached vs. particularism/specific/everyday life
observation/internal/immersed/involved.
17 A few paraphrased remarks from Cighi, page 43, regarding past, present and future. Past elements are
determined by background, knowledge and experience accessed through memory. The present is the here and now influenced by current cognitive, affective, physical and social states. Future elements consist of goals and expectations driven by needs and desires.
18 A few paraphrased remarks from Cighi, page 34 to 36, regarding the dimensions. The spatial dimension must
be analysed because it is within space that things that constitute elements of place are located. The temporal dimension must be considered to account for change and action. Change is an event that happens to a thing, either by nature or human, which leads to a different state of being. Action is an event brought about by the thing itself which preserves or enhances the current state. The social dimension must be considered because objective reality can only be perceived and interpreted through the mediation of people.
9 and scope for society. These parameters dictate the context within which individual elements can be perceived as distinct. For instance, when discussing perception the scope of analysis is an individual, while when discussing the creation of meaning the scope of analysis is a society.
10 Beethovenstadt as image
When considering Bonn as place with the model, Beethovenstadt initially turns out to be the Commodified Place Image of Bonn, strategically constructed – both dialectically and
physically - by the authorities. Cighi talks about either dialectically or physically; I believe that in Bonn the image is constructed in both senses. Beethovenstadt is physically preserved - that is, its elements are physically preserved - and continues to be constructed physically through the annual Beethovenfest. Examples of dialectic construction are the various guides in Bonn, e.g. flyers, the audio guide, weekly walking tours. The image satisfies the city’s needs of recognition and self-actualization, in other words: its importance. Cighi distinguishes simple and complex commodification. In Bonn, Beethovenstadt is not simply conceptualized ‘as something to be bought and sold, most commonly as a tourist attraction.’ It is more complex: the commodification of Beethovenstadt ‘is about the application of power in the attempt to redefine the meaning of a place [Bonn] as a means to control its future.’19 The existing and future claims regarding Beethovenstadt as image of Bonn are based on the facts that the famous composer Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, that he grew up in Bonn, and that he was educated in Bonn. On the municipality website, www.bonn.de, a separate section under ‘tourismus’ mentions that the legacy of Beethoven is highly respected and honoured in Bonn and that his music is present everywhere.20 When one reads further it is mentioned that Beethoven’s birth in Bonn is considered a “Geschenk der Geschichte” (gift of history) that puts responsibility onto the city.21 Andreas Eckhardt, the former director of the
Beethoven-Haus, mentions that it is
… primarily due to the historical fact – indeed the stroke of luck – that the house in which Ludwig van Beethoven was born has survived the many vicissitudes of war and peace, and that Beethoven spent his childhood and youth in this city, years essential to the unfolding of his genius.22
19 Both quotes in Cighi 2008: 106-7.
20 See www.bonn.de/tourismus_kultur_sport_freizeit/.
21 ‘Bonn ist die Geburtsstadt Ludwig van Beethovens. Er lebte über 20 Jahre in Bonn, bevor ihn sein Lebensweg
nach Wien führte. Aus diesem "Geschenk der Geschichte" entsteht eine besondere Verantwortung für die Stadt, an Wirken und Werke Beethovens zu erinnern und die künstlerischen, politischen und gesellschaftlichen Potenziale, die der Geist dieses einzigartigen Künstlers entwickelt hat, auszuschöpfen. Diese Verpflichtung nimmt Bonn im Sinne einer nationalen Aufgabe im Dreiklang Internationalität, Innovation und Emanzipation wahr. Zudem haben viele Kulturinstitutionen in unterschiedlicher Trägerschaft, bürgerschaftliche Initiativen und Unternehmen sein Erbe aufgegriffen und tradieren Leben und Schaffen des bedeutendsten Sohns der Stadt auf verschiedene Art und Weise.‘ See www.bonn.de/tourismus_kultur_sport_freizeit/bonn_ist_kultur/beethoven/.
11 Eckhardt praises the cultural, political and intellectual climate of the city in Beethoven’s days. Another important reason is that Beethoven is the ‘most famous son’ that the city has
generated, thus it seems logical to appropriate him and not someone else.23
However, regarding Beethovenstadt as image of Bonn does not take into account the diverse ways in which both Bonn and Beethovenstadt manifest. Cighi describes effects of images on the three dimensions – temporal, spatial and societal.
The plurality of attributes that make up the facts of the place and the multitude of beliefs that exist about them is cancelled out by blanket representations that reduce variety to a fixed, static, imaginary reality.24
The minimization applies to the spatial dimension in the following way:
In Commodified Place, only those meanings [related to place] that have legitimizing value are maintained, and often, new meanings are invented, to achieve the same goals. In this process, the identities of a place are cancelled out by a single image, or by a few competing images.25
Why is this a problem for Bonn? Following Cighi, commoditization of Bonn as Beethovenstadt homogenizes what Bonn has to offer. One cannot say that Bonn is solely about Beethoven, in reality the city is not entirely focused on Beethovenstadt. Look for instance at the folder ‘Tages-Tipps – Ideen für einen Tag in Bonn’ (version April 2015). The tourism office surely suggests visiting the Beethoven-Haus, but amongst other options: the Museumsmeile, Bundesviertel, Südstadt, Bad Godesberg, Siebengebirge and the Rhine. Another example is the annual booklet called ‘city guide’ in which Bonn is not solely commodified as Beethovenstadt. It also shows other manifestations: as conference city, former Bundesstadt, city of museums, and shopping centre. Considering Bonn as
Beethovenstadt does not do justice to these many other aspects of the city, it slowly kills its character. Bonn as Beethovenstadt miniaturizes the dimensions of the city.
The image does not only miniaturize Bonn, but also its citizens. Not all citizens worship Beethoven. Not all citizens and politicians share the same degree of importance of this image. Arguments to question the importance of the claims are for instance that Beethoven wrote most of his works (considered important) in Vienna, and that he never returned to Bonn after his departure. Beethoven left his native town at the age of 22 and never saw it again. In that sense it is possible to even argue that Vienna has more ‘right’ to appropriate Beethoven than Bonn does.26 These tensions cause conflicts in the city’s political arena, for instance whether
23 See for instance Rina Sitorus 2015. 24 Cighi 2008: 128.
25 Cighi 2008: 122.
26 Nonetheless, according to Eckhardt 2008: 84, Bonn was deeply rooted in Beethoven’s thoughts and feelings
while in Vienna: he signed his writings often with the Latin form ‘bonnensis’ behind his name and recalled nostalgic remembrances of his childhood in a letter to his boyhood friend Franz Gerhard Wegeler.
12 money needs to be spend on this image (the preservation and expansion of its elements) or not.27 An example is for instance the ongoing debate about the finances for renovation or
replacement of the current Beethovenhalle, see Bürger für Beethoven (2011). Before this council decision, Kurt Masur admitted in that he was ashamed to conduct in the
Beethovenhalle and he warned for the degeneration of Beethovenstadt Bonn, see NMZ kiz-Nachrichten (2010). The inclusive view is contested or nuanced by the common viewpoint about the elite-value of Beethoven, suggesting that classical music in general, and hence also Beethoven’s music, is only understood, respected and listened to by members of bourgeois society (see for instance Simon Behrman 2009). Just as it is possible for people to associate themselves positively with Beethovenstadt, it is also possible to construct identity by disassociation, when Beethovenstadt is perceived as negative or insignificant.
Furthermore, I do not consider Beethovenstadt as an image of Bonn because that reduces Beethovenstadt to a one-dimensional image. I believe that Beethovenstadt is much more than a marketing term to brand Bonn as a destination. Cighi regards the elements of Commodified Place – the narratives of the image - as elements of artifice. If Beethovenstadt is ‘just’ an image, and its elements are ‘only’ narratives, this does not do justice to the physical aspects of the elements in Beethovenstadt. The reduction of Beethovenstadt to an image, to imaginary reality evoked by the commercial language of the authorities, also fails to address the sensory elements involved. Moreover, the image conception does not account for the fluid quality of Beethovenstadt: ‘each of its elements are in a constant state of flux’.28 Also, the image results
into a distortion of the characteristics of Beethovenstadt; it is reduced to only a few relevant features related to Beethoven, which miniaturizes Beethovenstadt. Beethovenstadt is not only about Beethoven but also foremost about worshipping him.
As mentioned, Cighi describes an image as a fixed, static, imaginary reality. However, when taking the parameters – perspective and scale – into account for Beethovenstadt as the Place Image of Bonn, this would mean that Beethovenstadt has a fixed point and unit of observation. But think for instance at the span of time: Beethovenstadt is not only about the present, or the last ten years of adoration. It has an ongoing history that starts at the birth of Beethoven in 1770, or arguably even before that; the Beethoven-Haus starts its story in the museum exhibition with Beethoven’s grandfather, who settled in Bonn in 1733. Or look at the spatial scale of the image: Beethovenstadt is more than the Beethoven monument on
Münsterplatz, which is the most often used image as depiction of Beethovenstadt and Bonn.
27
Hans Gilles 2009 sums up some arguments against the use of Beethovenstadt.
13 Consider also a combination of these two parameters, span of time and spatial scale: the Beethovenfest is an annual event of one month at certain venues and squares in Bonn, some public and in open air, others indoors with entrance fee. This Beethovenstadt-element can only be perceived as distinct from its context during the period of the festival and it seems as if Beethovenstadt is everywhere in Bonn then: flags and other promotions all around the city remind the visitors and citizens of the event. So Beethovenstadt cannot be an image because it is not static and not fixed. Beethovenstadt as image also miniaturizes Beethoven. It ignores aspects of the composer’s identity and what is known about him.
Although Beethovenstadt initially seems to be a Commodified Place Image of Bonn with Cighi’s model, the conception of Beethovenstadt as image turns out to be problematic. It is not legitimate because it does not take into account the diverse ways in which both Bonn and Beethovenstadt manifest. Bonn as Beethovenstadt miniaturizes Bonn’s citizens, the
dimensions of the city, and Beethoven. The Beethovenfest shows that Beethovenstadt is not static, nor fixed, and not solely an imaginary reality. Beethovenstadt as image does not do justice to the physical aspects of the elements involved and fails to address sensory elements. Moreover, Beethovenstadt has an ongoing history - instead of a fixed point in time - that starts at the birth of Beethoven. Also, Beethovenstadt concerns more than its most often used image as depiction of Bonn, the Beethoven monument on Münsterplatz. Beethovenstadt as object turns out to be a place in itself.
Beethovenstadt as place
If Beethovenstadt is a place in itself, how can Beethovenstadt and Bonn exist in the same geographical space? Is Beethovenstadt then not a synonym for Bonn? The very fact that the words are not the same indicates that Beethovenstadt is distinct from Bonn. As Paulus Huigen and Louise Meijering (2005) put it: ‘a place is created when we attribute it the quality of being distinct from another location and give it a name.’29 But how then is it possible for Beethovenstadt to exist as a place, and its elements to be part of it, when it is at the same time the city of Bonn? It is possible to view these sites and institutions as unrelated and individual parts of the city. But apart from that, they are connected as they are all part of
Beethovenstadt. How is it possible to experience Beethovenstadt while so clearly you are in Bonn? Cighi mentions that:
14 On each portion of space, multiple Crude Places exist, and each of these may be interpreted differently according to what cultures and sub-cultures influence the experience of these places, thus revealing that a plurality of Constructed Places co-exist there.30
Proposed is the possibility of a plurality of constructed places on a single portion of space. Thus, Beethovenstadt is not a substitution of Bonn; it is a supplement place-layer to the space. The elements that constitute Beethovenstadt are also part of Bonn, but then within a different context. This also suggests why and how it is possible to shift between being in
Beethovenstadt and being in Bonn. It depends on the perspective of the observer which one of the two places is being experienced. The co-existence even makes the possibility of
experiencing Beethovenstadt and Bonn at the same time considerable, that is, if the mind is capable of doing so.
Beethovenstadt as place provides the possibility to regard it as a destination, located within Bonn. As mentioned earlier, I think to separate Beethovenstadt from Bonn does justice to the complexity of the city of Bonn. Beethovenstadt excludes contemporary daily life in Bonn; think for instance of supermarkets, the hospital, places where people work and live, hospitality (not even of tourists31), legal services and transport.32 Beethovenstadt cannot exist
due to practical reasons without certain elements of the city of Bonn but Bonn can, theoretically speaking, exist without Beethovenstadt. However, it profits from its host-function: it entails economic profits and international allure. I perceive the relationship between Bonn and Beethovenstadt as an endosymbiosis, with Bonn being the host - while they both profit from the relationship. The city definitely has commercial reasons for investing in Beethovenstadt.33 If only for selling Beethoven souvenirs in the tourist information office. Besides the economic profits, look at what Eckhardt writes:
Today the city of Bonn receives added prestige and international lustre from several institutions: the Beethoven-Haus, the annual Beethoven Festival, the concerts of the Beethoven Orchestra and, since 2005, the International Beethoven Piano Competition.34
Beethovenstadt functions as a cultural symbol for Bonn, a symbol that both the citizens and politicians are proud of, and propagate. It has acquired iconic status, rather than being just a destination for those who were and are fans.35 Ideally, consumers might experience
Beethovenstadt as Bonn’s (Place) Identity, which is part of Constructed Place in Cighi’s
30 Cighi 2008: 74.
31 However, one could argue that the accommodation Beethoven Hotel in the Bonngasse is a part of
Beethovenstadt.
32 Examples derived from Gibson and Connell 2005: 94. 33 Gibson and Connell 2005: 263, 264.
34 Eckhardt 2008: 54.
15 model. Beethovenstadt provides idealization of and identification to the city of Bonn. On a local and regional scale citizens can identify themselves - Social Identity in Constructed Place - with Beethoven through their equal origin. Bonners and Rheinlanders are proud of ‘their’ composer. This can be witnessed musically, for example, in the BonnSong from 2014 (www.bonnsong.de). Especially after having given back their capital position to Berlin, Beethovenstadt has become an important identity for Bonn, not only for locals but also on an international scale. People from all over the world are familiar with Beethoven and identify with his music, especially through his Ode to Joy, which, for instance, serves to bridge nations as the European Anthem and serves as Japanese collective memory of the First World War.36 In addition, the City guide of Bonn (version 2013/14 and 2015/16) says that the Beethoven-Haus is ‘an attraction for music lovers from every continent.’37 Beethovenstadt thus has an inclusive character, and this international (and local) inclusiveness is rendered gratefully in Bonn’s 2008 logo, which can be found throughout the city and in its publications.38
Another benefit for Bonn becomes visible when I consider the temporal dimension of Commodified Place. Heritage is defined by Cighi as the convenient selection of meanings from the resource pool of history; history being the totality of ways in which past events are interpreted, considered the temporal dimension of Constructed Place. It is not the chosen past events themselves that are of vital importance in heritage, but their legitimizing value
regarding the authorities’ claims to the place.39 The tours related to Beethovenstadt legitimize Bonn’s value. Beethovenstadt is a way of expressing Bonn’s importance; it is a tool to tell ‘the’ (preferred) history of the city. The selection is based on the demands of the present and imagined future. With the rhetoric of beginnings, the authorities in Bonn assert the birth place of Beethoven.40 The Beethoven-Haus, and in a broader sense the city of Bonn, recount the
36
The Beethoven-Haus even offers an exhibition in Japanese about the cultural life in the German prisoner-of-war camp Bando in Japan, see www.beethoven-haus-bonn.de/sixcms/detail.php/43872. Paul Drexler 2010 dares to call the Beethoven-Haus a Japanese pilgrimage site. Also, especially Japanese and Chinese tourists are interested in honouring Beethoven in Bonn, see: www.dw.com/de/in-bonn-ist-beethoven-%C3%BCberall/a-2481570.
37 City guide Bonn. Page 13.
38 ‘Im Zuge der Wiedervereinigung Deutschlands wurde Berlin die neue Hauptstadt Deutschlands. Für Bonn, die
bisherige Hauptstadt bedeutete dies einen herben Verlust an Prestige und Bedeutung. Für eine Neupositionierung der Stadtmarke Bonn besann man sich auf einen der berühmtesten Bonner: Ludwig van Beethoven. (…) Wir starteten mit dem wohl berühmtesten Werk Beethovens „Ode an die Freude“. (…) Vor allem aber den Begriff „Freude“, den wir als Grundaussage mit der Stadt Bonn, als lebensfrohe rheinische Metropole verbanden. Und
zwar direkt in drei Sprachen: „FREUDE, JOY, JOIE,“ um den weltoffenen Charakter der Stadt zu unterstreichen.’ [emphasis mine] See Corporate Design Preis 2011.
39 Cighi 2008: 118-121.
40 Derived from Tamar Katriel 1993: 71-72, who describes performative dimensions of storytelling in the context
of Israeli heritage museums: ‘On the face of it, each guided tour is laced with little, often disconnected stories about a half-forgotten past woven around the traces of yesteryear – a restored urn or a discarded agricultural tool. Taken together, however, they serve as localized versions of creation myths, exemplifying and augmenting the
16 origin of Beethoven. Every story about every site reinforces the justification for appropriating Beethoven. They say: This is where he was born, we have proof. With every step in
Beethovenstadt this narrative is confirmed, for instance in the audio guide. While watching the Siebengebirge, Josef Tönnies tells his listener of proof that Beethoven loved the Rhine and longed for his homeland:
While in Vienna, Beethoven would later write many letters about the longing for his homeland. To his friend Wegeler in 1801: [other voice] „Mein Vaterland, die schöne gegend, in wie ich das Licht der Zeit erblickte, ist mir noch immer so schön und deutlich vor meinen Augen“. My fatherland, with its beautiful country, in which I saw the light of the time, is still so beautifully and clearly before my eyes just as I left you there. I will regard this time as one of the luckiest occurrences of my life, where I can see you again and welcome our father Rhine. “Vater Rhein begrüssen kann“. (…) Only half a year prior to his death in Vienna spoke Beethoven of a return trip to Bonn, of being reacquainted with his father Rhine. It would not be granted to him.41 It is possible to perceive all the elements in Beethovenstadt as legitimizing either the claim that (1) Bonn was important to Beethoven or that (2) Beethoven was important to Bonn.
I propose that Beethovenstadt has an existence, that it is a place, not solely physical but also not entirely imaginary. Interesting about the concept of place is that it provides a broader perspective to Beethovenstadt; when I would consider my objects in the context of music tourism, many aspects that go beyond those of tourism would not be considered.
Beethovenstadt is not visually marked by boundaries, and in that sense it expands beyond the city of Bonn, while at the same time it is restricted to meanings related to Beethoven, however loosely. Beethovenstadt is idiosyncratic and selective; the focus is only on those elements that relate to Beethoven. Beethovenstadt includes images and narratives as chosen by the
authorities but also contains less clear aspects, other temporal, spatial and social elements. Beethovenstadt as place makes it possible to consider what the specific agents or
authorities of the place are. I agree with Cighi that there is value in identifying and classifying all types of actors and their place-related goals. Beethovenstadt does not have a government of its own, but it does have authorities. Who are the authorities of Beethovenstadt? Cighi distinguishes (1) actors in the professional discourse - further differentiated into
nongovernmental movements (focused on the conservation of place), governmental agencies (politicians using place to legitimize their claims to power) and businesses (tourism agencies
heartfelt statement made by an old-timer guide as she led group after group along the museum route: “You see? Here it all began!” This rhetoric of beginnings is designed to establish an authoritative version of the past, to capitalize on the revolutionary phase of national coming-into-being, and to mobilize audiences’ commitment to the values of the pioneering era. When performers and audience share a basic ideological frame of reference, when all indeed agree that they are standing on the very spot where “it all began,” the museum tour becomes a ritualized enactment of commonly held understandings and valuations of past events and shared origins.’
17 promoting place as a product to be consumed) - and (2) actors without an organization.42
Economic and political power of Beethovenstadt is in the hands of the state (governmental agencies), Bonn’s politicians, private sponsors and companies investing in Beethovenstadt. The associates of the Beethoven-Haus have authoritative power on the claims that they preserve the largest Beethoven collection in the world, and that their knowledgeable
associates are expert researchers.43 Creative power is in the hands of the Beethovenhalle, the Beethoven-Haus (their concert hall), and the Beethovenfest. All people involved can be considered to work as part of Beethovenstadt, even when their workplace is not situated in Bonn.
Beethovenstadt as place provides the possibility to contemplate on the phenomenon of Beethoven-pilgrimage in Bonn, to perceive it as a destination: musical tourists who
specifically visit Bonn to experience elements of Beethovenstadt. The attendance of these ‘pilgrims’ can be found for instance in the guestbook testimonials of the Beethoven-Haus.44 I will explain this phenomenon more detailed in chapter 3.
To summarize this section, Cighi’s model suggests that a plurality of constructed places co-exist on a single portion of space. This makes it possible to consider Beethovenstadt as a supplement place-layer to the space in Bonn. Bonn can, theoretically speaking, exist without Beethovenstadt, but it gains economic profits and allure from its host-function.
Beethovenstadt functions as a cultural symbol for and provides identification to the city, from a local to an international scale. All the elements in Beethovenstadt legitimize either the claim that Bonn was important to Beethoven or that Beethoven was important to Bonn.
Beethovenstadt does not have a government of its own but it does have authorities, and finally, Beethovenstadt as place grounds the object as destination for music pilgrims.
How Beethovenstadt critically reflects on place
Considering Beethovenstadt as place is not only fruitful for analysing Beethovenstadt and Bonn, it also adds meaning to what place is or can be, and provides the possibility to reflect on shortcomings of Cighi’s model. My objects, Beethovenstadt and Bonn, show that
commodification of place does not necessarily result in a ‘homogenization of offering’.45 The
42 Cighi 2008: 117-8.
43 ‘The relevance of the Beethoven-Haus is based on the ongoing popularity of Ludwig van Beethoven and his
music, on the special atmosphere at his birthplace and on the exclusive collection of sources and long-time research and documentation efforts. From its beginning, the Beethoven-Haus has been strongly supported by citizens and artists alike.’ Quote from ‘About us: Our mission statement.’ Beethoven-Haus Bonn.
44 See Cighi 2008: 146-147, and Gibson and Connell 2005 on pilgrimage. 45 Cighi 2008: 106.
18 image of Bonn as offered by its authorities is not unilateral. Cighi’s assumption that producers by definition reduce does not count and does not adequately reproduce the way things are concerning my objects.
Furthermore, in his thesis Cighi makes a distinction between dweller and tourist. He regards those as extreme positions for the intensity of immersion by someone. I agree with him that:
A tourist and a dweller differ significantly in their relationship to specific spatial coordinates, their predominant assumed roles at the time of the observation, and the needs and desires that motivate their actions at the time.46
However, I am critical about the idea that a dweller is necessarily highly immersed and a tourist is superficially immersed.47 I think this distinction is too superficial to apply for Beethovenstadt. For instance, a dweller that passes by the Beethoven monument on
Münsterplatz every day might not perceive the monument: the senses do not regard the object as distinct from its context (anymore). The same counts for all physical elements related to Beethovenstadt in Bonn. This of course depends on the level of identification and interest by the dweller towards Beethovenstadt. This also does not mean that tourists are necessarily interested in Beethovenstadt; they might have travelled to Bonn for other reasons.
With the Place Deconstruction Model, it seems intuitive to start with identifying elements of Crude Place in Beethovenstadt. Cighi also starts his explanation of the model with Crude Place, and he calls it the ‘first building block’. Its elements can be observed by the senses - depending on one’s abilities, limitations, knowledge, mood, interest – but are not yet processed. In this theoretical stage located between perception and cognition, something is perceived by someone as distinct, through its intrinsic or relationally ascribed attributes, from a context - physical, observable space. However, all the Crude Place elements of
Beethovenstadt are in the first instance determined by what the authorities in Bonn include in their promotional material. As Cighi mentions:
Commodified Place elements might have the power to supersede Crude Place and Constructed Place elements because they have the potential to influence the ways in which people engage and
think about place.48
This addresses a precaution for analysing Beethovenstadt with Cighi’s model: it is difficult to start the analysis with examining elements of Crude Place. Of course, the elements have distinctive physical attributes but it is not those physical attributes that turn them into
46 Cighi 2008: 145.
47 Cighi 2008: 46. 48 Cighi 2008: 129.
19 elements of Beethovenstadt: it is through the production of meaning – in the context of the building block Commodified Place – that the elements derive their distinctiveness towards the surrounding context.
Another concern I have regarding Cighi’s model is that it seems to be possible to employ it to brainstorm in any situation about any topic. Cighi:
The Place Deconstruction Model appears to have a wider application than originally conceived, as it exposes many forms of demagogy. The model articulates the fact that an infinite pool of possibilities suffers a process of miniaturization at every stage of human engagement with reality. In the very acts of perceiving, thinking about, and representing reality, people consciously and unconsciously strip the object of their attention of its richness and reduce it to a shadow of itself, which then they proceed to present as the only correct way to understand reality and use this interpretation to justify whatever worldview better suites their interests. (…) this model can visually convey how richness is diminished in the human engagement with reality.49
Cighi regards this as a good thing, but I perceive it as a shortcoming of the model.
Most importantly, I don’t find it productive that Cighi is quite vague about how place reveals itself. He keeps this in the mystic sphere of ‘the concept is greater than the sum of its components’, as a Gestalt concept: ‘Applying this approach to place: a collection of place elements (to be detailed in the context of each building block) make up the concept of place, which is greater than the sum of its components.’50 I cannot adequately analyze with this gestalt-principle the way Beethovenstadt is. It turns out that with Cighi’s model it is only possible to identify separate elements of the place. Although I think that the significant place concepts that Cighi discusses in his model are specific component parts involved in the construction of place (such as place identity, place image, place attachment, spirit of place, power, time, being, social control, tourism, politics, heritage, language), the model does not adequately reflect on how the identified elements synthesize to create place. Thus I find Cighi’s model valuable to the extent that it provides a specification of the component parts regarding place. As alternative approach to Cighi’s model, I try to tackle this defect in the next chapter with the theory by DeLanda that explicitly focuses on the emergence process of assemblages.
49 Cighi 2008: 174.
20
Chapter 2 The Emergence Process of Beethovenstadt
Now that it is clear why I separate Beethovenstadt from Bonn and regard it as an object in itself, as place, I want to show how Beethovenstadt comes alive and takes shape. All the sites in Bonn connected to Beethoven have become ‘places’ and all these places combined
constitute Beethovenstadt. As concluded in chapter 1, with Cighi’s model it is possible to identify elements of Beethovenstadt, yet it remains unclear how these elements, taken all together, constitute the place. Describing place as a Gestalt concept does not explain in a satisfactory manner how the identified elements of Beethovenstadt synthesize to create the place. Nevertheless, this is important to know in order to answer my central question in the next chapter concerning the contribution of music in the emerging process.
According to Cresswell (2011), future work on place needs to theorize and exemplify its assemblage qualities.51 Cresswell suggests examining the interplay of the material, immaterial and representational regarding place with “assemblage theory”, as developed by DeLanda (2006). Like Cighi’s model, assemblage theory resonates with efforts to conceptualize place as a particular instance of a combination of things that are often held apart in previous theories. With assemblage theory it is not only possible to decompose an assemblage into its different parts, as Cighi’s model does specifically for place. Rather it is also possible to focus on synthetic roles. In this chapter I analyze Beethovenstadt with assemblage to reflect on the emergence process of the concept of place. While combining Cighi’s model and DeLanda’s theory, I gain insight into how Beethovenstadt emerges and maintains itself.
I start this chapter directly with my examination of assemblage in relation to
Beethovenstadt, continued by a reflection on the original emergence or historical birth of place, also with DeLanda’s theory. After having discussed the initial emergence, I make a jump back to the present to analyse a quite recent component part generated by
Beethovenstadt to maintain its identity: the audio guide. DeLanda suggests that assemblages are ‘wholes whose properties emerge from the interactions between parts.’52 I analyze the interaction process between the audio guide and the user - another component part. Both the audio guide and the user are assemblages in themselves.53 Not only the production is
important in the creational process of Beethovenstadt; Cighi differentiates between Place
51 Cresswell 2011: 239-241. 52 DeLanda 2006: 5.
53 All the chapters in the audio guide relate to objects in Bonn. All elements combined create the audio guide: the
elements mutually interact, and it is in this specific constellation that the audio guide is created. For a reflection on the user as assemblage I refer to chapter 3 ‘Persons and Networks’ of Delanda 2006.
21 Construction and Place Production. A part is played by the consumers, too, they perform the construction. As Bloomhall and Spinks make clear, places are ‘transported to the past’ by their interaction or engagement with tourists.54 The audio guide is a wonderful object to
witness the construction of Beethovenstadt through interaction with a user. In this chapter I examine visual and physical aspects of the walking tour; in the next I explore the contribution of music in the guide.55 I conclude this chapter with a reflection on assemblage theory’s productivity for adding meaning to the concept of place.
Assemblage in relation to Beethovenstadt
In his assemblage theory, DeLanda treats a wide range of social entities - from persons, small communities, institutional organizations, central governments and cities to nation-states - all as assemblages constructed through very specific historical processes. The theory is based on the rudiments of Gilles Deleuze’s conception of assemblage, developed further with personal definitions, arguments and different theoretical resources.56 In his conceptualization of the city as assemblage, Colin McFarlane (2011) argues that there is a variety of ways to think of assemblage; in my analysis here, I try to work with assemblage in two senses. One position is assemblage as an approach: ‘an orientation to an object that operates as a way of thinking the social, political, economic, or cultural as a relational processuality of composition and as a methodology attuned to practice, materiality, and emergence.’57 The other position, which is not necessarily adversative to the first, is assemblage as an object, regarding Beethovenstadt as the assemblage object that results from the assemblage processes described through the approach. An assemblage is a whole not reducible to its parts, which makes it a unique singular entity. Still, it is difficult to spot Beethovenstadt as object because it is ‘always the product of a process (territorialization and in some cases coding) and it is always precarious, since other processes (deterritorialization and decoding) can destabilize it.’58 The outcome of
the processes are properties that define Beethovenstadt as unique.
54 Bloomhall & Spinks 2010: 276.
55 Due to the scope of this thesis I cannot address all chapters of the audio guide. Instead, I discuss component
parts, capacities and processes that are of interest for shedding light on the emergence process. I am aware that this does not do justice to the complexity of Beethovenstadt. In that sense I also (albeit reluctantly) contribute to the miniaturisation as discussed in the previous chapter.
56 For passages on assemblage theory, see Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari 1987: 71, 88-91, 323-37, 503-5. See
also: Gilles Deleuze and Claire Parnet 2002: 55, 69. Before publishing his assemblage theory in 2006, DeLanda reconstructed Deleuzian ontology, including the parts on the concept of assemblage, in DeLanda 2002.
57 Unfortunately there is no space here to consider McFarlane’s addition of the political: ‘assemblage as a means
of continually thinking the play between the actual and the possible’ or, to be more concrete, how Beethovenstadt as place might be otherwise. McFarlane 2011: 652-653.
22 DeLanda characterizes assemblages not only ‘by their properties but also by their
capacities, that is, by what they are capable of doing when they interact with other social entities.’59 While the properties of Beethovenstadt
… are given and may be denumerable as a closed list, its capacities are not given – they may go unexercised if no entity suitable for interaction is around – and form a potentially open list, since there is no way to tell in advance in what way a given entity [Beethovenstadt] may affect or be affected by innumerable other entities.60
It is the exercised capacities of the component parts that construct the properties of
Beethovenstadt. I think the distinction that DeLanda makes between properties and capacities of component parts and assemblages is exactly what is missing in the Place Deconstruction Model. Cighi only analyses the properties of elements and simply adds that place is greater than the sum of the elements. DeLanda’s conception, on the contrary, does reflect specifically on how place is greater than the sum of its parts. He characterizes assemblages by relations of exteriority, which implies that
… the properties of the component parts can never explain the relations which constitute a whole, that is, “relations do not have as their causes the properties of the [component parts] between which they are established …” although they may be caused by the exercise of a component’s capacities. In fact, the reason why the properties of a whole cannot be reduced to those of its parts is that they are the result not of an aggregation of the components’ own properties but of the actual exercise of their capacities.61
Thus, an important question that I need to ask for gaining insight into the emergence of place is: what are the capacities of Beethovenstadt’s component parts and the assemblage itself?
What is Beethovenstadt capable of doing when it interacts with other social entities? The idea of capacities provides interesting insight to the meaning of place in relation to other assemblages; place has capacities of its own. Assemblage enables reflection on the interaction between Beethovenstadt and Bonn, or between place and other entities. Beethovenstadt is capable of leading tourists to and function as a cultural symbol for Bonn. Beethovenstadt has the capacity to legitimize Bonn’s value. In the next chapter I examine capacities of music – a component part of Beethovenstadt - for providing the experience of existential authenticity.
The characterization of assemblages by relations of exteriority grasps how it is possible for a component part of Beethovenstadt, for instance the Beethoven monument, to stay an object in itself and at the same time to perform a part of the audio guide, of Bonn, and of Beethovenstadt: ‘a part may be detached from the whole while preserving its identity. (…) These relations imply, first of all, that a component part of an assemblage may be detached
59 DeLanda 2006: 7.
60 DeLanda 2006: 10. 61 DeLanda 2006: 11.
23 from it and plugged into a different assemblage in which its interactions are different.’62 The
given properties of the monument make sure that its identity stays the same when the component is ‘plugged’ into another assemblage. In that case its interactions, the exercised capacities, are different. This idea of relations of exteriority provides a certain autonomy to the components of Beethovenstadt, it emphasizes their self-subsistence.
Through the distinction between properties and capacities of component parts and the idea of relations of exteriority, DeLanda’s assemblage settles the problematic issueof linking the micro- and macro-level, often referred to as reductionism. Cighi also tries that but less satisfactory I think because with his model it is only possible to focus on both levels of Beethovenstadt in separation. The ‘centered perspective’ (see figure 1 in the first chapter) accounts for the micro-level as social reality, namely all kinds of elements that need to be taken into account related to individual persons in isolation from one another. In his ‘decentered perspective’ it is possible to focus on the macro-level, the idea that individual persons have internalized certain values of their society or social class that ‘their allegiance to a given social order may be taken for granted.’63
In addition to the exteriority of relations, DeLanda defines the concept of assemblage along two dimensions. One dimension or axis defines the variable roles which
Beethovenstadt’s components may play, with material - physical properties of things - and expressive - symbolic capacities and social expressions - as the two extremes. DeLanda does not reduce expressivity to language and symbols, also bodily, behavioural and other non-linguistic social expressions can be considered. The exercised capacities determine the roles of the given component. The other dimension defines variable processes in which the components become involved when they interact, with territorialisation and
deterritorialization as the two extremes. These processes ‘either stabilize the identity of an assemblage, by increasing its degree of internal homogeneity or the degree of sharpness of its boundaries, or destabilize it.’64 Boundaries refer to spatial boundaries of actual territories and internal homogeneity refers to non-spatial processes, such as excluding a certain category of people from membership and segregation. This makes me question what roles Beethovenstadt and its component parts play. What processes are they involved in? Or, to reformulate the question, which component parts are involved in processes of territorialisation and which ones play a material role? The notion of capacities makes it possible for Beethovenstadt and its
62 DeLanda 2006: 10.
63 DeLanda 2006: 5. 64 DeLanda 2006: 12.
24 component parts to be involved in both territorializing and deterritorializing processes, and to play both material and expressive roles, depending on the interaction they have with other social entities:
These roles are variable and may occur in mixtures, that is, a given component may play a mixture of material and expressive roles by exercising different sets of capacities. (…) One and the same assemblage can have components working to stabilize its identity as well as components forcing it to change or even transforming it into a different assemblage. In fact, one and the same component may participate in both processes by exercising different sets of capacities.65
DeLanda adds a third dimension characterizing assemblages, compared to Deleuze who mentions just the two that I mentioned earlier. The extra axis defines
processes in which specialized expressive media intervene, processes which consolidate and rigidify the identity of the assemblage, or, on the contrary, allow the assemblage a certain latitude for more flexible operation while benefiting from genetic or linguistic resources (processes of coding and decoding).66
Such a process can be witnessed for instance in the logo of Bonn.
In chapter 1 I already identified some specific representatives or ‘agents’ of
Beethovenstadt with Cighi’s model. Assemblage allows me to add to this that Beethovenstadt does not have a final representative: redundant causality yields the insight that place has its own causal capacities even though the assemblage must interact by means of the activity of people or representatives. Many agents – component parts – can exercise their influence for Beethovenstadt but these are not overruling power agents. Whether the causal actors are micro-components or the macro-whole can be defined if there are many equivalent
explanations of the process in question at the micro-level.67
Concerning planned changes by actors, the larger the spatial scale of a whole, the more extensive the alliances among the people involved have to be, and the more enduring their commitment to change has to be, because of the mobilization of internal resources.68 This delaying because of the complexity of Beethovenstadt and place can be witnessed in the project to replace the Beethovenhall by a new one, as mentioned in the previous chapter.
To summarize this section, the characterization of assemblages by relations of exteriority and the distinction between properties and capacities prooves productive for providing a certain autonomy to the component parts of Beethovenstadt and reflecting on the interaction between Beethovenstadt and Bonn. The definition of assemblage along three dimensions questions what roles Beethovenstadt and its component parts play. Furthermore, ‘redundant
65 DeLanda 2006: 12.
66 DeLanda 2006: 19. 67 DeLanda 2006: 36-39. 68 DeLanda 2006: 41-42.
25 causality’ yields the insight that place has its own causal capacities even though the
assemblage must interact by means of the activity of people or representatives, and
‘mobilization of internal resources’ shows how processes delay because of the complexity of Beethovenstadt as place assemblage.
On original emergence or historical birth of place
The synthesis of Beethovenstadt as assemblage, derived from the exercised capacities of its component parts, is an historical process.69 What surprised me at first read, and almost immediately as it is mentioned at the beginning of his book, is DeLanda’s statement that ‘language plays an important but not a constitutive role’ in the very specific historical process which constructs the assemblage.70 This surprised me because Cighi, on the contrary, cites Huigen and Meijering (2005): ‘a place is created when we attribute it the quality of being distinct from another location and give it a name.’71 Cighi goes so far to say that ‘[t]he first step in thinking and talking about something is to give it a name.’72 Previously I was convinced that language plays a constitutive role, marking the birth of a place, but while considering Beethovenstadt as assemblage I gradually gained the insight that DeLanda’s nuance is more accurate for this object. The word “Beethovenstadt” is not constitutive in the emergence of Beethovenstadt as place. The term is used in the nineteenth century already as a nickname for Bonn by its citizens, but construction of place needs more than a word. Of course the word plays an important role, but so also do the locations in Bonn marked as heritage, the annual event – the Beethovenfestival -, and all the objects in the Beethoven-Haus. And if you think closely about it: wouldn’t the word Beethovenstadt emerge only after the idea of Bonn being a special place because of Beethoven? Language, the new word, is a result of the social reality that already exists prior in the mind(s). Beethovenstadt emerged from the assembly of smaller entities through a specific historical process. It started with a monument, concert hall and a festival, later came the museum and the Verein, a new concert hall, and today in the audio guide and walking tours all these locations, objects and narratives are combined.
I find this remark by DeLanda about the initial emergence of assemblages important in relation to place:
69 “Historical” includes cosmological and evolutionary history, not only human history. DeLanda 2006: 3. 70 DeLanda 2006: 3.
71 Huigen and Meijering 2005: 21; cited in Cighi 2008: 88. 72 Cighi 2008: 88.
26 (…) we may acknowledge that individual actors are capable of making intentional choices, and that in some cases such intentional action leads to the creation of social institutions, while at the same time insist that the synthesis of larger social assemblages is many times achieved as the
collective unintended consequence of intentional action.73
Even though some individual actors can be indicated as having (had) intentional influence in the creation of certain Beethoven sites (e.g. Liszt for the monument), societies (e.g. Fides Krause-Brewer for the citizen initiative Bürger für Beethoven) and institutions (e.g. currently Dr. Nike Wagner for the Beethovenfest) in Bonn, I think the emerged larger social
assemblage, Beethovenstadt, is an initially collective unintended consequence. Significant changes produced as collective unintended consequences of intentional action involve slow cumulative processes of the products of repeated interactions.
Now I wonder: how long will Beethovenstadt last and is it a final assemblage? Someday the place might be a component part of an even larger assemblage, if it is not already.
Although ‘most social assemblages larger than people do tend to outlive them on average’,74 it is possible that at some point Beethovenstadt is no longer resistant to deterritorializing
processes, and then the larger assemblage, which has Beethovenstadt as a component part, might have (generated) other component parts to guarantee the maintenance of its properties. Place can disappear because of deterritorializing processes.
Generated component part: the audio guide
I ended the previous paragraph quite deterministic, however, place has the capacity to resist deterritorializing processes. Since this thesis focuses on the contemporary phenomenon of Beethovenstadt, I will not explore the specific historical process that initially gave birth to Beethovenstadt as assemblage any further. ‘[T]erritorializing processes are needed not only historically to produce the identity of assemblages at each spatial scale but also to maintain it in the presence of destabilizing processes of deterritorialization.’75 In an adjustment to the specification of assemblage theory, DeLanda makes the following observation:
73 DeLanda 2006: 24.
74 DeLanda 2006: 44.
75 ‘The first [adjustment] is a qualification of the very concept of emergence. I said above that one strategy to
avoid reifying general categories was to focus on the process of production instead of the list of properties characterizing the finished product. This is, in fact, correct, but it runs the risk of placing too much emphasis
on the historical birth of a particular assemblage, that is, on the processes behind the original emergence of its identity, at the expense of those processes which must maintain this identity between its birth and its death: no organization would be able to keep its identity without the ongoing interactions among its
administrative staff and its employees; no city could keep its identity without ongoing exchanges among its political, economic and religious organization; and no nation-state would survive without constant interactions between its capital city and its other urban centres.’ [emphasis mine] DeLanda 2006: 38-39.
