[Marseille Miami] Looking down on the city
Today, I begin a stroll in the heart of a scorching summer in the Marseille of happiness and show-off. That of “Wrong” happy and innocent taste of himself, that of the genuine pleasure of being idiots all together in the desires of what one imagined to be a luxurious life, when one did not yet know that it was not that, THE CLASS. At the very top of the rooftops, in the infinite abundance of food, in the gold, the noise, the swimming pools, in the Marseille Côte d’Azur and the Marseille Miami.
This will be a recurring motif in this series on show off in Marseille: an eternal and inevitable four hellish lanes of cars bar the entrance to the five stars of the Old Port.
In the unmistakable style of luxury that endlessly copies that of all cities bathed in concrete around the world, rise the seven floors in the indefinable color of the hotel. Gateway along the coast before the wealthy neighborhoods, it offers, like any place of the self-respecting bourgeoisie, a panorama from above on those who, like me, cannot afford to go there, and do not can only get dirty outside in the middle of the cars.
New and old rich come to take their picture and show the rest of the world that they have climbed Everest from the terrace.
At the top of the building, the DANTÈS SKYLOUNGE survey the center, it is the exact size so that the gaze stops before diving too far into the northern districts. Faced with a recent flowering of ROOFTOPS in the city, I read somewhere that the DANTÈS SKYLOUNGE is hiding while keeping its “CHIC & SELECT” atmosphere. The moderately chic and the semi-selected being priced by the management to find another rooftop to match their ambition. The view may be exactly the same as the one from the neighboring gardens of the Pharo, but new and old wealthy people come to take their pictures there and show the rest of the world that they have climbed Everest from the terrace. . On the roof of the small world, the metaphor of social ascent is overwhelmingly platitudinous and life more often resembles a gigantic cliche of a rich man’s dream.
To show off seems to be a cultural project that we have given ourselves collectively for some time here, and despite my sarcasm and the screaming cars below, we must admit that the slow apocalypse in progress probably does not take anything away from the honeyed cocktails and the twilight that can be seen from up there.
Like every day, strollers, scooters and passers-by rub shoulders and are irritated for their place in the food chain of the occupation of the thin sidewalk that runs along the hotel.
In the exhaust gases I dream that the velvet sofas inside tenderly welcome in turn the ass of this city and give them all the feeling of fullness and abundance that they reserve only for people from most CHICS & SELECTS of us.
And no matter how much I turn the problem around in my head, there’s no reason for us all to stay stuck down there.
To learn more about the work of Émilie Seto, her portrait dated September 2020 can be read here.