entropy tourism
n. Travel that features places of decay, neglect, or abandonment.
Other Forms
Examples
2017
I loved the novelty, in the Thatcher years, of striking off through the conflicted Docklands to Woolwich, Tilbury, Gravesend, as an entropy tourist with a fetish for future ruins.
—Iain Sinclair, “The Last London,” London Review of Books, March 30, 2017
2016
It’s easy and unfulfilling to just consume what other people (or nature) have already created. That’s just entropy tourism. You’re watching things wind down.
—Matt Maier, “I'm 30, Single. I have a full time IT job with good benefits. My life is boring. What can I do to make my life exciting? How can I find my passion?” (reply), Quora, July 30, 2016
2012
Smithson was fascinated by the way in which landscape is marked by man's use of it, seeing this as a wholly natural process. For him, such sites embodied the sense of collapse—of entropy—that he felt was a guiding principle of existence. Smithson would probably have been surprised to know that the phrase "entropy tourism" has been coined.
—David Ainley, “Blinded By Spectacle” (PDF), January 02, 2012
2011
One response to our stunned impotence in the face of financial meltdown, political chicanery and the creeping surveillance society, is to indulge in fugues of entropy tourism.
—Iain Sinclair, “Savage Messiah by Laura Oldfield Ford — review,” The Guardian, December 22, 2011
2011 (earliest)
—Max Nathan, “terminal beach: Entropy tourism in Orford Ness, October 2011,” Flickr, October 01, 2011
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