Urban Exploration: Traces of the Secretly Documented, Decayed, and Disused

“Modernity and Entropy” is about the gradual recognition that the industrial and urban fabric of America was falling apart in the twentieth century, as cities aged and factory production moved out of cities like Detroit to manufacturing facilities outside the US. Philadelphia photographer Vincent Feldman has portrayed the decaying structures of his city, while Detroit’s ruins have been elaborately portrayed in the work of outsiders like Andrew Moore, Marchand and Meffre, and Camilo José Vergara. The chapter examines the various techniques and strategies photographers have developed, from the high aesthetic of Moore to the documentary time-lapse imagery of Vergara. America’s love affair with urban ruins is also examined here in the “Urban Exploration” movement and in the cinematic representation of urban ruin as futuristic dystopia.

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Urban Exploration as Heritage Placemaking

Reanimating Industrial Spaces ◽

10.4324/9781315421179-10 ◽

2016 ◽

pp. 72-91

Keyword(s):

Urban Exploration

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Abandoned Environments: Producing New Systems of Value Through Urban Exploration

The Anthropology of Postindustrialism ◽

10.4324/9781315672311-14 ◽

2015 ◽

pp. 161-179

Keyword(s):

Urban Exploration

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The Foul and the Fragrant in Urban Exploration: Unpacking the Olfactory System of Leisure

International Journal of the Sociology of Leisure ◽

10.1007/s41978-019-00045-z ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. 15-36 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Kevin Peter Bingham

Keyword(s):

Olfactory System ◽

Urban Exploration

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“They Were Built to Last”: Anticonsumption and the Materiality of Waste in Obsolete Buildings

Journal of Public Policy & Marketing ◽

10.1177/0743915618810438 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 37 (2) ◽

pp. 195-212 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Stephanie Anderson ◽

Kathy Hamilton ◽

Andrea Tonner

Keyword(s):

Public Policy ◽

Impact Evaluation ◽

Policy Decision ◽

Ethnographic Study ◽

Policy Makers ◽

Systematic Assessment ◽

Urban Exploration ◽

Policy Decision Making ◽

End Stage ◽

Depth Interviews

Previous consumer research on waste has prioritized disposable and low-involvement possessions. The authors extend scholarship into the context of obsolete buildings to better engage with the complex materiality of waste and to explore the role anticonsumption plays in consumers’ valuations of end-stage consumption. This study focuses on the phenomenon of urban exploration, a subculture that seeks to discover and explore derelict buildings. Drawing on an ethnographic study including in-depth interviews, the authors reveal how anticonsumption manifests in the urban environment in terms of alternative understandings of value. In contrast to the economic valuations that often dominate public policy decision making, this study highlights the need for policy makers to consider diverse, and perhaps conflicting, value regimes. The authors propose an Obsolescence Impact Evaluation that enables a systematic assessment of the stakeholders potentially affected by redevelopment and/or demolition, differing regimes of valuation relevant to these outcomes, and potential uses of the buildings. The authors suggest various ways that public policy makers can take advantage of this tool.

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