Fourteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

This paper begins with a revised social history of Los Angeles focused on its original foundation by Spanish, Mexican, Native American, Mestizo, and African pobladores in the 17th century. Images and representations of the city will be analyzed via film and literature, with particular attention paid to the underrepresented neighborhoods that exist beyond the scope of white Los Angeles proscribed by Reyner Banham and other urban theorists throughout the 20th century. The real Los Angeles can be seen clearly through the imaginary territory of science fiction, a literary and cinematic genre that is directed towards the future, but tells us about the past. Considered simultaneously, the doubled direction of this genre can tell us much about the present and also offer a radical solution to the issues of gentrification and displacement facing artists and minority communities in Los Angeles and other cities. Through the theoretical application of conceptual architecture and early modern ideas of North African pirate republics to the dreamland of the movies, the future city of Los Angeles will be proposed as a new Utopia to be populated by voluntary prisoners. Serving as the foundation of a new Eden, it would be a place of salvation and redemption for all, offering the promise of the seizure and equitable redistribution of property and capital, radical equality in terms of individual rights, the ability to achieve sovereignty in negotiations with governments of nation/states, and absolute democracy in terms of leadership and social relations.