Here are three maps depicting the “Advertising and Street Trade Restrictions venue restriction zone” to be set up in London during the 2012 Olympic Games. From Kosmograd:

Within this area… no advertising for brands designated as competing with those of the official Olympic sponsors will be allowed. This will be supported by preventing spectators from wearing clothing prominently displaying competing brands, or from entering the exclusion zone with unofficial snack and beverage choices. Within the Zone, the world’s biggest McDonald’s will be the only branded food outlet, and Visa will be the only payment card accepted.

The increased presence of the security state in England here dovetails with business influence to carve out a new corporate geography for the purposes of marketing. This spatial strategy is a neoliberal twist on the historic creation of colonial states administrated by businesses (consider the historic case of Rhodesia). Of course, police measures designed to restrict one form of personal expression can also just as easily restrict others, so it would hardly be surprising to see anti-corporate clothing forbidden in a similar manner to wearing the wrong brand’s clothing. Nevertheless, it seems to be an ironic twist that wearing corporate, rather than political, imagery and messaging is the expressly forbidden and subversive act within these exclusion zones.

It is through this neocolonialism at the urban scale that we see, utterly exposed, the political nature of economic practice. Corporations compete for spatial monopolies through reconfigured property arrangements, both with and without the help of the state, with purportedly fundamental liberal rights trampled on in the process.

122 Notes/ Hide

  1. scoticus reblogged this from fuckyeahcartography and added:
    what the fuck
  2. willardistall reblogged this from lifting-of-the-veil
  3. jmchau reblogged this from fuckyeahcartography
  4. ajmcspiffy reblogged this from jackspacepirate
  5. jackspacepirate reblogged this from michiganpunk
  6. michiganpunk reblogged this from mrmistofales and added:
    Yeah, sure. This is pretty shitty. But have you any idea what happened in China before the Olympics? And do you know...
  7. perchingkite13 reblogged this from andrewfm
  8. cserfeshiralababralo reblogged this from fuckyeahcartography
  9. britta1988 reblogged this from collaterlysisters and added:
    Holy shit
  10. ushishir reblogged this from fuckyeahcartography
  11. rienfleche reblogged this from andrewfm
  12. collaterlysisters reblogged this from manasobject
  13. justanotherwastedyouth reblogged this from resiststance
  14. nurenaissanceman reblogged this from fuckyeahcartography
  15. dirtyriver reblogged this from fuckyeahcartography
  16. pezski reblogged this from fuckyeahcartography
  17. lukerson reblogged this from fuckyeahcartography
  18. simonbobx reblogged this from nessusnihilator and added:
    not that I agree with the downward spiral of abject commercialism which has tainted what was originally meant to be a...
  19. nessusnihilator reblogged this from bitterchocolatestriker and added:
    CZARTAGG
  20. 124cb reblogged this from fuckyeahcartography and added:
    Beeeeautiful maps. The detail! Too bad their purpose is for evil schemes. Never heard of the terms “corporate geography”...
  21. astheshadowslovethecastle reblogged this from duskanddawn
  22. gengangere reblogged this from fuckyeahcartography and added:
    I’m not as stressed about this as the author, given that we’re yet to see how this operates de facto, but what I’m most...
  23. bitterchocolatestriker reblogged this from enabiah and added:
    ahahahahahahahahaahahahahaha fuck this WHOLE god damn planet
  24. enabiah reblogged this from infinity-on-trial
  25. kopfmeinesvaters reblogged this from devilgodabraxas

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