the repellent surface of some things

I don't know where it was but I read something recently about the design of McDonalds resturants/eateries whatever. Superficially attractive , bright lights and colours etc, open and accomodating, particular for kids, the design however has a cunningly built in time limit, after the time taken to eat your meal (I think they estimate that at somewhere between 5-10mins)they transform into alienating, uncomfortable, stark, purposeless shells: hardly a place you want to hang round in - which is the point of course, the next hungry belly needs a place to eat their burger. There's a terrific balancing act involved in pulling this off, rather than considering McDonald's architecture as merely bland, perhaps it has more in common with medieval torture devices, a carefully calibrated instrument designed with great ingenuity with a single purpose in mind - that is placing subjects into a situation poised between two aggravated states of being.
Rather than physical the discomfort is existential.
Surfaces needn't be alienating it's just some are designed with that purpose in mind. The commodity space of consumption is a depthless and literally repellent surface, over which the eye is made to continually flicker across. Again the imagery of torture comes to mind, the perpetual torments of the damned, the denial of a resting place or home. The persistent circulation around invisible circuits of frustrated desire. In this sense these circuits actually eclipse vision itself, it is almost as if we become caught up in a 'blind spot' a place of 'unvision', of 'illvisability', a kind of negative zen point, Zizek's idea of drive, of properly idiotic jouissance- "no light, rather, darkness visible".

Commodity spaces have moved far beyond the function of facilitating choice and comparison, they no longer aim to enchant either, that like a good magic trick requires a certain rhythm, the ability to pause, vary tension, like a bazaar, exist as a thing of ebb and flow. In keeping with our postmodern age, of the breakdown between forms and genre, whether the manifestation is spatial or televisual makes little difference. Trying to watch this January's Superbowl was literally tortuous. The show is now more advertising opportunity than sporting contest, and a majority of Americans watch it as such. The topic of next day conversation is more likely to be a particular multi-million dollar commercial, than any particular play. It is the embodiment of a kind of extreme attention deficit disorder, because we literally are not able to become absorbed by any particular moment, lest boredom is risked or marketing moment missed. It left me a little bored but mostly radically perplexed, the whole shindig should come with a warning attached "Not for Human Consumption".

On a loosely related topic I was reading about the opening of the new Wembley, which I must admit looks very exciting, how many dashed hopes has that building been constructed to withstand, I wonder, because I'm English. After all the extra millions spent(or is it billions), worrying about sinking foundations may be least of our worries what affect further failure on the national psyche? But it's interesting to see how the architects decided on a very restricted colour scheme, the idea being the supporters will bring the atmosphere and life to the stadium. I suppose the advertising hoardings will do that too, but all the same it is a real gesture to the soul of the game at what is still called 'The Home of Football'. The building is just a container, awaiting the immaterial energies of the players and fans.