imagery of semiotics

Today we had what I found to be one of the most diverse days of the course so far. The morning consisted of familiarising ourselves with a program to sort out our referencing, different methods of referencing, and,  last but most certainly not last...what is referencing...incredible life-changing stuff, but the second had, due to Liz Wells, was an engaging, insightful and slightly inspiring period of time which I took great value from...perhaps not direct importance to my thesis, but personal importance, which is becoming more and more apparent on this course. I will try and portray its importance

take a moment and look at the image above...what can we draw from it...starting with the obvious this is an image of young boys and girls, one adult, fairly structured in lines and relatively calm, they have obviously been told to sit in their given spots and remain still, it's safe to assume that it is probably of a school class, outside their school. Short dark hair perhaps gives a European rooting, and the visible poverty and detectable undernourishment hints at a 'less well-off' area. But their faces have been taken from them...this erasement was not coincidental, there is an animosity where someone has taken the time and meticulously and surgically gone through each individual face...individual...a persons face is their most apparent physical carnation of their identity, by scratching out their face, they are scratching out their identity, viewing them as a group of anonymous beings...

This is the key photo of a piece of Irish photographer Antony Haughey's piece 'Class of '73'. The story goes that while Haughey was in Kosovo during the troubles collecting images and artefacts on the conflict, he was given this photo by a soldier who had rescued it from the rubble of the Albanian Vaso Pache Primary School in the city of Pec, the school was used by para-military groups as a base before being hit with NATO bombs and vacated. This means the photo was found by a soldier, who then took it upon himself to alter the photo in the fashion he saw fit...to cleanse it of their personalities, their identities...ethnic cleansing. There is a mesh of layers of meanings and provocations this brings up, and it is a highly emotional and effective image with limitless connotations and interpretations. It taught me that photo's may have a visual structure or framework, but hung on that framework there is a patchwork of meanings, each meaning different yet the same to everyone and no-one.

Skipping heaps and heaps of other information and presented ideas, I'm going to use an image of my own and destruct it in a similar way. In fact, I will be taking it upon myself to view all of the images I have taken and that are presented to me in a manner that looks past the composition.

Above is an image of my own. It is in no way as powerful or evocative as 'The Class of 73', but for my study it has a submerged layer of importance probably not of interest to most. 

We see an elderly man and woman, probably a couple, sitting on a wooden bench in the shade of what looks like a thatched cottage or 'vernacular' building, with some 'breath-taking' views to the right. Yet the couple don't seem overly bothered, the male seems to be looking to the right out of our shot at a tour group maybe? The woman, tired, her crossed legs and relaxed demeanour suggest impartiality. Both are holding digital cameras and are sporting fashionable 'hiking/outdoor' clothing and 'day-bags'. Tourists it seems.

This is an image I took while on my trip to Machu Pichu of an elderly couple taking a rest from their tour group after a short buss journey up steep terrain to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, and wonder of the world*. They are sitting under the eaves of a reconstruction of an Incan dwelling at the world renown site of spiritual awakening. It is known worldwide as a stunning destination, and 'somewhere to go before you die'...in this very statement lies my point. Tourism, and I would argue the majority of aspects of modern life, has evolved into a complex relationship of modernity. We think we are going to the place because of the place, to view the place, to be in the place, that we are the spectators and the place is the spectacle...not true, the very act of going and 'gazing' on the apparent 'spectacle' is in fact the honest spectacle. We do not travel the thousands of miles to be in awe of the view and mysticism, we travel all that way to 'gaze' upon ourselves in the act, we collect the image, and god forbid if the place doesn't equal or better the preconception we had of the place, then we know not to let slip "this isn't that good!", that would be social suicide, instead we fall back on that preconception of the place in our imagination instead of the actual image.

I am currently fighting with ideas in my head, and the above is what makes up one half of the conflict, the second half is my idea of the 'all-place'. Marc Augé put forward the idea of the 'non-place' in 1995, the idea that places of transience and anonymity such as airports, chain-hotels, motorways and so on are all 'non-place's, places that have no real identity or culture, places that are abstract and could be relocated anywhere in the world. However, over the last 15 years I think quite a bit has changed, including the attitude to these 'non-places', this is where my idea of 'all-place's comes into play. People are obviously travelling more than ever before, and the existence of identity-less spaces such as airports and chain-cafes are being encountered increasingly in every-day life..."space is practised place"...or something along those lines, I cant remember the exact quote for de Certeau, but basically, through the increased interaction and inhabitation of these identity-less places we are form bonds, shallow roots or identities within them. We feel comfortable in airports, and take reassurance of the appearance of a starbucks, we are turning these widely available non-places and forming an ever-more apparent 'heimat' relationship with them. Our identity is increasingly being constructed by homogenous 'all-places'.

(This piece is unapologetically NOT referenced, i've had enough referencing for a fortnight after this morning)

representational me

Bless me father, its been a couple of weeks since my last confession...I'm starting to see a trends developing in these posts, which I have observed of other blogs I have worked on, which may have something to do with the Fibonacci series or the Golden ratio...My first few posts will be in quick, enthusiastic succession, but as time passes in its linear form, the longer it takes me to update this with relevant details...in fact, I'm starting to wonder what is relevant to this anymore!

I can't quite remember where I left the last post, butI don't think I covered Kathrine's second seminar, which proved to be just as interesting and a little more insightful then her first. I definitely took away a different form of perspective on certain subjects. Looking at myself and my views on new media, I think its pretty safe to say that I might be a little old fashioned in my attitude...lets say a little more Jeremy Gould than Adam!! I still have a little of the belief that some forms of media are in fact halving spaces, and contributing to the demise of a considerable amount of 'places', and the texts I read from Katherine's prescribed list seemed to re-enforce my ideas. However I did highlight the case of a housemate of mine to the group. It is quite pretentious of me to judge, but I think/thought his lifestyle was suffering massively due to online gaming. His diet, social life and physical health all seem to take a back seat in comparison to his gaming habits. After a few over enthusiastic chats about his favourite games and a few conventions he had been too, I realised that I felt a little bit sorry for the guy...saying it does make me feel slightly 'up myself' so to speak. 

But I started to realise that he was playing the majority of time with his father...The game they were playing is an online game where you have to very careful with your trust, if you trust another player than they could rob your spaceship and all of your money, so they only trusted each other. I slowly began to realise that this was probably the only way of communicating with his dad who lives in a different country. I still can't help myself feel a little sorry for the guy, but if this is the only form of contact that they have then so be it. Maybe without this new media space in which he spends hours with his father, he wouldn't have regular contact with him at all, and it was only when Kathrine mentioned this did the reality of it hit me.

I still feel like his physical health is suffering due to his affiliation without the game, but I'm starting to see that possibly these new media spaces have a lot more benefits then I first liked to believe. Moderation is a word that I believe we don't hear enough, everything in moderation. Gaming in moderation, alcohol in moderation, exercise in moderation, food in moderation...too much of one thing and its effects are detrimental. This new media is an extremely positive thing, but in moderation. 

“Sometimes, I go without lunch so I could use my allowance to buy a pre-paid call card for my cell phone,” says Tammy Reyes, a 17-year old college student. “If I don’t receive a text when I wake up or I receive only a few messages during the day, I feel as though nobody loves me enough to remember me during the day.” (Rheingold, Smart Mobs, Cambridge, MA: Basic Books, 2002, p. 21).

This for me is exemplary of the modern day youth in many societies, if they don't receive a certain amount of texts, or a text at a certain time of day, then they don't feel loved, because to receive a text is to know that someone is thinking about you. It doesn't matter if the text says 'Hi', 'I'm bored' or '...', its the thought of someone else thinking of you that counts. I hope that the current trend of attachment to these messages doesn't persist in their emotional meaning for users, or we could be approaching a series of detrimental outcomes for not receiving the vibrating or beeping that highlights the fact that someone loves us.

Last week we had Doreen talk to us about Representation, and this was the first seminar which honestly had little to do with my interests. It was an interesting talk, and Doreen obviously is an expert in her field, but it only proved to reenforce my depressive attitude toward the current industry of architecture and its attachment to images. I don't think I can sit at the same desk, every day for a year, while my fingers grow every-more comfortable without the quick-keys of AutoCAD. The career I end up in is still in the misty horizon, and I change my mind every fortnight...Doctorate, Architectural journalist, humanitarian architect, drug smuggler......who knows...

Unfortunately, and I really do mean that, I missed both Dans's lecture which was sure to be the most interesting for me and Doreen second seminar....I am NOT happy with myself over that, but man flu and a few other ailments I don't care to share restricted me from attending, I'm still a little worse for wear, but I've found a haven in the silent study area on the second floor of the library..

In a moment, I'm hoping to make a start on my project proposal...should be fun, seen as I have no idea what my project is going to be, or even if I plan on finishing it in this academic year...I thick it's about time to get decisive.....maybe....

Mediaspaces

So today we had a seminar by Katharine Willis on digital technologies, representations and mediaspaces. Digital technologies are not something I come across in my personal research, and are something I would not have even considered impacting my thesis until today. Thats not to say I'm completely rethinking what I am doing, but the seminar wasn't what I had expected in terms of what it covered. Social media and other modern forms of communicating and interpreting are things which hugely affect our identity and sense of place, and Katharine put forward some really interesting ideas about the current situation.

To be completely honest, I am struggling to remember every area of the subject she covered, but I will just talk about the areas I found most interesting. Firstly, the way we experience space.

With the development of technology, it is quite certain that we experience space, and place, in a completely different way to those born before 1985. The internet was a fundamental part of growing up in the 90's, and today social media such as Facebook and twitter take up huge chunks of peoples lives, particularly in the teenage years. But is the production of mediaspace a positive or negative for man's need to dwell and belong?

I'm going to write what I feel about these issue at the moment, then use the coming week to read a few of the texts given to us by Katharine, then look back on my thoughts and whether they have changed.

For me, I think that in the current cyber-social generation, we are starting to shift from an active participation in 'life' to the need to validate oneself through social media...and i do believe it is a negative force...today we feel the need to 'update our status' to what we are doing or feeling at the moment, to become spectated upon, only to gain a social status within a custom circle of 'friends'. Perhaps this is a good thing, so that we have an outlet for our emotions, and so we become more social and connected to the people within our social spheres, but I cant help but think why does anyone feel the need to 'post' that they are about to take a bath, or use the toilet?! 

The internet and social media are funny things, you can be someone you are not online, you could make yourself the most social online user ever, reply to all friend requests with 'accept', write on all of your friends' walls regularly in order to hear the days gossip, 'attend' every event you have been invited to and hey, why not create your own event...but that's not to say you are not a 48 year old catholic extremist with a mission to convert or kill!! (I have no idea where that example came from, I'm sorry...) I'm going to use a slide that was in our lecture today, so gods of originality forgive me...

At my last job as an Activity Leader at EF Bournemouth, I was advised to make myself another profile, as many of the young students at the english school would add on Facebook...I complied and made myself another page, and within a month had almost 200 friends...but it felt odd, and it made me think about something...am I really what is to be seen online? If you go onto my Facebook profile and look at my info, then do you get a picture of who I am as a person? What my taste, personality and behavior is like?? I obviously have control over what is on my page, but the fact that....I don't know....I haven't illustrated that I am a racist (I'm definitely not by the way......honestly.....no, honestly...) is slightly skewing who I am, or how I am perceived to be to others...but whats the harm.......

In this current climate of updates, statuses, profiles and tweets, we look to the social networking sites to validate ourselves and our actions. If we have a good night out we feel the need to make a comment on it, then the following day make another comment before uploading the pictures and commenting on them. I went traveling and lived in Peru for a few months, however I have been asked numerous times if I even went, where I went, and why haven't I put the photos up on Facebook yet...and the simple reason is I don't feel the need to do it! If someone wants to know how it was then I'd be more than happy to give them the story and show them the pictures! This may be the anti-social side of me, and it may look like I'm all high and mighty on my gallant white steed of 'fuck-the-system-I'm-different,' but I'm really not..In fact I'm a massive hypocrite, as I am currently writing a blog to be released into the global realm of social media...and I'll probably 'share' the link with my friends on my profile...I've even just put pictures of this weekend up to share with my friends... There has to be negative connotations attached to the availability of this personal information we provide about ourselves...recently there has been a growth in the amount of people even 'checking in'...telling everyone where they are and who they are with...WHY!? Again i think it comes down to self validating oneself in an ever growing social world. However, it cannot be denied that we are becoming more and more creatures of social interactions. These sites allow for social interactions with friends from afar en mass. We can connect with peoples from all sides of the globe and share experiences, teachings and ideas on a daily basis, and I'm sure there are huge numbers of direct and indirect positives coming from this ability.

I've completely gone off on a tangent, so time to get back on track...space....space in some respects is still seen in an 'old-fashioned' Cartesian sense as a contained void with strictly geometrical limits and boundaries, but the emphasis is changing to a paradigm where representations of space are created which affect the way the space is perceived. We can 'google' a location and look at pictures, and even walk down through the street and look at the buildings al around, creating a cyber-physical meshed space in the viewers mind. I also think chartroom is a funny word...it's as if when you go 'into' the chartroom,, you are in a different spatial setting, you have just created a boundary around yourself which can only be permeated by 'leaving' the 'chartroom.' 

Katharine Willis also brought up the situation of the phone call on the train which I have never thought about until now. If there are two or more passengers on a train conducting a very loud conversation about what the are going to eat tonight then we tend to be a little annoyed, but not enough to engage in a conflict, but replace the other person with a telephone and we have a problem. People around get substantially more annoyed with this then with the social interaction of two or more people, and the only reason is that we can only hear half the conversation. We are being excluded from their social space as we cannot hear what the other has to say and this exclusion infuriates us.

I'm going to leave this post as it is for the moment. My mind is starting to blank, so I will spend tomorrow reading and researching this topic and report back before heading off to work (why did I tell you that...was it to validate myself.....).

Moving on...

It's been quite some time since I deposited anything into a relatively poor intellectual bank, but there have been some quite large developments, including a job!

As I tend to be doing far too much, I had just finished reading "Cradle to Cradle; Remaking the Way we Make Things." by William McDonough & Michael Braungart when I got a reply to an application for a placement I had put in about two weeks prior...I'm not sure if i have put anything on this blog about it...I'm guessing not. But I received an invitation to attend an interview and information day as the next step of the application. So I bought an over priced train ticket and a suit (tweed.....), and off I went. I'm not going to go into much detail, but I was fluctuating between a self confident "yeah, I can get this..." to a defeatist "fuck this, there are 5 doctorate candidates in my midst...no chance," all day long. The interview went well, I don't function particularly well under pressure, and what was worse for me was the recorded 60 second video CV...I've never blinked so much in 60 seconds in my life...

I have a (or I like to think i have a) fairly strong view on sustainability, one which I really do believe in and is best explained by Michael Pawlyn of one of my favorite practices, Exploration, so if you are reading Michael, I will do anything for a job.....ANYTHING....but take a few moments of your life and instead of creeping on friends through pictures on their social network page watch this...

TED Michael Pawlyn

I think I got my ideas through to the CEOs of Europax and Beam, as I have officially been offered a place on the program leaving January 16th for thirteen weeks. As far as I understand, I have to write myself a sustainability brief outlining what I believe in and what I would like to achieve over the 13 weeks. They then take my brief, my cv and my info to practices in Seville who will look at what I would like to achieve and then either offer me the placement and act as a host practice, or decline.

Over the past few weeks, The outcomes of this MRes have been playing on my mind, I'm really enjoying the intellectual research side of architecture but I'm starting to struggle with where I am going to be when spat out the other end with a Masters in my pocket. I think shifting the focus of my research slightly to include sustainability as well as identity and place-making might work quite well as it would improve my employment prospects and I would be able to use this placement as a study or research project...Then use my ideas of identity and globalization in Latin America, or more specifically the Amazon, as a part of....dare I say it....a possible Doctorate project.. In a perfect world, I would love to go on and study a doctorate after this, as I know my computer skills are presently not good enough to make the cut in a practice, and to be honest, after spending so long in education, I don't think I could enter into an office based job at the bottom rung of the ladder...I'm not willing to be a CAD monkey...

A Doctorate is something I WILL do in my lifetime, it's something I've wanted to achieve since primary school...I'm not even joking...is that sad? But in my mind at the moment, a PhD is....is something that i'm probably not clever enough for at the moment. Between now and the day I realize my dream, I have no idea what kind of job I could do... I've asked a few senior intellectuals how to go about getting a job with somewhere you genuinely want to work for instead of spraying CV's around Old Street in London like lead pellets from a shotgun...and I've been told take the place you want to work for, and just adjust yourself to be a perfect match for them...it might take years and years, but Architecture for Humanity, I'm coming....

architectureforhumanity.org/

Ongoing Gaza Project

Anywho, back to reality. This is a really boring post, I'll try find some pictures to brighten it up. I'm trying to bring you up to date, so I'll soldier on for now. 

At the moment I'm finding it quite hard to balance a full time job, an MRes, a (minuscule) social life and now the added need to learn Spanish and write myself a brief. I am also aware of the project proposal and 6000 word essay due in very shortly...looks like I'm going to have to give up the job! I'm going to finish this post here, go make a nice mug of chai and then back on to hopefully tell you all about Katherine Willis' seminar we had today...

The Invention of Heritage

As another subtopic of Malcolm Miles' lecture, we talked about tourism, culture, heritage and identity, all of which are more suitable to me and my interests. But for some reason, I am really struggling to think of something to put down...where to start...

I suppose I'll start with what I know. Todays tourist doesn't like to think of themselves as a "tourist," they are travelers, experiencing the strange other culture which they have traveled to...That may well be the conscious aim of the tourist, but that aim is becoming ever more easily satisfied with symbols and representations, simulacra. When the tourist visits Ireland, they want to experience that rugged Irish romanticism, the 'craic,' and the Irish tourist board realizes this. Marketing for the tourism sector (which contributes a huge percentage to the Irish economy) is geared toward the guarantee of Irishness. The tourist will be able to interact with and experience the people of Ireland first hand and engage in the culture which over 44 million Americans claim descendancy to (despite the population being less than one tenth of this figure). This leads Ireland to produce more and more tourist attractions geared toward these cultural tourists and in fact leads to the manufacturing and invention of various cultural and heritage sites. How is this any different to the invention and application of an Ireland themed amusement park in Busch Gardens, America?

This constructs a stereotypical and very unhealthy image of Ireland and it's culture, and has huge untold effects. With the aid of the Irish Tourist Board, all of these images are then reinforced in the prospectful visitors mind and eventually, upon the person's visit to Ireland, they are in fact visiting another theme park on a larger scale, Irelandland, where the attractions are littered around the country and the population are employed (more like slavery) to uphold and maintain the amusement park for the entertainment of others.

What's the difference?

As this was the topic of my BA Architecture dissertation, if you wanted to learn more about it then please go to www.stephenbrowne.co.nr and look under the dissertation tab, you'll find the full text to download, only copyright is that you have to hug at least three people in 24 hours who you wouldn't normally hug...

But this theme also runs through the policies of many tourist destinations. I visited Machu Pichu a few months back, and what I found was quite annoying and a little scary.

We spent a few days trekking, cycling and white water rafting through the pristine countryside of Peru, virtually met no no other humans until in the evenings we found small villages to stay in, and one other exception which I found absolutely brilliant and I'm sorry I didn't take a picture of it! About two hours after leaving the last town and in the midst of the jungle we met an old woman...with a stall...selling twix's and coke..insane..

But anyway, spent the days trekking, only to come into the new town of Aguas Calliantes, only recently built to accommodate for the recent surge in tourism. This place still held a little Peruvian culture, but was littered with pizzerias, Italian restaurants, cafés and tourist shops, a pretty cultureless non-place.

Machu Pichu itself was incredible. Woke at 5 and hiked up a huge jungle slope for about an hour to reach the entrance, which was littered with flatscreen tvs, picnic benches and tourist guides wielding umbrellas, another odd experience.

After eventually getting past all the payment stuff etc, we got in, and it was incredible. Such a beautiful and powerful place.

We spent hours walking around and soaking the atmosphere up, it was stunning. We hiked up to Wanu Pichu and looked down at the deserted ruins, the place was absolutely fantastic!! 

But then the tourism kicked in, 1st was this guy, so funny, we are in one of the most beautiful places on this earth, and this guy feels the need to tell his wife to turn the heating off...he also complained about the signal...

Then come the masses of tourists who waited for the shuttle bus service to start...There were thousands of them all clad in colorful raincoats and all longing to capture that famous postcard image of the site.

Just google Machu Pichu and this is what you will find;

(Interesting aside, turn picture counterclockwise and look for the face in the background) 

These tourists do not come in order to experience the atmosphere of the place, they don't come to appreciate the complex architectural and social systems that were in play, otherwise they would have been there when the atmosphere was present, sunrise, they come to collect the image, the symbol and tick off the list the taking of this photo represents...and I was one of them.

We, The People...

The past two seminars have been resided over by Malcolm Miles with his powerpoint called "When the Music's Over; Art, Museums, Austerity..?" Again,  Lefebvre was the hot topic of conversation this time, his piece "The Urban Revolution," made up part of our required reading. Again this chapter of 25 pages took well over three hours to read. I find his stuff unnecessarily complex and inaccessible, however that may be the frustrated naive teenager within me talking.

Chapter 4; Levels and Dimensions, is an extremely slippery chapter, as is most of Lefebvre's work, and coming to terms with some of the language was quite hard. As Henri Lefebvre was French, and wrote all of his pieces in his native tongue, then one has to wonder whether there is some elements lost in the translation. The translation, or any book in fact, has the same attribute as space and place, in the sense that each and every person carries with them the 'burden' of their past, all of us have experienced a different upbringing and posses alternative attitudes, experiences, intelligence and opinions, therefore, in any given 'place,' there are an infinite amount of 'spaces'...one person can enter the place, factors such as mood, weather and presences as well as the above mentioned 'burden' can alter that persons idea of the space, and create the idea of what that space is in that persons mind, which is incontrovertibly different from what another would experience... So getting back to the translation, The Urban Revolution, or "La Révolution Urbaine" was translated by Robert Bononno as late as 2003, which means 33 years passed before any non-French speaking person could read this piece. Again, you have to wonder what is lost, mixed and transfused in the conversion, even if the same translator undertook the project, there were much different forces at play thirty-three years ago. But even in the present day, I would get great satisfaction out of giving the French edition of the piece to another suitably bi-lingual and see the differences of meanings they would present. Then take into consideration another factor, possibly that the translator has an education in philosophy...architecture...anthropology...nursing? Then they themselves would see the book in different terms and adjust it accordingly. What I am trying to get to, although it may look like I'm ranting, is that The Urban Revolution may not even be what Lefebvre is trying to say, there could be some distortion of the main points going on, and how would we know the difference?

Lost in Translation??

Although it may seem like I don't believe that the translation has any validity, that is not true. I have every faith in Bononno and his intellect, and therefore believe that this is what Lefebvre was trying to get across, but I can't help but think the text must be (even slightly) more comprehensible in the original language.

But enough of that, the basis of the piece we were given to read, or what I took form the piece were two main points. The first were the levels of the city, G, M and P. G is the highest level, the Global level' 

“Power – the state as will and representation – is exercised at the global level. As will, the power of the state and the people who hold this power are associated with a political strategy or strategies. As representation, politicians have an ideologically justified political conception of space.” Lefebvre 1970

M is the 'medium level';

“Level M (mixed, mediator, or intermediary) is the specifically urban level. It is the level of the “city,” as the term is currently used. Let’s assume we can mentally withdraw from the map the city whatever is part of the global level, the state, and society – namely buildings such as ministries, prefectures, and cathedrals – and whatever depends on level P – privately owned buildings. Remaining on the map will be a built and an unbuilt domain: streets, squares, avenues, public buildings such as city halls, parish churches, schools and so on… What remains before us assumes a form that holds some relationship to the site (the immediate surroundings) and the situation (distant surroundings, global conditions)."

And P, the 'private' level, or the level of the individual;

“Level P appears (wrongly) to be somewhat more modest, even unimportant. Here only the built domain in the form of various buildings is of interest: housing primarily, including large apartment buildings, private homes both large and small, campgrounds, shantytowns.”

Lefebvre goes on to talk about what the individual levels entail and include, but the reader also has to remember that this was written in 1970...huge global and social changes have taken place which would have changed the way in which Lefebvre would have undertaken the task to identify these 'levels.' With the invention and current fixation of the internet, it means that everyone has access to the global at any given time, there are fluid interactions and interpenetrations which have developed between these 'levels,' so much so, that maybe they cannot be called 'levels any more as levels puts three separate and uncommunicating plateaus such as those in a video game.

There has been an undeniable shift in the paradigm, these 'levels' now exist in a much more fluid and interactionary way. This new development has some positive and some negative connotations, but living in a time where this mode of the three levels is all I know of, I feel like it wouldn't be right for me to comment on them. 

However, one thing has not changed in the past thirty three years, and I believe it won't change for thirty three more. That;

“It has been said many times, in keeping with Marx, that the “essence” of “man” cannot be found in the isolated individual but consists of a set of relationships or concrete (practical) social relationships. Generic man (in general) is only an abstraction.” (Lefebvre, 1970)

BackTracking continues...

10 October

Just after our second ARCH561 seminar and it was a really interesting hour and a half. Unfortunately I missed last weeks lecture with Adam Cowley-Evans, however, I met him last Wednesday to have a quick chat about what he had gone through and I got the reading/study list off of him. Both texts where quite hard and heavy reading, but I managed to get through and take a lot from them. I also watched a film on the subject and surprisingly began to link the topics of the pieces into other texts and real life scenarios I could think of.

Just a quick unrelated thing, the girl to my right in the library has one book in front of her while she creeps on some other girl called Vicky, and the book is called, "How to Think Like a Programmer"...really? thinking like a programmer...unless a programmer is some form of capitalist ninja force to suppress the population of the matrix then I think that is a slightly sad state of affairs. Oh great, and now she's eating a snickers with her mouth wide open and breathing heavily....looks like the effort of opening the wrapper really took its toll...I bet she's one of the types of people who eats that half eaten jelly bean which drops to an area of the floor that tends to gather the most hair and dust...just pick the crap of it and if you get a hair in your mouth, use it as floss...anywho...and I just say a blind guy...in the library...I suppose we have a braille section.

    Back to the seminar, although Henri Lefebvre's theories on place and space have really never taken a priority in my studies, it was very interesting. Adam had a few starting points for conversation, but after the first one, we didn’t need and prompting, the guys became entangled  in intellectual in-depth debates on the topics. There are three guys who are the prominent voices in the discussions, all of whom are intelligent guys, but I wouldn't class myself as one of those three. It may look like I have little opinion or ideas on the matters, but its the expressing them that gets me...I like to keep my ideas to myself, which is an extremely bad attribute, I think about the topic in debate, listen to others, and then make my own private judgement..this judgement tends to stay private, probably because I don't want to sound stupid...

The areas of Space and Place, and identity/ownership of the city are the main themes in Adams seminars and texts. As requested I read (I use the verb read, but thats not what I mean, I looked over the words and tried to comprehend the meanings and ideas the words present) small extracts of Henri Lefebvre and Michel De Certeau's Spatial Stories, these were tough intellectual texts in which ideas are portrayed through the use of metaphors, narratives and all other sorts of confusing english. I took quite a bit from the texts, but not as much as I did from the seminars.

Place is quite a significant theme in my research and will help form ideas and arguments in my thesis, however space has very little. It was good for me to see this abstract post-modern relationship of the two in relation to one another. I'm not going to attempt to highlight all of the things and theories I took from the past week or two, but some interesting arguments and questions have come up for me. Do we, as inhabitants of the city, have a right to the city? It is agreed that we should, but in the modern day 'real world', do we? Through sub-cultures, movements such as graffiti, and protests such as the current 'Occupy Wall Street' do we take and exercise our right to the city? There's a group that go by the name of space hijackers, who I think everyone should look up, they are awesome and I'd love to one day become part of something similar...I know Rob is interested in them too, maybe we could form a Plymouth branch..

Space Hijachers

Another group, or more like two guys and a girl, who are absolutely genius, are the 'everything is ok' guys (thats what I'm calling them) who go to areas which are debatably public/private and places of business like canary wharf and run the risk of breaching the peace by standing quietly with signs which read "everything is ok" or wielding megaphones and blaring witty comments.

Watch this video....

One thing I do find funny though, I found this out after an hour of what was debatably procrastination disguised as research, or maybe thats just what research in a field such as this is, just plain procrastination (just an aside, I saw an app called 'procrastinator' in the app store on my mac the other day...as if you need an app for it....). But a common sight among riots and groups, particularly in the current Occupy Wall Street protests and the group 'Anonymous' who have had a few well published stunts over the past two years, including protest at scientology's headquarters in East Grinstead, is the presence of the Guy Fawkes mask from Alan Moore's graphic novel. It is of course through the medium of the massive multi million dollar movie, V for Vendetta, the mask has claimed its fame and connotations... Sales of the mask are three times higher then any other mask on the market, particularly through its association with anti-establishment, anti-capitalist, anti-consumerist, anti-corperate anarchy...HOWEVER, with ever sale of the mask, the global corporation Time Warner, father company of Warner Brothers which owns all copyrights to the movie V for Vendetta, makes a considerable cut of the price...They are paying their money earned by working for whatever multinational, back into the pocket of an organization which is among the top five richest corporations in America........

I am a massive fan of the movie, and the mask though to be honest...

Another 'movement' come from the Occupy Wall Street of the present time are things like Occupy George...A graphic design firm in America who have started to print facts onto dollar bills. There is a law in America which makes in illegal to render any currency so that it cannot circulate, hence burning a dollar bill, or drawing on one is a punishable offense...but check these guys out, really cool designs, and pretty much breaking the law...but their disclaimer reads;

"LEGAL DISCLAIMER: The intent behind Occupy George is not to render any money unfit to be reissued, and in fact the hope is that all stamped money will circulate as much as possible, passing knowledge to all those who come across the bills."

I feel I may have exhausted my input for today, but I hope that this is the style of product they want for submission...and I hope whoever in the MARE522 module will correct this has a sense of humor...

BackTracking

30 September 2011

Week one has been both daunting and inspirational. Daunting in the sense that we are expected to contribute intelligent dialogue during lectures/seminars and produce a much more accomplished piece then submitted in our third year dissertation. However, it is inspiring to think that I am now one of those people pursuing a research masters, one of those people I would have counted as intelligent…

    

   I am currently studying the Masters (by research) Architecture as a full time course, and have a few ideas of themes and subjects I would like to pursue, however a recent job offer may have thrown this up in the air and I am quite unsure about where I will be this time next year.

  My third year dissertation was something I enjoyed thoroughly, and the subject areas of identity, culture, heritage and tourism all still fascinate me, although a lot has changed for me since the completion of that piece. I feel like there is a lot more to the world/my interests then just Ireland, having lived abroad in Peru, and experienced various things my outlook has broadened. Perhaps this is indeed an evolutionary step backwards from my last written piece, but I think that pursuing the Irelandland theme is not something that is going to make up a large chunk of text of my work this year, but will probably creep in at some stage. However, the recent surge in mass travel and the availability and relative price of flights to more exotic locations such as South America and South East Asia is a phenomenon that has multiplied ten fold* in the last 20-50 years…The introduction of tarmac roads and Coca-Cola have been visible evidence of the spread of globalization…

What I have in mind at the moment is a concept based on the idea of ‘The Road.’ Looking at the road that cuts into the heart of the Peruvian Amazon jungle and its effects on the vernacular. As the road started to penetrate the previously untouched jungle and indigenous peoples it brought with it the wealth and unhealth that comes with westernization. Corrigated iron replaces adobe dwellings, coca-cola replaces spring water and deep unrest replaces natural tranquility. As one progresses down the road, it can viewed as a time-line; the next village on being slightly “behind” or “primitive” in comparison to the previous village, and so forth until the road gives way to a winding path in the dense jungle….the effects of this ‘westernization’ can be viewed by taking information and observing the different villages/tribes and their habits, culture, diet, health, wealth, happiness, politics and architecture……big ideas!! 

However, I don't think I should leave behind all the cultural tourism research I have done to solely look at this developing/capitalism based study, in fact, I have a feeling I am not going to formulate my ideal question for my piece until I have read a lot more...a lot more! I'm guessing/hoping my interests will start to hone in and develop as time and texts pass...hopefully.

*actual statistic unknown, merely a figure of speech.

The Elicitation

And so it begins...to be completely honest, I really have no idea how this 'blog' will turn out. I have joined the masses of self-publicated, opinionated 'bloggers' as I believe they call themselves, the majority of which have ridiculous ideas about things they know very little about. Its like the comments left under youtube videos which can provide hours of entertainment, an acne-ridden, hormone-burdoned teenager with illusions of anonymous grandeur and moral high ground...In fact, I much more value the other half of comments which either provoke these over-reactionary douches, or simply say "cunt"...genius! But enough of the ranting...actually, in ranting on about this very subject, do I slightly undermine myself and, like the longing of 'emo' kids to be different but actually just conform to a different set of fashions, and become the very same as all the others who want to be different. Meh, who am I to judge!

Right, back to this blogging business, as I intend to use this as a method of fulfilling the journal submission for my research in the arts module, you might become annoyed, confused or frustrated with my personal opinions, me trying to sound clever and apparently mapping my thought process...I do sound like a pretentious prick, but trust, I'm not too bad in person...I hope! So I plan to update this blog weekly with architecture research ideas etc etc, but will add some photos, possibly an odd video and accurate descriptions of how massive my penis really is.


Just one of my favorite videos shown to me by one Liam Draper whom I have to contact very soon...maybe now...I remember when I watched this first in the Lobby of the Manchester Hotel...weird how you remember the most random moments...but the music in this video is one of my utmost favorite songs...Big Red Machine by Justin Vernon (of Bon Iver) and Aaron Dressner.


Last minutes with Oden


The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted.—Mark the music


(nothing like quoting Shakespeare to make yourself look intelligent and appear cultured...)


Fun's over, next post will have to be intelligent....