Aesthetic poverty afflicts the poor through forced embedding in cloned corporate environments

Evidence

But there are other kinds of destitution than these. As well as “physical” poverty, there is also an aesthetic poverty, evident to anyone who takes a second look at the dismal vistas of England’s hyper-corporatised high streets. While the rich have the material and cultural resources to “unplug” from the dreary banality of these cloned spaces, the poor are far more embedded in them. This embedding in tightly defined media, social and physical environments is in fact a major symptom of aesthetic poverty. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1590

The reactionary commentary on the riots has tried to downplay the idea that the rioters were deprived. The rioters had expensive smart phones and wore top-end sportswear — so how could they be poor? While this has been exaggerated — the places where the riots took hold overwhelmingly tended to be areas of poverty and unemployment — it’s true that, so far as we can tell, most of the rioters weren’t homeless or starving. But there are other kinds of destitution than these. As well as “physical” poverty, there is also an aesthetic poverty, evident to anyone who takes a second look at the dismal vistas of England’s hyper-corporatised high streets. While the rich have the material and cultural resources to “unplug” from the dreary banality of these cloned spaces, the poor are far more embedded in them. This embedding in tightly defined media, social and physical environments is in fact a major symptom of aesthetic poverty. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1590

Categorization

• DEFINE: Fisher defines ‘aesthetic poverty’ as a distinct destitution alongside physical poverty.
• XREF: Connects to the earlier chapter claim that ‘deprivation of beauty depresses bodies as surely as material lack’ (ch23). — connects to: Consumerist appropriation severs style from the social system that produces the underclass — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2862; Mass-produced imitation clothing destroyed the visual class-order of public space — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 322; Postmodern urban imagery erases class relations and production from its aestheticized surface — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 1998 (+1 more)
• SEED: An essay angle: ‘aesthetic poverty’ as a lens on enclosed public spaces, high-street clones, and who can escape into curated environments.
• DEEPTHINKING: Fisher distinguishes aesthetic poverty from physical poverty as a distinct destitution category whose defining symptom is being embedded in cloned media-social-physical environments, with the wealthy able to unplug — compact, dense, and generative.
• ADDENDUM: The notion that material goods like smartphones don’t disprove deprivation parallels the exclusion-of-voice dynamics of Fisher’s work and the anti-riot moral panic critique in his k-punk essays.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1590

Broader Connections

• Consumerist appropriation severs style from the social system that produces the underclass #expands (0.90) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2862
• Postmodern urban imagery erases class relations and production from its aestheticized surface #expands (0.88) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1998
• Mass-produced imitation clothing destroyed the visual class-order of public space #corroborates (0.85) — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 322