In reading Venice: Tourist Maze and Venice Against the Sea, it seems to me that the symbiotic and oppositional relationships of Man and Nature intersect in Venice. As Keahey documents in the later book, The analytical power of society has been put to work, drawing scientists from halfway around the world to battle the sea. This, to save a city whose survival and prosperity were achieved in no small part because of its natural surroundings. The ephemeral lagoon provided an ever-changing barrier, impossible to know except by those who lived there, effectively ensuring Venetian control over the approach to the city. Perhaps the romanticism that draws hordes of tourists to the area has some of its origin in the founding and thriving of a city in such a precarious location.

The more in-depth my study of Venice goes, the more difficult I find it to believe, on a personal level, that so many tourists continue to be drawn to this city perpetually mobbed by even increasing throngs of foreigners. Like Davis and Marvin, one can’t help but wonder “what do tourists go there to see”? As San Marco has come to be the key signifier of the terrestrial tourist experience in Venice, so too has Venice come to be the key signifier of the tourist experience on a global scale. I was particularly interested (though not entirely shocked) to learn of the incredibly low percentages of tourists that, while in Venice, choose to engage with the city’s history by attending the Galleria dell’Accademia, the Museo Correr, or even paying admission to the ducal palace. In this sense Venice, the historical seat of commercialism, has gone as far as a place can go in terms of commodifying itself. Tourists now flock there simply to be in the middle of, as Davis and Marvin put it, “the Something Big”. By adding to the masses of humanity that pass through Venice’s streets every year, the tourists are directly participating in the ever mounting value of Venice as a tourist destination. Similar to how a designer handbag is coveted not for its function but rather for its ability to grant status to its carrier, Venice is made attractive by the tourist’s desire to be considered a tourist of the world rather than for its unique heritage or simply for its cultural significance. In many ways Venice has become like the designer shops that now find their homes in the heart of the city; it too is a brand, so commodified that it too has begotten knock-offs, which do little but heighten global desire for the real thing.

While reading The Tourist Maze I became interested in the psychology of the tourist and his/her persistance in searching for a personal relationship with venice that would satisfy an image or myth of the city. Davis and Marvin describe in detail the set of annoyances, obstacles, and jams that tourists trudge through in mobs, while at the same time dreamily determined to find and frame their image of venice. The authors write,

"As anyone who has ventured out into the town's back sreets can testify, it is almost always easy to frame a camera or video shot - or just a personal memory, for that matter - that will combine some or sometimes all of the elements of "Venetianness" that allow one to say, "I'm here, I'm in Venice." This is a place where, after all, "unlike just about anywhere else on earth, the most important thing is simple physical presence."

I'm interested in the persistance and capacity for tourists to mentally block out, frame, and tint their experience in Venice to match their dreams, to convince themselves that they have some personal ownership and connection with the city.

Dangerous Waters

The discussion of Venice is not complete without the inclusion of the water. "The Tourist Maze" makes the connections between the problems caused by water in the city and the tourist who invade its sparse bits of land. The inital discussion is of the famous smelly water, which they discribe as the second most famous myth of the city only to the "fact" that the city is sinking. It is amusing to think that the same stink and muck that the tourist complain about is partial caused by them or their fellow tourist, leaving waste of all kinds behind as they shuffle from attraction to attraction. Countering the point of the actual inhabitants of the city (both temporary and permenent) causing the dirty water is the fact that for years on the terrafirma industry was dumping chemicals and waste into the lagoon and agriculture was allowing unregulated runoff directly into the water surrounding the city. In an effort to keep the lagoon acessible to residents and visitors alike, the canal dredging has been to blame for stirring up this toxic that settles over time.
An interesting relation between the water and tourist comes about in the discussion of the acqua alta and the flooding/sinking quality of the city. Interestingly that the discussion of how to "save" the city also includes a discussion of how to save it without saving it too much. A fear of changing the city so much that visitors will no longer flock to the city. The final discussion is one of modernization of a city that is attempting to stay premodern. The change from rowed to motorized boats is one of necessity and convience but yet is having a profound effect on the decay of the city. The delicate balance of land and water that has been Venice's situation since its first inhabitants seems to only escalate. Now the perdicament of maintaining the living museum while at the same time being environmentally concious and continuing its livability has become stickier than the muck that fills lagoon.

Venice against the sea, not a fair fight.

Venice Against the Sea outlines the serious weather and geologic factors that are conspiring to drown the city. Keahy delves into the factors of subsidance, the harmonizing of tide, storm, and wind, and the overarching threat of global warming as the primary threats to Venice. All of the above are mortal dangers to Venice because they are tipping the delicate balance of Venice and the Sea in the sea's favor.

On the front page of this morning's NY Time's was an article detailing the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (a U.N. body). The assessment does not bode well for Venice, flood gates or no. While the new report projected a modest rise in seas by 2100 — between 7 and 23 inches — it also concluded that seas would continue to rise, and crowded coasts retreat, for at least 1,000 years to come. In light of the immense physical forces arrayed against Venice, can the city ever believe it can win such a fight? Perhaps for a generation. Can you fight the ocean and win? Or as a Dr. Pollack asks, "Why are we fighting to save Venice". I think that is a great question to ask and something that we should discuss in class. Are we saving the art? Are we saving history? Are we saving our self confidence that our science and technology can master anything? I think it would be a great lesson illustrating the damage we are causing the planet if the ocean rose up in one 15' wave (not very big but it wouldn't take much) and washed Venice from the map. That is said a bit tongue in cheek but I'm also a little bit serious.

It was just announced that UC Berkeley was part of a team that was awarded a $500 million grant to explore alternative fuel sources. Apparently this is a big deal. $500 million dollars to figure out a way to curb carbon emmissions. Wow!!! That is sooooo much money. Well, maybe not so much when you consider that Venice is going to spend several billion just to save itself.

...but I can't wait to go.

As we continue to discuss the survival of Venice through both the onslaught of the sea and of its many tourists, I can't help but think that a basic level, the problems are the same. Of course they have different effects on the landscape and require very different approaches to 'solutions,' but both tourists and the sea are something without whom Venice, at this point in history at least, cannot live. Both threaten to overwhelm the city with their presence, and yet each are vital elements that hold an essential part of Venice's character.

Davis and Marvin highlight the long history of tourism in Venice, and the adeptness of the Venetians to tailor their customs to fit tourists needs, and maximize profits. The preservation of the character of historical Venice would not be so imperative without the desires of millions of people backing that undertaking, would they? I think of an old "Main Street America" town on the Mississippi in comparison. It is similar in size to Venice's current population, though a bit smaller. Once, it was a major port for transporting exported goods from the Midwest down through New Orleans, and for distributing goods from the South. The town is no longer necessssary for transportation, or industry, because the northern Mississippi isn't the center of trade. Because of its out-of-the-way location, the town does not attract tourists, and it slowly dies. Most residents have been there since birth, and over 50% of the population is on welfare. Of course there are a lot of factors that complicate and differentiate the two cities, but because Venice is now so dependent on tourism, I think that to construct an idea about the future of Venice, we must include the tourists, and while being critical of their activities, attempt to find the potential in the good tourists can bring. Perhaps a new perspective on the city. And at the very least, an appreciation of what is there.

In the discussion of the phenomenon of San Marco’s never ending stream of tourists, Davis and Marvin quote one such tourist: “‘Venice must be a paradise’ for the flaneur,” followed by a romantic vision of a Venetian dandy. I was struck by this notion and wondered if Baudelaire had ever visited Venice, to observe the evening promenade of the city, finding anonymity in throngs of tourists, then as now. A couple pages later, the authors respond directly to my musings, claiming “participants in the traditional Venetian liston were very different from Baudelaire’s nineteenth-century flaneur, who by definition kept an ironic distance from the social and cultural world through which he strolled, “to take part in the bustle of the city in the security of his anonymous state.” Perhaps the public promenade performed by the Italians cannot be subject to the flaneur’s intrusive and inevitably foreign gaze, by why not the tourists themselves? Davis and Marvin write that there is no chance that a tourist might “adopt the pose of the flaneur and gaze upon those around them with bemused detachment, for all they will see in San Marco is a super-saturation of tourists all very much like themselves, equally there to see this ‘must see’ place.” I question this supposed inability for visitors to act as flaneur, but have not come to a conclusion. Will we be able to detach ourselves from the famous sights, the romantic vision, in order to gaze with skepticism, with amusement, at our fellow tourists? And because we too are tourists, does that prevent us from a cultural critique of other tourists? There is no doubt that we will be able to find ourselves anonymous, one of an immense crowd, amidst the bustle of San Marco, so why not strive for an objective observation of the city, and of the tourists, who in many ways have become the local population and everyday life of Venice?