Abstract
This chapter analyses ruin porn from the perspective of the Internet, and specifically virtual online experiences. Not least where sexual pornography is so heavily associated with its experience via the Internet, as opposed to an act that occurs in ‘real’ life or even via static photographic representations, this chapter explores how ruin porn is accessed and experienced online. Online ruin porn is analysed here within the theoretical framework of virtual dark tourism. In analysing this online aspect of ruin porn, this chapter looks specifically at the case study of Chernobyl, and also assesses the limitations of online experiences, not only in terms of dark tourism more widely but also museum engagement with online and enhanced virtuality experiences as a method of measurement.
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Notes
- 1.
The reference to Chernobyl is used here a catch-all term for Chernobyl itself, the reactor, and the nearby town of Pripyat—all of which were affected by the nuclear disaster.
- 2.
Carl Lavery and Lee Hassall, “A Future for Hashima,” Performance Research 20, no. 3 (2015): 112–125.
- 3.
Richard B. Woodward, “Disaster Photography: When Is Documentary Exploitation?” Art News, June 2, 2013, www.artnews.com/2013/02/06/the-debate-over-ruin-porn/.
- 4.
Rick Poyner, “The Unspeakable Pleasure of Ruins,” Design Observer, February 18, 2012, http://designobserver.com/feature/the-unspeakable-pleasure-of-ruins/32828.
- 5.
Kate Brown in Siobhan Lyons, “Debbie Does Decay: What ‘Ruin Porn’ Tells Us About Ruins—And Porn,” The Conversation, August 18, 2015, theconversation.com/debbie-does-decay-what-ruin-porn-tells-us-about-ruins-and-porn-45776.
- 6.
Jamie Rann, “Beauty and the East: Is It Time to Kick Our Addiction to Ruin Porn?” The Calvert Journal, July 31, 2014, calvertjournal.com/features/show/6168/power-and-architecture-ruin-porn-photography-rebecca-bathory.
- 7.
Jeff Goatcher and Viv Brunsden, “Chernobyl and the Sublime Tourist,” Tourist Studies 11, no. 2 (2011): 115–116.
- 8.
Dieter Roalstraete, “On Catastrophilia,” Afterall 15 (2007): 5.
- 9.
Ganna Yankovska and Kevin Hannam, “Dark and Toxic Tourism in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone,” Current Issues in Tourism 17, no. 10 (2014): 929–939; Peggy Nelson, “Ultimate Ruin Porn,” HiLoBrow, December 17, 2010, hilobrow.com/2010/12/17/ultimate-ruin-porn/.
- 10.
Robert Sorokanich, “The Myth of an Untouched Chernobyl,” Gizmodo, January 10, 2014, www.gizmodo.co.uk/2014/10/the-myth-of-an-untouched-chernobyl/; for a more general discussion of ruins as hallowed see Melanie Joy McNaughton, “Reimagining What Images Can Achieve,” Journal of Mass Media Ethics 28, no. 2 (2013): 140–142.
- 11.
“Toxic Ruins: The Political & Economic Cost of ‘Ruin Porn’,” Australian Design Review, April 5, 2013, www.australiandesignreview.com/architecture/toxic-ruins-the-political-economic-cost-of-ruin/.
- 12.
Paul Dobraszczyk, “Petrified Ruin: Chernobyl , Pripyat and the Death of the City,” City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action 14, no. 4 (2010): 378.
- 13.
Poyner (2012).
- 14.
Philip Stone, “Dark Tourism, Heterotopias and Post-apocalyptic Places: The Case of Chernobyl,” in Dark Tourism and Place Identity: Managing and Interpreting Dark Places, eds. Leanne White and Elspeth Frew (London: Routledge, 2013), 92.
- 15.
Mike Davis, Dead Cities and Other Tales (New York: The New Press, 2002), 5.
- 16.
Darmon Richter, “What It’s Like to Spend 32 Hours in The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone,” The Bohemian Blog, September 2014, www.thebohemianblog.com/2014/09/what-its-like-to-spend-32-hours-in-the-chernobyl-exclusion-zone.html.
- 17.
Thom Davies, “A Visual Geography of Chernobyl: Double Exposure,” International Labor and Working-Class History 84 (2013): 122.
- 18.
Will Wiles, “Chernobyl: Atomic City,” Icon, March 1, 2012, www.iconeye.com/architecture/features/item/10501-chernobyl-atomic-city.
- 19.
Andrew Emil Gansky, “‘Ruin Porn’ and the Ambivalence of Decline: Andrew Moore’s Photographs of Detroit,” Photography and Culture 7, no. 2 (2014): 119–139; Max Liboiron, “The Perils of Ruin Porn: Slow Violence and the Ethics of Representation,” Discard Studies, March 23, 2015, discardstudies.com/2015/03/23/the-perils-of-ruin-porn-slow-violence-and-the-ethics-of-representation/.
- 20.
Chernobyl Gallery: chernobylgallery.com/.
- 21.
Chernobyl Gallery Facebook: www.facebook.com/ChernobylGallery/?fref=ts.
- 22.
See also: Inside Chornobyl: https://www.facebook.com/insidechernobyl/; Chernobyl and Pripyat: www.facebook.com/chernobylaccident/.
- 23.
Jeff Goatcher and Viv Brunsden, “Chernobyl and the Sublime Tourist,” Tourist Studies 11, no. 2 (2011): 115–137.
- 24.
Lewis Dartnell describes computer games as a form of ruin porn: Lewis Dartnell, “Demolish Me,” The Morning News, April 16, 2014, www.themorningnews.org/article/demolish-me.
- 25.
Don Joly, The Dark Tourist (London: Simon and Schuster, 2010), 157.
- 26.
Hilmar Schmundt, “A Day of Disaster Porn in Chernobyl,” Spiegel Online, April 25, 2016, www.spiegel.de/international/world/tourism-is-booming-in-the-chernobyl-exclusion-zone-a-1089210.html.
- 27.
3Dmap: 3dmap.by/en/detail/chernobyl/.
- 28.
Chernobyl Online: chernobyl.online/.
- 29.
Mary-Ann Russon, “Chernobyl: Helicopter Drone Captures Eerie Post-apocalyptic Video Footage of Decaying City,” International Business Times, November 28 (2014), www.ibtimes.co.uk/chernobyl-helicopter-drone-captures-eerie-post-apocalyptic-video-footage-decaying-city-1477106.
- 30.
Alex Danchev, “Big Splat: The Art of the Drone,” International Affairs 92, no. 3 (2016): 703–713; Julianne Pierce, “Josephine Starrs and Leon Dmielewski: And the Earth Signed,” Artlink 36, no. 3 (2016): 52–57.
- 31.
Chornobyl 360: www.chornobyl360.com/.
- 32.
- 33.
Emily Reynolds, “VR Tour Compares Chernobyl Before and After Disaster,” Wired, April 27, 2016, www.wired.co.uk/article/virtual-reality-tour-chernobyl-vr.
- 34.
Michelle Bentley, “Experiencing Rwanda: Understanding Mass Atrocity at Nyamata,” in Ghost Roads: Essays in Virtual Dark Tourism, ed. Kathryn McDaniel (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2018), forthcoming.
- 35.
Richard Sharpley and Philip Stone, eds., The Darker Side of Travel: The Theory and Practice of Dark Tourism (Bristol: Channel View, 2009).
- 36.
Avital Biran, Taniv Poria, and Gila Oren, “Sought Experiences at (Dark) Heritage Sites,” Annals of Tourism Research 38, no. 3 (2011): 822–823; G. J. Ashworth and Rami K. Isaac, “Have We Illuminated the Dark? Shifting Perspectives on ‘Dark’ Tourism,” Tourism Recreation Research 40, no. 3 (2015): 316–325.
- 37.
Anna Reading, “Digital Interactivity in Public Memory Institutions: The Uses of New Technologies in Holocaust Museums,” Media, Culture & Society 25, no. 1 (2003): 73.
- 38.
Ibid., 77. The reference to ‘crimes’ is difficult here as the Chernobyl disaster was not a criminal act. The same sentiment, however, applies in that her quote relates to experiencing the remains of a distressing event.
- 39.
Eve K. Sedgwick, Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity (London: Duke Press, 2003).
- 40.
Jean-Michel Dewailly, “Sustainable Tourist Space: From Reality to Virtual Reality?” Tourism Geographies 1, no. 1 (1999): 49.
- 41.
Ganna Yankovska and Kevin Hannam, “Dark and Toxic Tourism in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone,” Current Issues in Tourism 17, no. 10 (2014): 935.
- 42.
Ibid.
- 43.
Roger Cheong, “The Virtual Threat to Travel and Tourism,” Tourism Management 16, no. 6 (1995): 421.
- 44.
Sarah Johnstone, “Strange and Unsettling: My Day Trip to Chernobyl ,” The Observer, October 23, 2005, www.theguardian.com/travel/2005/oct/23/ukraine.darktourism.observerescapesection.
- 45.
Elyse Pasquale, “Terror Tourism: A Day at Chernobyl, 26 Years Later,” Huffington Post, April 26, 2012, www.huffingtonpost.com/elyse-pasquale/terror-tourism-a-day-in-chernobyl_b_1452608.html.
- 46.
Elisa Miles, “Holocaust Exhibitions On-Line: An Exploration of the Use and Potential of Virtual Space in British and American Museum Websites,” The Journal of Holocaust Education 10, no. 2 (2001): 90.
- 47.
In Ava Kofman, “Chernobyl: A Vacation Hotspot Unlike Any Other,” Vice, July 19, 2015, www.vice.com/en_se/article/chernobyl-a-vacation-hotspot-unlike-any-other-0283.
- 48.
Robert S. Bristow, “Commentary: Virtual Tourism—The Ultimate Ecotourism?” Tourism Geographies 1, no. 2 (1999): 219; Tim Gale, “Urban Beaches, Virtual World and the End of Tourism,” Mobilities 4, no. 1 (2009): 130; Kevin Hannam, Gareth Butler, and Cody Morris Paris, “Development and Key Issues in Tourism Mobilities,” Annals of Tourism Research 4 (2014): 181.
- 49.
J. S. P. Hobson and Paul Williams, “Virtual Reality and Tourism: Face or Fantasy?” Tourism Management 16, no. 6 (1995): 425.
- 50.
Richter (2014).
- 51.
Johnstone (2005).
- 52.
Dobraszczyk (2010), 372.
- 53.
Ibid., 379.
- 54.
Ibid., 380.
- 55.
In Kofman (2015).
- 56.
Joshua Taylor, “Ultra-realistic ‘Digital Sex Headsets’ Will Allow You to Enjoy a Virtual Reality Romp with Your Favourite Celebrity Crush,” Mirror, December 16, 2016, http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ultra-realistic-digital-sex-headsets-9491515.
- 57.
Will Fulton, “I Tried VR Porn in a Ces Hotel Suite, and I’ll Never Be the Same Again,” Digital Trends, January 12, 2016, www.digitaltrends.com/virtual-reality/vr-porn-at-ces/; Wheeler Winston Dixon, “Salves of Vision: The Virtual World of Ocuus Rift,” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 33, no. 6 (2016): 501–510.
- 58.
Lynne Hall, “Sex with Robots for Love Free Encounters,” Paper presented at 2nd International Congress of Love and Sex with Robots, Goldsmiths, University of London, 20–21 December (2016), 4.
- 59.
Ibid., 6
- 60.
Fred Vultee, “Finding Porn in the Ruin,” Journal of Mass Media Ethics 28, no. 2 (2013): 142–145.
- 61.
Catharine MacKinnon, “Vindication and Resistance: A Response to the Carnegie Mellon Study of Pornography in Cyberspace,” The Georgetown Law Journal 83 (1995): 1959–1967.
- 62.
David Harvey, “The Fetish of Technology: Causes and Consequences,” Macalester International 13, no. 7 (2003): 3–30.
- 63.
Jesse Fox and Jeremy N. Bailenson, “Virtual Virgins and Vamps: The Effects of Exposure to Female Characters’ Sexualized Appearance and Gaze in an Immersive Virtual Environment,” Sex Roles 61 (2009): 147–157.
- 64.
Lyons (2015).
- 65.
Daniel A. Guttentag, “Virtual Reality: Applications and Implications for Tourism,” Tourism Management 31 (2010): 642.
- 66.
Ibid., 647.
- 67.
Tony Walter, “Dark Tourism: Mediating Between the Dead and the Living,” in eds. Sharpley and Stone (2009): 44.
- 68.
Sara Arnold, “Urban Decay Photography and Film: Fetishism and the Apocalyptic Imagination,” Journal of Urban History 41, no. 2 (2015): 326.
- 69.
Petursdottir, Pora and Bjornar Olsen, “Imaging Modern Decay: The Aesthetics of Ruin Photography,” Journal of Contemporary Architecture 1, no. 1 (2014): 7–56.
- 70.
Lyons (2015).
- 71.
Annosh Chakelian, “Ruin Porn: The Art World’s Awkward Obsession with Abandoned Soviet Architecture,” New Statesman, August 24, 2001, www.newstatesman.com/culture/art-design/2016/08/ruin-porn-art-world-s-awkward-obsession-abandoned-soviet-architecture.
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Bentley, M. (2018). Immersive Ruin: Chernobyl and Virtual Decay. In: Lyons, S. (eds) Ruin Porn and the Obsession with Decay. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93390-0_10
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