Today we had a live blogging session, which led me to question the value of human interaction in the age of online degrees, skype, texting and email. Communicating in the virtual world is not the same as the real world. CAD is the tool of the office, but sketching, writing and discussing are the keys to developing architectural ideas. Technology is an aid, not a replacement for the human voice and face – attending live gig or lecture is still more enjoyable than watching through the screen. Live in the real, not through robots.
Wednesday, 26 October 2011
After Theory - What Next?
Terry Eagleton’s After Theory examines the academic generation after the ‘golden age’ of cultural theory in the mid 20th century. By referring to the golden age, Eagleton is implying that the height of cultural theory has been and gone, and he mourns the missed opportunity for any exciting or significant contributions to the theoretical world since. But After Theory is not about being nostalgic, but rather it is futuristic in its outlook – provoking the reader to focus on the unsustainable present world and its failings, which still has potential, so long as we react now.
Like the Enlightenment, the golden age has transformed the way we see the world, ‘there is no going back’.[1] Yet the current generation are ignorant to what cultural theory really is, content to accept society as it is, complaining passively rather than taking the time to actively question and change. We are more interested in reading about Kate Middleton’s wedding dress, or the latest football scores than understanding EU policy changes or political Marxist theories. How many of us, dipoloma architecture students, were actually familiar with the theorists that EagIeton refers to in his opening paragraph before reading the text?
Eagleton questions education as a product impossible to define quantitively, and increasingly lacking rigorous judgement of the critique. There is an inherent short-sighted selfishness in the greed that Capitalism survives on, whereby we don’t look further than our immediate surroundings, and “it is suited to those in power that we should be able to imagine no alternative present.”[2] Life and theory have become intertwined in a distorted way - ‘The fashionable topic is the erotic body, not the famished one”.[3] Dubai survives on ex-pats coming to work and “forgetting” (or ignoring) the slavery, which is constructing the buildings they design, live, and work in. For it is Capitalist Corporate firms that have designed the most prominent buildings in Dubai’s skyline.
But this is the platinum credit card age. Capitalism runs to the core of the education system. By charging money for education, many of the most respected educational institutions, including The AA, The Ivy Leagues, and now the state-funded British Universities, run according to Capitalism. Capitalism creates it’s own kind of elitism, eliminating the human right for education - is it really a surprise that the dramatic increase in fees saw a 17% drop in Architecture (a 5 year degree without secure job prospects) applicants.[4] Higher Education is not just about buying knowledge, anyone can sit in on lectures, or have a library membership, but it is also in part about buying an affiliation with a university.[5]
The title of the opening chapter The Politics of Amnesia alludes to the fact that we have forgotten the bigger picture, a similar idea to the Badiou movie scenario. As discussed in the Badiou entry, often those in power use jargon as it is in their interest that we, as the civilians, don’t question. It is clear that many politicians hate dealing with the very constituents that put them in power, making politics an advertising game of charisma, gimmicks, graphics, and slogans, with the televised election debates, under the pretence of being there to make politics more popular, in fact made a further mockery of this marketing game. The press were more interested on the race between two brothers than the political ideologies of the Milibands. The reality is that constituents are more addicted to X Factor than Prime-Ministers Question Time. It is astonishing that people will pay to have a say on who lives in the Big Brother House, yet not bother to vote in the political elections which directly affect them, once again relating back to Badiou’s movie scenario.[6]
Politicians are so disillusioned with reality that they wonder why students would rather protest than vote, and were shocked by the summer riots.[7] Needless to say what did the protest actually achieve, other than the arrest of some of societies most educated? The government, and non-students, ignore the protests in their very own country, yet are quick to support The Arab Spring or the freeing of Ai Weiwei. “Other people’s revolutions are always more eye-catching than one’s own”[8]
In fact Eagleton only misses the “old fashioned bourgeouis values” as they were transparent. Capitalism is conceited and pretends to be open to everyone, when in fact that is not really the case. Ignorance is bliss, until it hits you back in the face, and short-sightedness has convinced us that capitalism has rid society of the class system. In fact we are still obsessed with status, only now it is money that determines class, the difference is that the class system now extends globally. Capitalism is the International Class System, thriving on the sweatshops of the poor. “Marxism did not assume that ‘Third World’ meant good and ‘First World’ bad”, but we do.[9] Governments give aid packages to poorer countries as a disguise to buy allegiance, and Western gap-year programs make a living from middle-class children paying to lay a few bricks in an ex-colonial country for the good of their CV. Ex-pats create communities abroad bringing Starbucks and McDonalds with them. Nor are exploitation and slavery dead. Dubai uses slave labour to build the Pyramids of tomorrow, suppressing the majority so that the privileged few can boast their power and wealth. Similarly, as Badiou suggested, bankers use technical jargon so that only the educated economists can understand how they are gambling with our money. Capitalism thrives on the fact that there are always losers, but cause and effect teaches us that this is not sustainable. Previously, like the ex-pats we mock in Dubai, we chose to ignore the losers. But ‘capitalism is an impeccably inclusive creed: it really doesn’t care who it exploits’, and now we are now the losers.[10]
Over referencing leads to stale, mediocre, and repetitive ideas, and the monotonous skyscrapers and pastiche architecture in the global cities of the 21st century show this in physical form. One begins to understand that Vegas, by staking the odds, and allowing anyone to play, is actually a rebellion of Capitalism. It is taking the piss with its endless money-losing games, and society content with working its way up from food to drinks. Hickey, in his comparison of criting art to the slot machines, was alluding to the same conclusion – that the majority just copy one another and do not really think. The lack of good architecture and theory is already haunting us. Eagleton is warning us to be more ambitious in our thoughts in order to make sense of what is going on around us, to develop rather than go back.
The problem of not thinking in fact goes back to the core of our education system, which has become a memory test - a student can gain a decent GCSE grades just by regurgitating information. Theory can only take us somewhere if we are passionate about thinking, using and understanding the fundamental theories of the golden age rather than preoccupying ourselves with the race for the largest bibliography.
The digital age could be the saviour of cultural theory, but only if we realise how and react on it. It has already paid part in the Arab Spring after all. The blog promotes freedom of speech, and is an addictive expression of ideas. The instant nature of blogging and commenting can potentially allow for a new kind of development and collaboration of minds. Blogging is like Vegas – you as the blogger make the rules.
[5] Noone will forget the film Good Will Hunting where Matt Damon’s character claims to learn more for free from the library than the Harvard students spending $40,000 a year.
[6] There is also irony in the fact that viewers enjoy playing Big Brother through their t.v. screens, forgetting about the CCTV society we live in.
[7] Students were largely disgrunteled that they voted for the Liberal Democrats due to a policy about not raising tuition fees, yet once in power they compromised on the policy. Equally, it is a failing of society that the summer riots occurred.
Wednesday, 19 October 2011
Freakshow Cities
Blogging is about expressing and developing opinions, and it is important to understand how opinions have been informed. So this week as we expand the roadmap and think 750, there are two more books, and another week of life-experience, to add to the discussion:
(ii) Air Guitar 'At Home in the Neon' by Dave Hickey
Hickey gives us a seductive insight into the gratification of being able to call Vegas home, whilst Davis provides us with a series of facts and figures portraying the truth behind Dubai's glamorous facade. The style of the texts are very different making it hard to draw many real comparisons between two cities that it is quite easy to feel detached from, particularly if all knowledge has been informed from the media, literature and film, rather than first hand experience. But the writing style is also significant in representing the different types of the society that our discussion embodies.
The similarity between Dubai and Vegas is that of a shared geographical landscape to which people travel to spend money. Both are located in relatively remote desert climates of unbearable heat. But context is not just physical; it is also informed by the social and historical characteristics of an area. And it is the social connotations of context that have encouraged both cities to develop different skylines, each as ridiculous as the other, and representing their conflicting values.
I have long imagined Dubai to be a kind of hell-on-earth, symbolising everything I hate about the world. But somehow it is perversely enticing to watch Dubai's growth from afar - rather like Badiou's movie scenario. From a distance the development is incredible (disgustingly pointless and unsustainable, but incredible all the same), but once you read further, delve into the facts, it is clear there are many problems with the structure of the society. Treatment of construction workers clearly breach human rights, there are tight restrictions on the press, and there is a clash of culture between western ex-pats and the more conservative laws of the region.
Vegas is transparent, advertising itself as it is, it breaks the class barrier - the only way you can be an outsider is to be underage, although this obviously didn’t affect Hickey’s childhood visions of Vegas too much. Hickey tells us how Vegas is the ultimate democracy, with a flat-line hierarchy, as "there only two rules: (1) Post the odds, and (2) Treat everyone the same". The style of his writing, in being so understandable, and rid of high academic language, also represents this.
Another interesting point in Hickey's text is his slight at the art world today, comparing slot machines to artwork - the repetitiveness of modern art is that people are not developing any real ideas or thinking anew. At what point does a piece of art stop being about enjoyment, reflection, ideas, and start being about money, and who defines the real value of a painting? And one can't help but think of Dubai trying to buy its culture, skyline and artwork when Hickey writes "Define culture! They think it is all about money, which, I always agree, is the worst way of discriminating among individuals". There was a great quote I read a few years ago from a member of SOM, who when discussing whether the Burj Dubai or Shanghai World Financial Centre would be the tallest in the world, said something along the lines of "At this point they may as well as just drop their trousers down and compare penis sizes."
Dubai shows you the game, but doesn’t allow you to take part. Its brochures will have you believe it is an open society - so open, that is, that drinking and kissing are not allowed in public places. There is a clear hierarchy from which you will always be a foreigner will never be able to climb. People go to Vegas with a common dream – to have fun. They go to Dubai to be seen, to make and spend money. Vegas is a product of the sexual revolution, whilst Dubai presents a cityscape of globalism at the height of the Capitalist boom. Dubai purposefully destroyed its nomadic culture, replacing it with a Western Capitalist nightmare.
The bright lights of Vegas - A product of the post-war 50s displaying hope and wealth
Dubai skyline: The ultimate symbol of the age of disposable income
Friday, 7 October 2011
Reviewing Life (+ Jargon)
Badiou and Meades write the same Hollywood blockbuster under different titles. Hadid struggles to put her design process into words, whilst bankers and politicians fail to communicate the financial crisis, the credit crunch, into a language that we, the majority, understand. Both architects and bankers resort to using technical jargon, of which the majority ignore and trust, as that is easier than questioning. By sitting back and allowing others to make decisions for us we have lost control of our lives, money and environment, creating a crisis. And in an age of globalisation this has become a global crisis. and decisions sitting back and letting others make the important decisions.
Terms thrown around by the media such as The Global Crisis and The Credit Crunch (with its irresistible alliteration) conjure up images of a dramatic thriller movie, encouraging us to view the world through a lens, detaching us from reality. Badiou clearly explains without the aid of any seductive terms, how the financial crisis is essentially a housing crisis, directly relating the crisis to the reader (as we all need somewhere to live).
If a picture says 1,000 words, then a building says 10 times that, and a financial crisis, well that says 3 years worth and counting. The difficulty is putting things (stuff, objects, events, the physical and the non-physical) into words that make sense, into the vocabulary of the everyday. Economics is centred around incomprehensible figures, whilst the design process is indeterminable. How to describe, in words an invisible process, or something that we may not even ourselves understand?
Above: The BBCs attempt to show us in the Eurozone debt crisis (in somewhat ridiculous) graphics. One immediately questions how the UK can own France Eur.209.9 billion if France owes the UK Eur.227 billion, surely some simple Maths could reduce this debt to a Eur.17.1 billion payment from France to the UK - a comparatively easier, though still somewhat incomprehensible, figure to understand.[1]
Freedom of speech is not freedom of understanding. By talking in jargon people select their audience. It is a problem in society that professions such as doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers, politicians, all have their own vocabulary, or jargon, encouraging others to switch-off when things become too technical, particularly when events don't appear to directly affect us.
It is all too easy to feel removed from, and so ignore what is happening elsewhere. But this makes us vulnerable when the inevitable does happen - we live in a global society, a distant crisis quickly becomes our present. Many switched-off, when the banking crisis began - lots of strange words and incomprehensible figures floating around - who had heard of Bear Stearns anyway? Our global economy, combined with our disinterest in others business, allowed the crisis hit us in the face. High unemployment rates, service cuts, job cuts...nearly all of us around the world have been affected some way. The crisis began to grab our attention, but how are we to understand a system built upon mystifying numbers and words. 3 years on how many of us really understand the problem?
We are detached from disaster in the news, watching as though it were a perverse thriller, changing channels when it all gets too much. Miners trapped in Chile, a hurricane in New York, war in Libya. But as soon as that film strikes closer to home, and you, your friends and family are lead roles, things become uncomfortable, the movie becomes reality. The summer riots in England was Meades' movie smacking us in the face. Ordinarily when being confronted by rioting one can just change channels, switch off the t.v., fold up the newspaper...essentially walk away. This time the violence was outside our windows. Our safe haven, our comfort zone, vanished. And whilst politicians and the police try to put their own spin on the events, we still don't understand why they happened.
In the built environment, our cities and buildings affect us all, but how many actually understand the architects vocabulary and intentions, the design concept? This question of understanding the vocabulary can be extended across the board to so many professions. We get bored of the jargon and just trust. It's easier to trust the people who we least understand than to question them. To trust the worlds biggest bullshitters. And it is unnerving to realise that perhaps it is they, the people we trust, the people using these strange terms, who least understand what they mean.
Hadid is famous for her competition work, but paper-architecture is the ultimate architectural jargon – architecture for architects. Who judges these competitions, how many of the general population can understand a building drawn in plan and section and displayed at the design museum. For most people, plans and sections are tools for development, not a final product.
In fact jargon can be seen as a very dangerous kind of adverting. On the one hand it makes you switch off, but on the other it fills you with a strange kind of confidence that the others must know what they are talking about. Simon Cowell used his confidence to sell the role of starring in a Pepsi commercial as a prize on X Factor USA – what an utterly ridiculous prize – normally people get paid to appear in adverts not the other way round.
This is an age where we live our lives through the computer and online profiles. Over 800 million people have a facebook account, allowing them to escape reality and lead idyllic online lives through status updates.[2] There are stories of married couples getting divorced over an affair on the game Second Life[3], and parents becoming so addicted World of Warcraft that they neglect their children, their real lives.[4] Badiou is reminding us to live our lives, not these online fantasies - “It is not the film that is the real: it is the cinema”. Surely there is more of an adrenalin rush in running around and playing football in the park than twiddling your thumbs on a control and staring at a computer screen.
Our t.v., news obsessed world has hypnotised us into seeing the world in black and white. But this is not the way the world works. Hadid struggles in clarifying her ideas, perhaps in part as a result of this. In trying to clarify her ideas she jumps from saying her work all derives from painting and pure abstraction, to the contradicting herself and saying that she attributes her inspiration to landscape, topography, sedimentology and geological patterns.
Meades describes Hadid’s apartment as encompassing the vision of who her clients want her to be. In this capitalist and confused world architects have become branded with style, a label that you must use as propaganda – Vitra is an architectural Disneyland – you have your Hadid, Gehry and Ando. It is making a joke of the profession. Buildings become physical adverts for a brand (eg. Prada store), and also for the architects.
Our global world has many problems, which, as selfish as we are, we cannot ignore. Problems elsewhere can, and will, affect us. We need to understand in order to solve and prevent, and to do so we must use the same vocabulary, between professions, and among the people. Question the jargon. Keep interrogating until you understand it. Keep interrogating until they understand it.
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