And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;

The Star-Spangled Banner

Fireworks have been with Americans since our nation’s beginning and that is why

the APA will continue its work to Preserve and Promote an American Tradition!

American Pyrotechnics Association

As we approach India Point Park, in the Fox Point neighborhood of Providence’s East Side, we can hear The American Band playing a march. We are apparently late: thousands of people are already congregating on the lawn of the former port with their picnic blankets. Crowds of orderly spectators have arrived to the park since the early afternoon to find a comfortable spot, not too close to another group and with a non-obstructed view of the river to watch the main attraction of the evening: the firework display. While we wait for the sunset, the orchestra plays an, according to their website, versatile repertoire of classical, modern and traditional music. In alignment to Rhode Island’s Puritan heritage, ornaments are scarce. The patriotic decoration for this city-sanctioned and sponsored celebration (for some years it was named BankRI Independence Day Celebration) is minimal and simple: just a few red, white and blue ribbons hang from the stage. The garments of most spectators are also discrete: they dress in casual beach clothes of non-patriotic colors. Consumer fireworks and the truly American tradition of barbequing on July 4th is banned in the park, so the ambience remains quietened and orderly as people wait for the explosive/sensorial part of the celebration to begin at sunset. Meanwhile, attendees line up at the local food trucks selling lobster rolls, lemonade and cotton candy–pieces of which can be seen flying around and hanging from the branches of tall trees– or bring their own modest coolers and sip non-alcoholic drinks–since alcohol is also prohibited on the premises– and savor some home-made or local appetizers while constrained to the space marked by their picnic blankets. But, although discrete, patriotism can be heard in the repertoire of The American Band (a symphonic concert band comprised of more than 50, mostly white, adult musicians with a “long and colorful history extending back to 1837” [1]), and sensed as the ideological glue bringing together thousands of mostly white spectators that are gathered to celebrate the naissance of America (sic) in the name of freedom. Public space is occupied by the cultural ideological state apparatus, as this patriotic festivity becomes an aesthetic/sensorial interpellation (Althusser) that normalizes and celebrates power.

The site for this patriotic celebration is, unsurprisingly, a historical location not only of Providence but of the country. A couple of signs distributed through India Point Park recall the maritime and commercial history of the first Port of Providence established in 1680­; including a minor mention of slave trading: “While John Brown retained an interest in slave trading through his life, it was his involvement in the China and India trades that was the foundation of the Brown fortune.” [2] Together with his brothers Nicholas, Joseph and Moses, John was instrumental in founding Brown University, an Ivy League research university that has just recently acknowledged its historical relationship to slavery and the transatlantic slave trade, and the benefits it derived from these activities. [3] Patriotic celebrations help conceal uncomfortable narratives of racism, exploitation and violence, though the insertion of festive sensorial memories in citizens’ psyches. Public festivities re-signify public space and reaffirm official/hegemonic narratives of power, while negating the critical unveiling of silenced/marginalized narratives connected to those same spaces. India Point Park and the former Port of Providence are located on unceded Narraganset land, that, according to official narratives, was gifted or bought–but indeed looted– by Roger Williams, founding father of Rhode Island, in his quest for freedom of conscience. In 1636, after his expulsion from Massachusetts, Williams arrived to the Narraganset Bay and established the Colony (afterwards renamed U.S. State) of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (emphasis is mine).  In UpriseRI’s website, Michael Simpson reminds us that “[…] the word [plantations] represents not only a deep involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, but also an earlier history of Indigenous land theft and enslavement [...] The plantations of Providence Plantations were built by settlers on stolen Indigenous land with the wealth made from profits of sales of enslaved Indigenous people.” [4] The 4th of July festivity at India Point Park inserts an uncritical and sensorial interpellation of freedom, national unity and patriotism in public space to purposedly obstruct the unveiling of the territory’s counterhegemonic/silenced narratives.

The smell of grilled meat is overwhelming at Chicago’s lakefront. Avid grillers wanting to secure a fixed grill for their 4th of July feast have ventured since the early morning to the many parks spread along the 18.5-mile Lakefront Trail, or further South in the Hyde Park area, to get a hold of the best location they can find, next to the lake, to watch the firework display that will launch from Navy Pier around 9.30pm. Others join in the afternoon bringing their own barbecue grills, and more meat, burger patties, guacamole and corn, accompanied by large coolers filled with beer and other refreshments. Tents, folding chairs and picnic blankets get dispersed along miles of lawn, giving each group of people enough space to expand their gathering without intruding other parties. The coal gets ignited pretty early and the celebration begins with the first hissing sound of a beer can opening. The summer heat mixes with the heat emanating from the grills; a diverse array of music coming from portable speakers adds an aural dimension to the intense and mouth-watering olfactory experience. As the afternoon goes by and stomachs get filled with food and senses altered with alcohol and cannabis, the volume of the conversations amongst a fairly diverse crowd–diversity varying depending on the location of the park– escalates, while some dance, play or sing. Some consumer fireworks can be heard, seen, sensed and smelled in the parks next to the lake, although the sale, possession, and use of all consumer fireworks is prohibited in Illinois through the Pyrotechnic Use Act, and its violation can result in up to 1 year in prison and a $2500 fine. But on the 4th of July there seems to be an implicit tolerance regarding the use of consumer fireworks, and a short trip across the state’s borders, either to the North, with Wisconsin, or to the South, with Indiana, stocks the Illinois pyro-fan audience for the evening. Firework stores with fitting names such as TNT, Uncle Sam, Crazy Joe’s and the Phantom emporium are conveniently located along the highway, selling different kinds of sparklers, firecrackers, bottle and skyrockets, and roman candles, that with their sparks, explosions, whistling sounds and danger, add sensorial (visual, aural, olfactory) components and some excitement to the celebration at the lakefront.

The Mexican and Latinx communities of Chicago take full advantage of the permissiveness of this holiday: after the official firework spectacles are over all kinds of consumer fireworks, including the more expensive and more spectacular cakes (very similar but smaller than the aerial fireworks used in professional displays), can conspicuously and loudly be heard in Pilsen and Little Village, the iconic Mexican neighborhoods of the city, where the smell of gunpowder fills the evening. The 4th of July celebration represents an opportunity for migrants from Mexico and other countries in Latin America with strong pyrotechnic traditions to, through the momentary liberation of their contained sensorium–the release of self-control induced by their many times precarious legal status– feel at home while in diaspora, while simultaneously integrating into the American culture by observing its most important patriotic celebration. In an apparent but also sincere celebration of the American Independence Day, they detonate fireworks in honor of their patron saints and in a nostalgic remembrance of the pyrotechnic traditions and popular celebrations of their towns. This phenomenon echoes the aesthetic concealment of deities and rituals performed by Indigenous populations of Mesoamerica underneath the imposed Catholic representations of saints, open air masses and catechizing theatre, and the consequent syncretism of both religions and world-views.

Fireworks came to be a central component of Independence Day celebrations in the United States since its first iteration in Philadelphia in 1777, the midst of the Revolutionary War, and continue to be so in every sanctioned and non-sanctioned 4th of July festivity in the country. The spectacular and sensorial character of aerial pyrotechnics, though moderated and controlled, is fundamental in the re-signification of public space, in the reaffirmation of American values, and in the celebration of American institutions (such as the army and the navy) that takes place in this patriotic celebration.

At exactly 9pm Providence time, the attention grabber, one single mortar shell, is detonated from the barge installed at the meeting point of the Providence River and the Seekonk River. The eager spectators at India Point Park, after hearing the first explosion on the ground, immediately and simultaneously turn their heads to the sky to watch the first 1.3G explosive shell expand into a red globe-shaped peony, and shout at unisonous to inaugurate the firework display that they’ve been expecting for several hours. At 9.30pm Chicago time, a similar occurrence takes place at Navy Pier, and even the most distracted (and drunk) spectator at the lakefront parks turns their head to the aerial spectacle detonated by Melrose Pyrotechnics–the company that is responsible for 50 firework displays at Navy Pier per year– from a barge on the lake, while they cheer and shout as the first bomb shell turns into comets that split into stars with tails. The spectacle at San Diego Bay is even more impressive: its four barges shoot fireworks simultaneously, splitting the attention and enhancing the sensorial input of the spectators, who can incorporate an additional aural component to their sensorial experience by syntonizing on their radios the music broadcast to which the pyrotechnics are choreographed, turning the spectacle into a pyro-musical.

These 17 to 20 minutes fireworks extravaganzas alternate multi-shot items–that create the rhythmic base of the spectacle by firing a set of identical fireworks one after the other creating a pattern (such as comets that trace parallel lines of light from the ground to the sky, and mines that open up in a fan-like design)– with single mortar shells that open up into concentric intricate patterns in a succession of colorful solo performances that fill up the sky and the ambience with their delayed sound. Aerial shells with quasi-poetic names that describe their similarities to plants and astronomical objects (comets, chrysanthemums, peonys, willows, etc.) alternate, creating distinct and colorful designs on the sky. The variation in the velocity of their occurrences creates in-crescendo and decrescendo rhythms marked by flickers and flashes, bursts of stars, downward cascades of lights, bright glows and sparks. Red, white and blue are, of course, the predominant colors, but other hues also appear in the sky as the spectacle reaches its climax. The audience’s attention is fully concentrated above: the sky is grasped by the cultural ideological state apparatus as the patriotic celebration’s use of public space expands upwards as the evening progresses. This upright use of public space, the gaze and bodily gestures provoked by it, and its grandiloquent implication/impression on the audience, can be compared to the rising of flags during other patriotic events, and also to the experience/view of vertical (phallic) monuments that celebrate power, such as obelisks and elevated depictions of national heroes.

Firework displays are highly controlled computerized spectacles in which the pyrotechnics are detonated by electric matches (or e-matches) “triggered remotely from controllers called electronic firing panels, which have banks of switches assigned either to individual pyrotechnics or batches to be fired simultaneously. The more advanced panels run automatically from computer code” [5] while shooters supervise or shoot some of the fireworks manually. A precise and calculated sensorial spectacle in which the audience–including on boats­– is separated from the performance by a safety clear zone of at least 1000 feet measured from the barges. These and other safety measures give the spectators a sense of ease despite the fact that they are witnessing the detonation of highly explosive and dangerous materials. The vast distance from the site of the detonation of the fireworks provokes a radical separation between the materiality of the pyrotechnics and their aural and visual expressions. The show becomes (as its name indicates) a display: an almost two-dimensional audiovisual spectacle that emulates an expanded cinema screen, removed from the corporeal, vibrating and intense experience of explosions. The omnipresence of electronic devices (phones, iPads, cameras) documenting the spectacle conforms an additional layer of sensorially detached miniature replicating displays. This separation waters-down the sensorial aspect of pyrotechnics but preserves the aesthetic grandeur and potent symbolism of the show. The mediated patriotic experience, powerful and impressive but extremely controlled, elicits, from most of the spectators, a disciplined attitude: an attentive and orderly appreciation mirrored in the non-invasive and self-restrictive distribution of public space delimited by picnic blankets and tents. Some shouts can be heard, but the aesthetic experience of the audience is mostly silent, contemplative and almost reverential: thousands of docile bodies conform to a “blindly functioning apparatus of self-control […] instilled […] as an automatism” [6] that self-regulates conduct and affect in public space.

One last decrescendo usually marks the preparation for the spectacular finale: when several multi-shot pyrotechnics are triggered at once, together with as many single mortar shells as possible. The finale usually lasts a few minutes, ending on a strong note. Then silence; then the cheers and claps of the satisfied audience that immediately starts picking up their picnic blankets, foldable chairs, and coolers to head back home. The celebration is over as scheduled.

Only a few non-constrained attendees stay behind or head to other locations to continue the sensorial experience with some illegal firework detonations. Renegade afterhours firework demonstrations in every major city of the country push the limits of the 4th of July celebration by rebelling against the capitalist regulation of the relations of time and bodies (Foucault), and, more importantly, against the civilizing internalization of state control and the machinery of power that translates in the control of oneself (Elias), in the self-control of the sensorium that characterizes most pyrotechnic displays in the USA.

But dealing with explosives has an imminent risk, and the command of the situation can crash in seconds. In 2012, the Big Bay Boom fireworks show at San Diego Bay–the largest annual event in the western United States with 300,000 to 500,000 attendees– went awry. This twice patriotic event that celebrates the nation’s independence while supporting the military (funds raised from the show are donated to the “San Diego Armed Services YMCA’s family service programs for our military families including our wounded warriors at Balboa Naval Hospital” [7]), turned into a colossal fiasco when the 7,000 fireworks (about $400,000) intended for a 17-minute display, discharged prematurely and simultaneously from all four barges and the entire cache exploded in less than a minute [8]. The accident’s video documentation went viral. The safety clear zone was effective in preventing accidents but the apparent two-dimensionality of the spectacle/display/screen was broken and the audience, not only witnessed an overwhelming and almost psychedelic light and sound show, but was forced to experience fireworks corporeally and viscerally. The sky burnt for a few seconds and a new sensorial experience was revealed to the incredulous spectators, who cheered and shouted. But, despite the highly sensorial character of the 2012 incident, “San Diego remained true to its mellow reputation [and] there was no overt anger, even among those who had staked out a vantage point for hours.” [9] Self-control remained in place in California’s military capital: San Diego has the nation's second largest concentration of military active personnel, and is also home to the world's busiest and most surveilled land border crossing. The soldier, trained and disciplined, is the docile body per excellence; the migrant, attempts to assimilate and go unnoticed, trying to become part of the “disciplined mass, of the docile, useful troop […]” [10] The meticulous control of civilized docile bodies and their codification over time, space, and movement, coerces their sensorium; self-control is achieved, in part, by a numbing of the senses.

© 2023

[1] “Mayor Elorza…,” City of Providence. [emphasis is mine]

[2] Taken from one of the signs at India Point Park

[3] Rappleye. Sons of Providence.

[4] Simpson, “What does Rhode…”

[5] Mitchell. “How do computer-controlled…”

[6] Elias. The Civilizing… 367-368

[7] “The Big Bay Boom…”

[8] Perry, "Big Bay Bust"

[9] Idem.

[10]Foucault. Discipline … 168

Bibliography

Althusser, Louis. Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, New Left Books: New York, 1971.

Illinois General Assembly. (425 ILCS 35/) Pyrotechnic Use Act.

https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=1635&ChapAct=425%26nbsp%3bILCS%26nbsp%3b35/&ChapterID=38&ChapterName=FIRE+SAFETY&ActName=Pyrotechnic+Use+Act.

“Mayor Elorza Invites Providence Residents to Celebrate Fourth of July,” City of Providence website, June 27, 2019. https://www.providenceri.gov/mayor-elorza-invites-providence-residents-celebrate-fourth-july-4/

Mitchell, Gareth. “How do computer-controlled firework displays work?” BBC Science Focus Magazine. https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/how-do-computer-controlled-firework-displays-work/

Elias, Norbert. The Civilizing Process. Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations, Blackwell Publishing, Malden/Oxford/Carlton: 1994

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison, Random House: NYC, 1975.

Perry, Tony, "Big Bay Bust". Los Angeles Times, July 6, 2012. https://www.latimes.com/local/la-xpm-2012-jul-06-la-me-fireworks-bust-20120706-story.html

Rappleye, Charles. Sons of Providence. The Brown Brothers, the Slave Trade, and the American Revolution. Simon & Schuster: NYC, 2007 consulted at https://library.brown.edu/create/firstreading2012/browns-legacy-of-slavery/

Simpson, J Michael. “What does Rhode Island and Providence Plantations have to do with slavery? – Everything,” UpriseRI, October 26, 2020, https://upriseri.com/2020-10-26-michael-j-simpson/

“The Big Bay Boom a Study of its Economic Impact,” Port of San Diego Big Bay Boom. An Independence Day Spectacular.  https://bigbayboom.com/donate/benefits/