``Greenwich, 1 January 2000'': De-inventing the Law of Britain in a Tent

Abstract

This is an essay on what happened during January 2000 on Greenwich peninsula, London. The Millennium Dome in Greenwich, London, is read here as a site of the nomadic law of the labyrinth. At the Dome, a law of hyper-nomadics is emerging. In the Dome – a nomadic home, a temporary home quickly pitched of/for/by nomads – Britishness, I argue, is being seriously played as perpetual de-invention in a labyrinthine space, somewhere in-between the Law of Lures and the Law of Commands, in-between the Law of the Desert, the Law of the Game and the Law of Orderings. The Dome is being read here as an image/space through which New Britishness forces/forges itself to the fore, as well as an image/space that forces/forges New Britishness to force/forge itself to the fore. In this essay, ``Law'', as well as ``Semiotics'', are being used in a very broad sense. The ``Law of Britain'', i.e. that which keeps ``Britain'' apart/together, or, in other words, ``Britishness'', so I will argue, not only elusively occupies a labyrinthine space in-between said Laws (of Lures, of Commands, as well as those of the Desert, of the Game, and of Orderings), which it articulates while it nevertheless also weakens them, dissolves them. ``It'', the Law of Britain, Britishness, I will argue, also roams nomadically in-between ``spaces of belonging'' and ``spaces of becoming''. In and through the Dome, an interstitial, meridional space, ``it'' surfaced – it shaped surfaces – forming a labyrinth that articulates various nomadics, while not allowing any of these to fully emerge. This is ``its'' newness, this could be read as the Law of ``New Britain'' or ``New Britishness'': an ever-elusive labyrinthine mes(s)(h) of surfaces in-between belonging and becoming. This essay is part of an attempt at ``reading the figural'', to use Rodowick's words here. Rodowick reads Deleuze who reads Foucault – theorist of spatialization – who reads figures, such as Magritte('s). Figures are clusters of ``visibles'' and ``expressibles''. Their light and sound – ``light, sounds and shapes'', says the Millennium Dome leaflet – form imaginary spaces – ``spatial images'' – that allow for specific ``statements'' to be produced and to be read in them; which, in turn, allows for the (re)production of specific ``visibles'' and ``expressibles''. The specificity of the Dome, the spatial image of New Britain, of New Britishness, is that the Law of Britain whirls in there, in labyrinthine windings, on surfaces, somewhere in-between belonging and becoming, roaming elusively in-between statements, allowing and (re)producing myriads of specific statements, though none specifically.