Sounds like the Mall of America: Programmed Music and the Architectonics of Commercial Space

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. University of Illinois Press and Society for Ethnomusicology are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Ethnomusicology. S hopping malls have become icons of consumer society. The prophetsof advanced capitalism-whether they be post-Marxist academics or developers-have given us the shopping mall as emblem and microcosm of this cultural epoch (see Morse 1990; Shields 1992; Karasov and Martin 1993). Visions of the shopping mall become social visions. Yet the visual bias in cultural critique tends toward the assumption that all that matters presents itself to be seen. What if we were to listen to a shopping mall instead? What could be heard?'At the Mall of America (Bloomington, Minnesota), beneath the crash of a roller coaster, the chatter of shoppers and the shuffle of feet, one hears music everywhere. Every space in the Mall is hardwired for sound. The apparatus to disseminate music is built into the Mall's infrastructure, and is managed as one of several major environmental factors. Music flows through channels parallel to those providing air, electricity and information to all areas of the Mall. "Facilities Management," the department responsible for maintaining the Mall's power supplies, temperature, and even grounds-keeping, also keeps the Mall's varied soundtracks running. Throughout the many stores and hallways, one can see the blonde circular speakers which are the programmed music industry standard. The Mall of America has three main sound systems: a set of speakers in the hallways plays background music quietly; a set of speakers hidden beneath the foliage of Camp Snoopy (the amusement park built into the Mall's atrium) broadcasts the steady singing of digital crickets; and each store is wired for sound so that it may play tapes or receive a satellite transmission. The Mall of America both presumes in its very structure and ? 1997 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois 22 This content downloaded from 130.15.241.167 on Thu, 19 Sep 2013 16:08:12 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsSounds Like the Mall of America 23 requires as part of its maintenance a continuous, nuanced, and highly orchestrated flow of music to all its parts. It is as if a sonorial circulation system keeps the Mall alive. In places like the Mall of America, music becomes a form of architecture. Rather than simply filling up an empty space, the music becomes part of the consistency of that space. The sound becomes a presence, and as that presence it becomes an essential part of the building's infrastructure. Music is a central-an architectural--part of malls and other semi-public commercial spaces throughout the country, yet for all the literature on ...

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