Room 5: Arcade

This second issue in the series Room 5, Arcade features reflections on female urinals and edible architecture; a consideration of scatalogical elements in the work of Kurt Schwitters; an analysis of hypothermia as a primary death fantasy; interviews with Richard Rorty and Dan Graham; an exploration of Fragonard's gravitational fantasy; essays and designs for museum architecture; and thoughts on Walter Benjamin, perspective, and the impossibility of writing. Arcade is a collection of essays, discussions, architectural design, and graphic projects that come together as disparate things and people do in an arcade*in Benjamin's arcade?*in their communal attempt to escape the conditions in the street. Drawing together work that reflects the commitment of the London Consortium to multidisciplinary research, Room 5 recognizes the need to analyze modern culture in its social context, with input and output from the human sciences, cultural policy, and cultural production.