This photo sums up my discussion this year. It became apart of my movie in the group discussion of Screened Out.

Richard Rorty and Globalization, the poetics of identity and social hope

Well, Richard Rorty and me and a bone to pick. First of all, I do believe that in our society we are moving towards a trend of distinct social classes. However, I disagree on the reasoning. I believe that a major reason why people end up the way they do is because of the family and social class that they originally had when they where first starting out as children. I think that learned behavior is a very influential thing that molds human behaviors. I don't feel however that your are necessarily stuck in these social molds. I feel that it is our cultures fault that we are moving towards these two distinct social classes, but I disagree on the "standardization" of the two behaviors of the classes. Our society generally teaches us that we just need to take what we have. I disagree with this. Most people feel that because they don't have money or rich parents, they cannot be successful. I disagree. After reading alot of Carl Rogers writings on the humanist perspective I believe in Maslow's theory of self actualization. I believe that everyone has it inside of them to be the best that they can be. However if you have grown up in a home that has taught you that you aren't smart, rich or powerful enough to get what you want, you won't. If you believe it, its true. The only thing stopping people from being rich and successful is themselves. I really believe that you can have anything you want, you just have to work hard enough for it. To say that you are stuck in into one class is simply giving up.

Richard Rorty and Globalization, the poetics of identity and social hope

I also disagree with Rorty’s standardization of behavior for the poor or the rich. I don’t think it is fair to say that a certain class have behaved a certain way to get where they are. It is probably a combination of things like family connections, luck, in some cases hard work and I am sure some are where they are because of greed. To me saying the two go hand in hand is like saying that I have blonde hair because I speak English. It just doesn’t go hand in hand. Take for example family connections. Many people are born into money and haven’t done anything wrong to be in the social class that they are. Say Rorty is right about that family and they robed and cheated someone to be rich. The child will see this behavior but they don’t have to model it. Everyone gets to make a decision for themselves how they will behave. I almost see his statement as a form of discrimination. I may be misinterpreting his meaning, but I am pretty sure this is what he has said. Members of this blog have also commented on his opinion and I feel that they have the same feelings.

Globalization Arjun Appadurai

This is in response to Lorna and Laura’s discussion of sight vs hearing. I would way rather loose my hearing then my sight. I think above all else, everything that we remember is mostly done because we see things and then interpret them to formulate some sort of knowledge about space. I would way rather not hear and see, and that way I could interpret the things going on around me and make sense of it myself. If I was to choose to loose my sight, I would then rely on other peoples opinions of the world around me and let them form my reality. This actually reminds me of the encoding, decoding article. It would seem to me like blindness is like the media, filtering away and letting us only understand a directional sort of knowledge. My mother is blind, however she doesn’t seem to conform to what everyone one else seems to tell he about society. She therefore disproves my point but I do think it is because she has chosen to question the world around her. She seems to need to experience and explore on her own to fully understand the concept of something. However things like perspective and depth have absolutely no meaning or hit any understanding. She does however rely on me and others to tell her if something is beautiful, if something is dark, light scary or safe. To me, I feel bad interpreting her world for her. It is almost selfish sometimes. I think living with someone who has no sight I would definitely choose to loose my hearing, that is if I had to choose.

Globalization Arjun Appaduarai

In discussing globalization, I would like to bring up the topic of origin. How did this globalization begin? I feel it began with travel. Without the spread of people into different cultures and spaces we would never know what other cultures and societies are like. Travel has made us well aware of the world around us. It is with travel that technology has formed. The spread and consequent sharing of technology has began to quickly enhance the rate at which we can communicate with other cultures. It is this communication that has given us the opportunity to experience what other people are like. Globalization I feel is then a result of the influence of these exchanges between cultures. One society may be doing better then another and so they choose to conform to the others way of living. I feel that the power to impose ones culture on another is also a cause. Everyone has the desire to be the best they can be, and so in a global discussion, countries want to be the most powerful, rich and largest societies. Is this a good thing? I actually think that this disjuncture that Appaduarai speaks about is a very positive thing. It is what separates and creates difference in the world. I personally don’t ever want to see a global culture come into full force. I find that this global culture would be a result of countries and cultures subsequent death and surrender. How is it that anyone is willing to let this happen?

In the place of the public: observations of a traveler by Martha Rosler

Roseler’s discussion of the boring airport (boring in the sense that it is strictly a science an not an art) seems to bring up questions about the present state of affairs in our world. Roslers description of these airports being some sort of an expression of engineering and absent of architecture almost seems somewhat appropriate. However most people will disagree with me, I like to see a very scientific, stable, safe environment before I fly. I am quite anxious of flying, as most people who have traveled with me know. It’s not that I think that humans are to stupid to create something that can fly, its that I think humans aren’t smart enough to create something perfect. I am anxious of dying in a plane crash and it calms me when I see a strong structure that evokes nothing but stability. I know that almost noone will agree with me but in my own world, airports would so be scientific and engineered it would be a beautiful architecture to me. I would design an airport and exaggerate all the ideals that I associate with strength and power and security. I know that that probably sounds no fun, but in today culture of people thinking its appropriate to hijack planes and kill everyone, what’s wrong with an exaggerated sense of security, even if it has nothing to do with the actual plane ride itself.

In the place of the public: observations of a traveler by Martha Rosler

Every time I fly I am so amazed by two things, first that I am actually still alive and second that I am in a completely different place in such a short amount of time. It boggles my mind to think that I am somewhere so different on the planet. I guess it is so much weirder for me because I never got to experience the actual space in-between the two cities. I just was in one city and then I automatically arrived in another. I think it is this disjunction of understanding that makes us so amazed at flight. I have actually considered the fact that this whole idea of earth is an elaborate ruse. What if there is no Europe that far away? You have no way of knowing unless you boat there! You rely on what it is your told. However paranoid that may sound its true. I don’t fully know that I arrived in Mexico, or Hollywood or anywhere, I trust that I was taken to this place that is pointed out to me on the map. Actually I trust the maker of these maps. Obviously this isn’t true but an interesting thought.

Paul Virillio The overexposed City

Virillo's article also made me think about city as a geographical space. A historical city as we know it is so obviously different from what we have today. But the thing I was drawn to think about is the city as a measureable place. How big is the city you live in? The city seems to be a certain size based on how much space it physically takes up. However when I think about my definition of a city. I begin to think about what connects the city, what helps the city to grow and function. Isn't the internet apart of the city? Do computers not run most everything that we do? Everyday some many phone calls are made that we can barely keep up with all of them. These phone calls exist in a wave of there own. We cannot occupy any of this space, but it is a space that makes up our city. Should we not then include the space these take up into our calculation of city? I guess the idea of city is a subjective term. A city could fit into a small block but the virtual space that occurs along side the physical could be quite large. How we begin to rethink our definitions of city, size, boundaries and geography?

Paul Virillio The overexposed city

After reading Paul Virillio's article, I was instantly reminded of my first semesters studio project. I was studying seams, specifically the seam between reality and virtual reality. I was constantly reminded to play with this boundary and expolore the potentials that it could provide my project. What I found most interesting was this contrast between these two worlds. My major study was to investigate if it would be possible to blurr the line between the two. I think Virillo discusses the idea of the two as separate things but doesn't deeply discuss the blurring of the two. If you think about it, life is a mixed recipe of many different types of realities. My computer screen showing me typing words in a space that I cannot occupy, my cell phone carrying my voice through a world I also can never go. And even more interesting might be the switch from reality to virtual reality and back again to reality. An example would be talking on a video phone. Your world, the reality your in, looking into a virtual world, the video screen and the world revealed to you that is someone elses reality.

[tran] sexuality

“once the orgy was over sexual liberation could be seen to have had the effect of leaving everyone searching for their gender, their sexual and gender identity, with fewer and fewer possible answers…”

Amongst layers of discussion, Baudrillard begins to define a unique recognition of sexuality while simultaneously entailing its deceiving influence on the culture that surrounds it. Entering the 21st century, our perception as we know it has been forcefully constructed to value perfected ideals, material objects, canning reputations, infamous popularity, altered appearances, symbolic standards and most importantly dictated images. Not only is this an image of self as a natural object, but more so a sexual object; where sex is no longer skin deep, but silicone deep and individuality is of the least importance. Could it be these prized objectives that have led our civilization to an inclusive, transsexual gender? One that is dictated or unconsciously forced upon us, one that transforms us into flawless extensions of our natural essence and prescribes our every move. We, as hybrids are no longer received by what’s on the inside, but rather judged for what’s revealed on the outside.

Where is this incurred obsession derived from? What is the root beneath our obscured values, contrived desires and scandalous perceptions?

Essentially there is only one dictator, the media. A medium that is responsible for controlling all aspects of our life from what we see, to what we believe, to whom we are, to what we should be and how we should act and think, what we should look like, how we should dress and even whom we should idolize. As an extension of the American dream we are taught never to settle, primarily because our technological state is on a continuous incline, but satisfaction is no longer the cute house and white picket fence. We as transsexuals now require endless fulfillment, the newest trends, hottest accessories, most expensive cars, biggest homes and perfected appearances in order to be seemingly happy. Familiarity with the expression “keeping up with the Jones” invokes us to believe that our society is no longer contrived on that, so instead you better blow those Jones out of the water to get any sort recognition as far as were concerned.

In collation with the media’s influence over our values and identity, it begins to illustrate the power that celebrities and pop culture play into this twisted, yet fragile scenario. Through the eyes of a transsexual, celebrities are placed upon a pedestal and with this elevation it provokes beings to observe, analyze and evaluate their every move. Why is it that we aspire to be like someone else, someone that we don’t even know? Aside from what the media portrays, who’s to say that established individual is any better than you? Who are you? Who am I and what have we become?

We are so unsure of what’s real anymore and we couldn’t even begin to guess what’s fake. The delineated line once separating the two becomes more distorted with each day and the only guarantee is that the industry supporting this lifestyle will continue to live on.

doing the laundry and the end of history

Jean Baudrilard_Screened Out

Throughout his writings, Baudrillard notes that a loss of reality afflicts much of contemporary culture; most certainly western contemporary culture. What is interesting is his extension of this observation into the realm of history and the historical record. It is fitting that much of Baudrillard’s writing in Screened Out with regards to history occurs in the final decade of the twentieth century leading up to the year 2000; that new millennium and a ‘new beginning’ for history itself. It is within this context that Baudrillard comments upon the phenomenon of revivalism, of what he saw as the societal vogue for collective revivalism which had arisen in the latter stages of the twentieth century; a “collective hallucination” occurring around topics, ideologies, and events such as the Cold War, Hiroshima, Nazism, Fascism, the holocaust, nuclear warfare, freedom, human rights, etc.

According to Baudrillard, through the revival of its past, society would be able to whitewash its modern history; to take up the momentous historical events of the twentieth century and launder them, cleansing its collective memory of them in a way; cleaning up the historical record via a sort of generalized cultural amnesty. Through a societal process centered around a compulsion to relive history, a compulsion driven by the “profound sense of guilt at not having been there,” and the associated enthusiastic work of mourning for and of the significant events of the twentieth century, everything that had taken place in this century was in effect given a face-lift in an act of cultural repentance. This gigantic process of historical revisionism, in the mind of Baudrillard, was a mechanism of self-defense, the self-defense of a society which had disappeared from the political and historical scene and was thus incapable of generating its own history. Consequently, it was this society which resorted to a systematic re-hashing of history to “prove its own existence, and to prove to its own crimes.”

Historical revisionism, then, was a search for post-mortem truths within history. Problem being, that this search was occurring at a point in time when there was, quite simply, not enough truth around for society to verify the truthfulness of the truths it was ‘locating’, and neither enough history per se to produce any “historical proof of what actually happened.” In other words, many of the events of the twentieth century could no longer be understood historically, and consequently, truth could not be derived from them. In any case, revivalism and revisionism spelled the end of history for Baudrillard; either its demise as deep-frozen history within our collective cultural memory or as the end of history via its dissipation in the expansion of communication. Either the death of history by freezing, or the death of history by the hyper-fluidity and hyper-circulation of its events.

Consequently, Baudrillard positions himself so that he is logically able to question whether or not all these events really existed. And what allows him to make such a provocative statement is his belief that through our hyper-analysis of historical events, these events, ideas, and histories have themselves become largely unintelligible. The more these phenomena are examined and rooted through, the more we come to understand all the little details of these phenomena and the better we understand their causes and reasons for occurring, the more their existence fades; the more confused we become over the very identity of these events in the first place.

As a further complication in this matter, Baudrillard cites the supplanting of history by the media in contemporary times. Here again, we confront the problem of reality and its fragile relationship with history. As Baudrillard often points out, our understanding of the reality of the world around us so often arrives via the filter of the media, “the tragic events of the past included.” In our contemporary times, how can history be certified as real, when the tools of historical intelligibility have seemingly disappeared? Through the media reconstruction of event, history is reconstituted as myth whereby the very reality and truthfulness of history can no longer be guaranteed: Baudrillard’s end of history.

What is interesting then is that while Baudrillard was writing primarily with regards to the final decade of the twentieth century and its endpoint, in many ways, the phenomena he is discussing have continued well into the early twenty-first century. At one point, Baudrillard writes that it is the nature of the west to increasingly become a repository, or better still a dumping ground for all those ideologies and events which fall under the category of freedom and human rights. Specifically, and quite locally, I find myself considering the phenomenon of the to-be-constructed Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

What becomes evident when one visits the promotional website for the Canadian Museum of Human Rights is that this museum will at least in part be yet another act of historical revivalism and revisionism, another re-hashing of history in a move of “lest-we-forget-ism.” When one loads the opening page to the Canadian Museum of Human Rights website, the visitor is bombarded by the provocative imagery of its flash introduction, which is followed by a 20 minute video presentation outlining the museum’s vision, mission, and goals as well as the emotional rollercoaster that visitors to the museum will be party to. Guests will wind their way through the various levels of what is to be the largest Human Rights Museum in the world on a 1.5 km long “life altering experience.” This journey will be in essence a walk of mourning, a process of reliving the significant human rights events, both atrocities and successes, of our collective western history. In this sense, much of our history will become flash-frozen in these exhibits, forever on display, forever a source of raw emotion, forever a reminder of a past history in an age when the historical record is constantly being called into question. It will be representative of our incessant search for a history with some weight to it when the whole of our current day events and occurrences are trivialized and diluted in their immediate exposure and circulation.

And in our contemporary context, what can we do but call the authenticity of these stories, of these histories into question? After all, this museum will be a prime example of how Baudrillard describes history as having been supplanted by the media enterprise, how history is heavily filtered. While support for the museum is widespread (it will be the recipient of funding from the Government of Canada, the Province of Manitoba, and the City of Winnipeg), the museum is largely the brainchild of the late media giant Israel Asper, his family, and the Asper Foundation. Upon its completion, the museum will in fact remain in the control of the Asper Foundation rather than the Heritage Department which usually oversees museum operations. In this light, there has been concern and criticism of the museum’s programming as hypocritical an d biased; those events which will be granted a permanent place within the exhibit halls of the museum have fallen under scrutiny, not because of what has been included, but rather that which has, at least thus far, been excluded.

While the content of the museum is to include stories and records of the injustices against, Jews, Ukrainians, Rwandans, Cambodians, Bosnians, and Aboriginal Peoples, as well as exhibits championing reproductive rights, sexual rights, and same-sex rights, certain histories have been excluded, most notably any mention of the atrocities committed against Palestinian civilians. This may or may not be ‘coincidental.’ The Asper media enterprise has after all had a tendency to support Israel, the Iraq War, and the War on Terror, while Asper himself was very much opposed to the idea of Palestinian nationhood and any support of the Palestinian cause in general. Furthermore, the advisory council which will make many of the decisions regarding the museum’s formation is mysteriously missing any participants from Arab or Islamic or Caribbean or African or Turkish Armenian groups. And while it may be the case that a larger advisory board including representatives from these groups would be cumbersome, one has a feeling that if Jewish or Native Canadian groups were not so represented on this board, there would be a deafening outcry.

The point to be made then is that history has indeed changed forever; the relation between an event and the record of that event has forever shifted. As Baudrillard has pointed out, our reality today, including the events of the past, arrive via a media reconstruction, in this case, that of the Asper Foundation and its board of directors. Furthermore, regardless of what side of the argument one is on, whether it be in support of the museum as is, or calling for a more comprehensive set of histories for its exhibits, the fact remains that both parties are engaged in a pathological revival of the past, in a compulsion to relive a previous history which we have lost the ability to truly comprehend because of our hyper-analysis of it and the resulting clouding and confusion of these events which we have created. In these ways, history becomes reconstituted as myth, wherein the reality and truthfulness of history can no longer be guaranteed: Baudrillard’s end of history.

Catastrophy/Virulence

catastrophy/virulence
The growth of cancer results from the the anomalities of the body's cells. Terrorism is envoked by anomalities in political bodies of the enemy countries. These violences are resisting against an "even greater evil" that would be far more catastrophic then them. Baudrillard believes "everything is ambigious and reversible". Without the extreme phenomenons like cancer or terrorism, our system would escalade to complete order and transparency. "Chaos serve as as a limit to what would, otherwise, run off into the absolute void. So extreme phenomenon serve, in their secret order, as prophylaxis-by-chaos" against total Catastrophy, against the state of extreme escalation of order and transparency.
We live in a virtual war of mutual assured destruction. The game of who has control over who stands seperate from the war on ground; the real war. The virtual war, fed by our fear, will remain virtual as long as fear remains installed in us. So, fear protects us from the ultimate Catastrophy, that Baudrillard speaks of: the catastrophy of a nuclear ground war. This hyper-realized virtual war leaves the world as it is. It runs parralel with us, but will never physically touch us. We are dominated by bombs and virtual catastrophies which do not explode. Our fear however, is constant, living in the background of our minds and often forgotten.(p21) The ulterior motive behind the possession and control of weapons of mass destruction is to sustain political control. North Korea has put the world in fear with the operation of a nuclear reactor in Yong Byon to fabricate missiles of mass destruction, and the atomic bomb test in October, 2006. Kim Jong will discontinue the operation of the nuclear reactor in return for 50 000 metric tons of fuel, or economic aid of equal value. As long as people are threatened by the possession of weapons of massive destruction, the power contrived by these weapons, a power of ultimate control over other countries, remains intact. Our fear drives the virtual war, and keeps it from becoming reality.

Mediascapes

From the components within mediascapes, the receiver can form scripts of narratives about themself, and about the "other". The information through imaging that mediascapes represent does embody the essence of a collective society, however, the representation of this information is always provided from a biased agenda of the sender. For instance, as the Asper Family owns the Winnipeg Free Press, all the representations of the information provided in the paper, is screened by the Asper Family before it is published. The Asper's must approve of the biases, perspectives, and insights given in each article of the paper, or atleast in the body of the paper, before the public can process them. With this said, when Appadurai suggests " these scripts [formed by mediascapes] can and do get disaggregated into complex sets of metaphors by which people live" (224) it is quite settling. The reciever of the messages mediascapes send is brainwashed into acquiring the sets of narratives, constituting of content of the 'other' or of oneself, within the parameters of the senders bias. The reciever believes he or she controls their manifestation and decoding of the represented world information sent through the mediascapes, however this is not the case. The represented information is already filtered with the sender's intented interpretation. How can the transfer, and representation of information be less transparent and more susceptable to multiple interpretations? The information must be sent directly, without representation, and without the masking of imaging. Information must be read at face value, truthfully, for what it is in reality. Do we as a society have the capability of grasping the concept of a flow of crystalized information uncoded, unmasked and unrepresented?

Disjuncture and Difference

The virtual flow of information enables the "deterritorialization" of groupings Arjun Appadurai speaks of. The fact that it is so readily accessible for investors in Japan to "buy up" Los Angelos determines the blur between territorial ownership and national boundaries. Does this accessibility for foreign countries to take partial ownership of other nations devalue a nations solidity? For if buyers in foreign countries take partial ownership of businesses out of their home nation, do they reside their best interest in that nation, or in their home nation alone? Is the integrity of a nation's economy at risk when it is slowly being taken over by an outsider?
For instance, the Bay, the historical fur trading company that was alive longer than Winnipeg itself was bought out by a company in the United States. Firstly, what does this say about Canada's values to preserve our heritage? Secondly, is it in the best interest of the American company to continue the success of the Hudson's Bay Company for Canadian history's sake? Of course not. The worldly disjunction between the owned and the owner creates determental affects to a nations society, not just in terms of its economy, but its self-esteem.

Post Modernist Ideologies

In the article "Globalization, The Politics of Identity and Social Hope", Richard Rorty discusses how nowadays, political and social philosophy takes its starting point not from a historical narrative, but rather from philosophy of language including the catch words "identity" and "difference", "self" and "subject", "truth" and "reason". He believes a turn away from narration and utopian dreams toward philosophy seems to be a gesture of despair. However, isn't identity and difference, self and subject, and truth and reason parasitic themes of our postmodern ideologies? If so, then these topics are indeed parallel to a contemporary narrative and history. Why should we be dreaming of a utopia anyway? I don't think in our day we are in search of a utopia, but more a stabilization mechanism which will hold us from falling deeper and deeper into a virtual world.

Globalization, The Poetics of Identity and Social Hope. Richard Rorty

“we have witnessed increasing inability to believe that someday we shall ever have a classless global society: one in which there are no vast differences between the opportunities open to children in one nation and in another, much less between those open to children in one section of a city and those in another section of the same city”

Now this is a very interesting discussion that Rorty has started to lead into regarding the class differences that become apparent in our everyday society. Essentially what this all settles down to is a nation derived on consumerism with a goal to assume as much as possible in order to keep up with ‘the Jones’. Everyone is concerned with appearances and is dedicated to projecting a particular image of themselves for the rest of the world to witness. This is a topic that we’ve touched on previously, but is a direct connection to this weeks article regarding our next generation; children. With these types of categorizations out there I cannot help but relate children to their primal influence; their parents. Those who are more fortunate in terms of consumerism and assets, being the upper class, will have more capability and desire to provide their children with the same form of treatment. By this I am not only referring to designer clothes, jewelry and high end cars, but also the opportunities that are created for them such as education, careers and future networking and connections. Essentially in our society it is all about who you are, what you do or who you know. In fact a Dr Phil episode revealed that in our society it is extremely difficult for a lower class individual to move up the latter of social class; this basically restricts that you will most likely stay in the same class as your parents were before you.

I agree that this is extremely sad that in our world of high technology and booming economy that the one thing that we cannot attain is social equality. This reminds me of a saying “if everyone was the same life would be boring” and in a sense this is probably what would occur. People wouldn’t strive for the greater things in life, the rewards that have to be attained not just given, but rather would be content with whatever it was that they had. I guess you can say that inequality and differences in social class make life more of a challenge, an adventure and hopefully make people drive for what they want and to be passionate when they attain it.

People will never be viewed equally in terms of social classes, consumerism, materiality, education, careers, etc but what this all boils down to is money…if all the money was taken away than we are left with people of the same. I think this universal problem is one that is unsolvable regardless of the perspective you take on it. I think we all need to be happy with who you are, work hard, dream big and really anything could happen.

globalization? + sensory disjunction=

This is in response to Lorna's blog titles "sight or hearing".

I think that regardless if you have sight or hearing or both it will alter the way one understands and interprets the world around them. For those of us who are furtunate enough to have both; is this something that is taken for granted? We already know that cross culturally people communicate differently, but when you add a whole new dimension such as sensory disjunction it would distort the communicative ability even further. Aside from this distortion it would also affect the way in which individuals would percieve the unknown culture at hand due to the additional disability in communcation. So this makes me question the notion of globalization even further because all people, cultures and scenarios will be inevitably different so how would it be established on a full scale; all cases should be considered individually in order to make sense of the terms.

Disjunction and Difference

“semantic to the extent that words (and their lexical equivalents) require careful translation from context to context in their global movements; and pragmatic to the extent that the use of these words by political actors and their audiences may be subject to very different sets of contextual conventions that mediate their translation into public politics”

Essentially this begins to discuss the notion of globalization and whether or not this complicated synergy actually exists. Is it possible to travel across the globe to any given destination and be able to fully interact, understand and interpret all this is occurring in the foreign culture around you? I think the key term here is ‘foreign’ which for me indicates the unknown or essentially something that is out of reach and no matter how much one might believe in this global interconnection, one can never really be sure if what they see is what they get. For instance say you are visiting Mexico and although you don’t speak Spanish you can use gestures or other forms of communication to try and project a message. I guess in a sense if the local picks up on your attempt at communicating than those gestures are in a sense universal, but at the same time you can’t really trust what they are telling you anyways. One reason being that the communication could have been interpreted differently than intended or else they could be simply messin with you. Honestly you never really know and because cross culturally there are many similarities, there are also a lot of disjunctions as well. I guess this has me questioning many different factors because there is so much that goes into communication as well as culture so how can one be 100% sure? You can’t, and just like the quote above, there is translation from context to context and you must be aware that people do not always understand communication as intended and therefore the notion of globalization is yet to be declared.

This is where the author’s framework of exploring such disjunctures comes in as he begins to analyze the relationship between 5 different dimensions as a possible solution to this disconnectivity. They are ethnoscape, mediascape, technoscape , finanscapes and ideoscpaes. So essentially by understanding these categorizations and how they are interconnected to one another and then overlaying it onto a cultural scenario one is able to interpret and further understand how the links of globalization would need to be filled. This could begin to identify where cultures differ and what’s involved in establishing connections and erasing boundaries

Sight or Hearing

Question.
Regarding the discussion topic in class of primal and discursive language: if you had to give up one of the following senses, which one would it be:
your sight or your hearing? (discounting the possiblity of knowing sign language)

if you choose sight, does this mean you rather communicate through speech?
if you choose hearing, does this mean you rather communicate through primal means?
hmm.

interior/exterior

Currently, judging the airports I have visited, the unstimulating environment of the airport terminal, corridors and jetways distract one from facing the reality that airplanes crash. The blahness of airport architecture keeps one in desire of the virtual mind frame of flight without fear. It is pessimistic to say : " [we] Deny the totality of air crashes, the dangers inherent in ageing air fleets, the possibility of incompetent or inadequate maintenance." When I fly, I choose to enjoy the flight, without worry of these traumatic things. To me, flying with ease is not the denial of the worst; its grasping an experience and an opportunity of going some where you could not go without a plane. It's as simple as that. Anyways, as far as grasping the totality of the experience of going somewhere you could not go without a plane, the airport should be designed sensitively around this concept. In this case, the airport should follow the guidelines of critical regionalism, where the architecture embodies the genus loci of the place. The airport in Vegas should be just as Vegas as the red blinking arch of the McDonalds. The airport in Winnipeg should be made out of..snow, or something like that. Furthermore, the mechanics of flight are really not virtual at all. The experience of going to the airport and remaining incased "inside" until arrival at ones destination is an unnecessary virtual reality. I believe flight is possible with a grounded mind-set. This should be achieved in airport design so the traveller is always conscious of their situation and connection with the exterior space around them.

Winnipeg to Vegas

Travelling from Winnipeg to Los Vegas was like a teleportation session. Backing up Rosler's theory of the design of an airport currently being like an engineer's commission, the Winnipeg airport isn't that amazing. It looks like a mall, and even in its small size, I could still get lost. After passing successfull through customs, I travelled from and interior, to an interior; and once in Vegas, again to another interior. Finally, after departing the airport, I found myself in the exterior Los Vegas environment. I missed out on everything the in-between-landscape had to offer. That, however, is air travel. Why should it be anything more? If I wanted to "experience" the in between of point A to point B, I would have driven to Vegas. I do agree with Rosler, however that airports could very well serve as more than just a terminal, " [that] cast you inward to the psychological space of desire".

Flight; connection or disconnection?

“as the plugged-in body moves through real space, the plugged-in mind, in the loop of information in transmission, has no respire”

In terms of this comment the author was referring to the specific notion of air travel and the entire experience associated or this case disassociated with such venture. With the technology in place in today’s day and age such as cell phones, laptops, plasma tvs, blackberrys and i-pods we as human beings feel a sense of abandonment when separated from such dependencies. So when you consider the process of flying essentially all these elements must be de-powered for the duration of the flight. Essentially our connection to civilization as we know it is lost. So in such tragedy what does our ‘plugged-in mind’ resort to? You see this is where the airline steps into the scenario; modern planes are now fully equipped with the majority of these foreign body parts that we are lacking. For instance individual televisions, on flight radios, telephones, wireless internet, and even electrical plug ins for our laptops. The disconnection is now reestablished. Now this is only one element of this 2-fold discussion; the technological and information lifeline.

Secondly I feel this comment not only refers to our disillusionment as we aimlessly travel through an airport. It is only expected that people in such a scenario would be ‘plugged-in’, with a place to be and a time to be there, forcing the notion of ‘moving through real space’. Where as this rapid time travel occurs I am not sure how much observation and appreciation is endured along the way. I think there is one goal in mind and therefore the disconnection with ones immediate surrounding is definitely an inevitable quality of airport circulation. Essentially this carries on to the sky as well because each passenger lacks the true conception to where they are in space and time; the world continues to circulate around, but from the interior cabin one lacks to connect with is. So in a sense one is trying to disconnect, but at the same time trying to reconnect in different technological means. Air travel is an interesting experience and it wasn’t until now that I perceived it in such discretion.

Architect or Engineer...is there an inbetween?

The Overexposed City. Paul Virilio

“however, it is systematic that when space technology is discussed it is not in terms of architecture but in terms of engineering, an engineering which propels us beyond the atmosphere”

Wow this is a very interesting, yet ironic question circulating in my mind right now. It just so happens that I am in the ‘cyborg studio’ which has incidentally facilitated my design for a waste water treatment facility that will be inhabitable by human and infrastructural occupants simultaneously. Essentially what’s involved in designing this entity is performing precise spatial calculations in order to facilitate the exact amount of space required for such a program. In addition to massing I must also understand the amount of water that will be treated throughout the building as well as the number of people (and their daily water consumption) that will procure from the systems capacity.

Today I received a very sketchy comment stating that due to these simple calculations that I “was an engineer”. Now this did not sit well with me and I couldn’t quite understand why. Are architects simply required to drawn interesting forms and have theoretical explanations as to why they did so? Are we restricted to non-practical and non-technical spatial organizations because in a sense that is my interpretation of the comment at hand?

Is my project unworthy or architectural reclamation because I used numbers and calculation in order to conceptualize the technical phase; not the design phase? I have been thinking. I have been working in a firm for the past year and every project I have worked on has had programming and spatial calculations that must be performed at the beginning of each project. In a sense is this not the same thing? I do agree that technically an engineer would be designing a conventional waste treat facility, but the truth is this isn’t conventional. Rather this is the schematic phase of any architectural design project from my perspective. In my opinion this adds an entirely new layer onto my project because I have now fact to reinforce a theory

The Overexposed City. Paul Virilio

“no longer does a physical boundary significantly define space”

In response to Lorna’s comment, the delineation between boundary and threshold brings fourth a very interesting analytic dissection of the two relatively similar objectives. What is a boundary, what is a threshold and how has historical relevance played a detrimental effect on these entities?

Lets briefly think back to some of the examples in which Virilio discusses such as the Berlin Wall or the ‘yellow band’ that marked the division between Catholic and Protestants in Belfast and Londonberry. Now these are clearly defined ‘boundaries’ in which represents a particular ideal; those who do don’t oblige to the categorization at hand shall not cross. It is evident that all affected would seemingly recognize and accept the conditions at hand because of the clearly identifiable marking that was projected.

Moving forward into the 21st century where we are faced with endless technology and infinite possibilities is when this definition of ‘boundary’ becomes blurred. In fact it not only becomes blurred but it a sense it becomes invisible. In terms of virtual space all that can ever be physically viewed is what appear on a computer screen. Where in fact computer software, programming, email accounts, databases and even blogs are all generated by a compilation of their own form of boundaries (passwords, user names, links, codes, etc.). So considering these modern ‘boundaries’ are essentially out of sight and out of mind are they still quantifiable? Must a boundary have physical properties? Essentially when the line between visible and invisible is crossed, consciously or not boundaries becomes ‘thresholds’. If this is true, does a threshold become unattainable according to principals of logic?

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Arjun Appadurai_Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Culture and Economy

Well Thor, you see, it’s like this…I figure, if I throw enough shit against the wall, eventually, some of it is going to stick.
-Choptiany

It is at the conclusion of our series of twelve distinct theoretical essays that I again find myself returning to elemental questions surrounding the purpose of theory and methods of theoretical implementation; the value of theory in general. Appadurai’s argument certainly presents a provocative and thorough rendering of globalism via his described structure of global cultural flows. However, if we are to embrace such a model of globalism, what are we to do with it? Whose job is it to mobilize not only this theory, but theory in general? Whose responsibility is it to make theory operative? Is it the responsibility of each individual reader, of a given group (for example, a discipline), of the author, or some combination of these? In this instance, our author, while able to describe his concept clearly, coherently, and meticulously, offers no indication of how this understanding of the world we live in is to be used, or what it is to be used for. He simply indicates that the possibilities of this celebratory global theory could result in “the expansion of many individual horizons of hope and fantasy.”

In a general sense, one wonders if on a certain level, some theory is not simply bull-shit; theory for its own sake. If a given theory seemingly has no connection to a useful enterprise, if it cannot inform or assist something (for example, cultural production) what is its use? However, immediately upon formation of this statement, I find it to be too reductive, too simplistic, and too juvenile. It is quite easy to dismiss something as intellectually complex as theory, which we may or may not immediately grasp as useless in a practical sense. But perhaps we cannot always know the immediate value, the immediate usefulness of theory. Perhaps it is simply enough to attempt to understand a given position, assimilating as much of it as we can for our own understanding and contemplation. Perhaps there is no telling when a certain theory will be of use; when it will crystallize for a given individual. Perhaps this is the value of theory; its future possibilities rather than its immediate usefulness.

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Arjun Appadurai_Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Culture and Economy

Appadurai begins his examination of globalism with a very thorough explanation of what he terms the five dimensions of global cultural flow: ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, finanscapes, and ideoscapes; the relationships between these scapes being “deeply disjunctive and profoundly unpredictable;” the speed, scale and volume of each of these flows so great that the disjunctures between them have become “central to the politics of global culture.” It is these landscapes which Appadurai identifies as the building blocks of “imagined worlds”; worlds which are “constituted by the historically situated imagination of persons and groups spread around the globe.” The question that arises can be phrased thusly: is Appadurai’s globalism an existential reality, a virtually constructed reality, or some combination of both (and if so, what is the structure of this composition)? Are each of the scapes presented by Appadurai not increasingly virtual within themselves, as well as in terms of their relationship to one another? These constantly mutating disjunctive scapes seemingly have no implicit connection to anything physical or geographical; although they are influenced by real world activities, can they not be understood as active within their own virtual reality? Can this globalism, if it can indeed be considered a virtual reality, be re-grounded in a given instance, in a given singularity, at a given point in time and in a distinct physicality in order to reconstitute it as a reality? Is this the new purpose of cultural production; to take stock of the unique structure, composition, and interplay of active scapes in a given region or locality and attempt a response to, or seek a connection with these different, indigenous, heterogeneous ‘imagined worlds’?

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Richard Rorty_Globalization, the Politics of Identity and Social Hope

In his brief discussion surrounding the topic of globalization, Rorty renders this construct as one dominated by a global overclass of the conscienceless super-rich, a plutocracy which “makes all major economic decisions” independently of any countervailing power (nation-states, legislatures, governments, political orders, democratic will, etc.), of any ‘global polity’. Furthermore, our author posits that because of the absence of a global polity, “we are in danger of winding up with only two genuinely international social groups: the super-rich and the intellectuals,” people devoted to “measuring the harm” being done by the super-rich. One wonders if this is not only an overly negative depiction of a significant portion of the phenomenon of globalization, but also an inaccurate rendering of it as well. How could it possibly be that globalization, in all its complexities and intricacies, could find itself with only two possible “genuinely international” social groups? Are there not other possibilities for numerous international social groups (tourists, refugees, immigrants, etc.)? What does it mean to be ‘genuinely international’? What does it take to be a part of global culture, of a global society? What are the requirements? And with regards to Rorty’s call for countervailing global agencies to oppose the power and control of the super-rich, what would the role of such agencies be, outside of the obvious and stated purpose of global policing?

Additionally, is it fair to render the entire social organization of the super-rich as conscienceless, self-centered, and self-serving? Is this not a discriminatory and simplistic depiction of a prominent and influential social group, and furthermore, an assault on an easy target? Surely there are some prominent members of the super-rich community who fit Rorty’s description, but I am also fairly certain that there are many whom hold tightly to their own firmly established ideals, morals, and ethics, and elect to utilize their status and assets to further global society and positive dreams for an egalitarian future for this society. Can these members of the super-rich community not also have some effect as another countervailing power which works parallel to and in conjunction with global polities opposing those of the super-rich global community who are more akin to Rorty’s rendering?

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Richard Rorty_Globalization, the Politics of Identity and Social Hope

In a just global society not only would all children have roughly equal chances, but the girls would have the same sort of chances as the boys. In that society, nobody will care about which sex you fall in love with, any more that about the lightness or darkness of your skin. In that society, people who want to think of themselves as Basque first, or black first, or women first, and citizens of their countries or of a global co-operative commonwealth second, will have little trouble doing so.
-Rorty

Upon digestion of this article, I find myself contemplating the role of both narrative and utopianism in relation to the current state of both architectural theory and the discipline of architecture, and wondering in this regard, why it is that we have seemingly abandoned both. With respect to the intellectual backgrounds for political deliberation and social philosophy, Rorty positions historical narrative, rather than philosophical of quasi-philosophical theory, as its appropriate basis; the “kind of historical narrative that is prolonged into a utopian scenario about how we can get from the present to a better future.” One could surely include architectural discourse within this framework as well.

Emerging out of this discussion, one wonders, is there anything inherently wrong with utopianism; with holding utopian aspirations and desires? Has architectural discourse discarded historical narrative and utopian idealism as base points in favor of various other considerations (philosophy, language, psychoanalysis, etc.)? If such a shift has occurred, then why? Have we “lost hope in our ability to construct a plausible narrative of progress”, perhaps because of the failings of our recent architectural past (the utopianistic/universalist ideals of Modernism) and the evolution of a general cultural mindset which has lost much faith in the promise of technological advancement and economic development? Within this contemporary context, what is the most socially useful thing that architecture can do; what is its social agenda? What are the central questions for architecture today? Do we have any such central unifying questions/objectives any longer? As perpetual and permanent students of architecture, is it time to again ask questions about architecture’s meta-narrative, about its social importance, about its ability to strive towards a set of ideals in order to better our existence on this planet? Is the relentless pursuit of a ‘critical utopianism’ a way for contemporary cultural production to gravitate away from hopeless nihilistic viewpoints that our existence on this earth is largely senseless and useless towards positions of hope for a positive social future? How can we utilize the possibilities of utopian dreams; how do we mobilize utopianism? What is architecture for if not for the purpose of helping to establish a society similar to the one described by Rorty above?

Physical and Virtual Space

"The interface man/ machine replaces the facades of buildings anmd the surface of ground on which they stand."- Virilio

No longer does a physical boundary significantly define space. More important in the threshold of entering a new country is security rituals. Crossing the boarder signifies getting through customs without being searched for hours on end.

In our society, space is both virtual and physical where both types are of equal relevance. My two dimensional computer screen becomes a three dimensional realm which occupies space. While I was working on my technology project with my partner, my partner pointed beside the lap top screen- referring to a page of the project, located before the page of the project on the screen. The project "page" off the screen existed to us, and although invisible, occupied a virtual space. I thought to myself: the computer screen is an interface, a door, as Virilio calls it, which connects me to an actually virtual reality. I confuse, or rather consider, this virtual reality a physical reality. In this case, two things can occupy the same space at once. An object or idea can physically occupy space, and another, maybe numerous objects or ideas can virtually occupy the same space simultaneously. Although this is an abstract concept, it is in fact the way we already consider our environment.

Little Miss Sunshine

Little Miss Sunshine, directed by Valerie Faris and Jonathon Dayton, is a film based on an average, disfunctional American family. The daughter in the family, Olive enters a beauty pageant. Generally, beauty pagents are a competition to achieve the status of the ideal girl. What does this entail? A slim, muscular body, beautiful face and smile, pose, self-confidence, self-respect, intelligence, and talent. Olive is not like the other contestants; all dolled-up with their back-combed hair, stage makeup, and Sports Illustrated bikinis. She is rather plain in the eyes of the judges, especially with her full piece bathing suit! Did I mention these girls range from ages four to six? Where are these girls to seek for their image; for their ideals? Maybe they seek for their ideals from the media, but most importantly they are influenced by their parents; their mentors. Assuming that all these contestants, or the parents of all these contestants, decode the meaning of an ideal Sunshine Girl in the same way, the pageant will run smoothly. The representation of a beauty pageant, generally, is a natural code. However, when the literal and connotive meaning of a beauty pageant is "misinterpreted", that is to say, there is a failure in the communication of what being a "Sunshine Girl" entails, the pageant runs a little less smoothly.

At the pageant, each contestant must preform a talent. Each girl preforms pretty ballet dances, gymnastic routines, and sing-alongs to Mariah Carey. The last contestant, Olive, performs a dance choreographed by her late grandfather: a striper's routine, complete with tiger growls and a strip down to guarders and a spandex attire. Olive is kicked off stage. Why? Because her interpretation of a Sunshine Girl's description did not fit that of the judges, or the audience, or the rest of society. Olive and her grandfather did not decode the meaning of the "ideal" girl correctly.

Paradoxically, the judges and audience are shocked and appauled by Olives obscene behavior. Behaving like a stripper at the age of four is unheard of. However, exposing these young girls to the pressures of ideal beauty is acceptible. I am unsure which behavior is more degrading. What I do know, is that these girls should call it a night and go enjoy an icecream cone. (non fat-free).

Encoding, Decoding

According to Stuart Hall, "what naturalised codes demonstrate is the degree of habituation produced when there is a fundamental alignment and reciprocity - an achieved equivalence - between the encoding and decoding sides of an exchange of meanings. To put it simple, our brains are jammed packed with naturalised codes. I never really thought about this subject in as much depth, and with as much seriousness as how it is dealt with in this article. I can barely listen to the radio anymore without feeling disturbed. The themed jingles for radio commercials, the ones I know off by heart, trigger an image in my head of the company they represent. I am completely aware the radio is brain-washing, but my awareness does not stop the brain washing process. I still suddenly crave chilly and a bun when I hear the "stag chill ski watch" advertisment. When I hear Sean Paul's "Temperature" I feel like dancing up a storm at the bar. These encodings, which are decoded, are then again recoded, and decoded again, to the point where there is no substance which is pure anymore. Every idea is recycled back into the system in which we, like computers perceive them as realities because that is how we have been programmed in this post industrial world.

The Ecstasy of Communicaiton

"-advertising in its new dimension invades everything, as public space (the street, monument, market, scene) disappears." - Jean Baudrillard.

Advertising is so melted into our culture that we no longer notice it as a seperate entity. The "single dimension" of information encoded in our everyday lives comes as natural, as mentioned in the article "Encoding, Decoding", and is swept right over our heads. For instance, the Festival du Voyageurs, an extremely important winter festival for the winnipeg francophones, takes place every february. Snow sculptures are proudly displayed on the boullivard along Marion and on Portage Ave. However, instead of simply representing the artistic culture of the french- these snow sculptures now represent sponsors; eager companys looking to advertise. The beautiful snow scupture of a powerful bison on the corner of Portage and Main is taged, labeled, "encoded" with the words "MTS allstream". However, this is unstrange to us. This is "normal". No longer can the connative meaning of a cultural activity or gesture stand alone without a company to seamlessly dissolve in to it. When we see an image of a bison, it is not manitoba pride we think of. We think of MTS, of course; but only because it has been imprinted into our minds that bison=mts=cellphone=text messaging=communication=convienience, etc. And the cycle goes on....

The tabloids, People Magazine, US weekly....blah blah blah. The celebrities of today dominate all forms of communication. From Cnn to People Magazine, the stories of these celebrities lives are exposed everyday. I for one must admit, I am interested in these stories. Not all of the stories, but some. Am I interested because that is all there is to be interested in? If there was a news story or a documentry on architecture I would much rather watch that. Oddly enough our culture looks up to these cracked out, drunk celebrities for, I actually dont' know what it is we are looking for? Laura commented in her blog that all this communication may just be a distraction from our own lives. I think this is an excellent point. By reading about other drama, our own is dumbed down. Another odd point in our culture is the idolism that occurs. Young girls love and posterise these celebrities, wanting to be them. Should we maybe take another look at what it is our culture is communicating. Could it be that the problem isn't with how much is out there but the actual content of the communications? If all the advertisements were about political information, sustainable issues, heath coverage ect. would be really be so concerned with it?

The Ecstasy of Communication

" I pick up my telephone receiver and it's all there; the whole marginal network catches and harasses me with the insupportable good faith of evverything that wants and claims to communicate."
"That's the ecstacy of communication. All secretes, spaces and scenes abolished in a single dimension of information. That's obscenity."
This overload of everything is something that my generation has simply grown up in. I can't remember a time with out the constant phone calls from telemarketers, the advertisements hung on buses and public benches. This is our world, I couldn't imagine anything different. I live everyday with someone trying to sell me something, someone trying to push the lastest opinion into me. As young people today, we are raised by society to believe that it is only the elite that can have there lives splashed across newspapers and the television. I couldn't imagine this world that use to be, it would have been so....quite, that loss of constant stimulation would be so different. Maybe that is why so many of us are alway going, going, going. Why alot of people are so stressed out, having breakdowns. The simpler times, the simpler life, it seems so alien to me.

Encoding , Decoding By Stuart Hall

The war in Iraq is particularily of interest to me because I am an American citizen. Most of my family resides the United States, therefore the war my country is fighting requires my attention. Unfortunatly, the problem of decoding and encoding is most seen, (for myself anyway) through this war and its representation. Because the war is fought so far away from home, most Americans, and other cultures for that matter, rely on the television for the updates and stories. This however, presents a major problem. My reality is therefore being told to be by someone else. Imagine this life for a moment. You live everyday in a blank room, with nothing but a message board. There is someone living your life for you, walking around, experiencing everything that you would be if you were living your life. All you get, is messages on the board relating what "you" did that day. What you ate, who your friends with, who you hate, ect. And you have no choice but to believe it all, and why? Because you have no way of knowing fact from fiction. This person living your life may have biases, discriminations, previous experiences that have effected the way they percieve and live your life. But you have to read the messages, because it your only way of "understanding" what is going on. We live like this, everyday. How many newspapers are sold daily? How many news broadcasts are televised? Who is living your life for you?

Encoding , Deconding By Stuart Hall

" But more often broadcasters are concerned gthat the audience has failed to take he meaning as they-the boadcasters-inteded. What they really mean to say is that viewers are operating within the dominant or preferred code. Their ideal is perfectly transparent communication. Instead, what they have to confront is systematically distored communication."
I found this part of the article quite interesting. The idea of "the messsage" and "the misunderstanding" seems like it has a very interesting problem to face. The message that is communicated by the broadcasters is meant to make publically awear a situation or event. The message is written and interpreted by the broadcaster, which already will have skewed the story. The message is then delivered through the television, which as the article points out, completely changes the third dimesion into the second dimension, removing reality. After this distortion, the message then has to be recieved by the audience, which is where the biggest distortion off all takes place. People from completely different background, experiences, cultures and ideologies now are meant to decode this message and understand it as the broadcasters have originally laid out the storyline. No wonder there is an abundance of misunderstandings. It is almost impossible for me and anyone else to completly understand the message in the same way. This idea of subjective capacity is much more prevelant then the article lets on.

the news

jack Johnson lyrics

A billion people died on the news tonight
But not so many cried at the terrible sight
Well mama said
It's just make believe
You can't believe everything you see
So baby close your eyes to the lullabies
On the news tonight

Who's the one to decide that it would be alright
To put the music behind the news tonight
Well mama said
You can't believe everything you hear
The diagetic world is so unclear
So baby close your ears
On the news tonight
On the news tonight

The unobtrusive tones on the news tonight
And mama said

Why don't the newscasters cry when they read about people who die?
At least they could be decent enough to put just a tear in their eyes
Mama said
It's just make believe
You cant believe everything you see
So baby close your eyes to the lullabies
On the news tonight

I think this song is the epitome of what the author was trying to illustrate in the following discussion:

“the entire universe comes to unfold arbitrarily on your domestic screen; all the useless information that comes to you from the entire world”

Television is an extremely predominant form of communication essentially connecting the entire world in a nutshell. The delineated line between public and private is most definitely crossed here, a point where all feelings and emotions are deleted because of the screen in front of you. Yes this is communicating one message to others, but at the same time the level of personal connection is lost in translation. Where is the attachment lost and is the news a means of exposing gossip or is it a distraction from the problems of your own life? Seeing other people’s losses; are they intended to one up your own in order to lessen your personal feelings of sorrow? Why is there no personal attachment to this sorrow? Is it indecent exposure?

fast cars and freedom

‘the ecstasy of communication’ by jean baudrillard

“people no longer project themselves into their objects, with their effects and representations…the psychological dimension has in a sense vanished… little by little the logic of driving has replaced a very subjective logic of procession and projection”

This notion of communication that prevails through the procession of material items such as the automobile is seen as a representational status quo rather than the functional entity, which it was designed for. I recently spent my reading break in LA and it was pretty much the most amazing experience of my life. The sense of lifestyle there is so incredibly different in comparison to here in Winnipeg. It became apparent that material processions are extremely valued to this society of sunny beaches, mountainous terrains and most importantly MONey!! Everywhere you look there’s endless amounts of beemers, caddy’s, porches’ and even the odd Lamborghini or Ferrari if you’re lucky. This makes me question…why exactly do people spend so much money on expensive cars (not that I’m against it)? Is it for the aesthetics, the style, does price = quality or more likely does brand represent power and wealth? From my observation I feel that people drive these expensive cars to make a statement about who they are/ want to be, how deep their pockets sink or where they stand in our status driven society? This simply makes a statement about values and desires, what they are and how far we are willing to go to achieve them.

911

encoding, decoding. Stuart Hall

“in the moment when a historical event passes under the sign of discourse, it is subject to all complex formal rules by which language signifies. to put it paradoxically, the event must become a story before it can become a communicative event”
This discussion of television’s communicative ‘structure of dominance’ has driven me to think back to significant historical events that I have endured during my 21-year life span. Surprisingly enough the only event that came to my mind was 911, yes this was indefinitely the most traumatic, but why is that that I can only recall one event. When I recall the day when this occurred and the extended period to follow, I’m having a slightly difficult time understanding where the encoding/ decoding comes in. Essentially when it occurred was it merely viewed as tragic event and it wasn’t until later on when the complexities behind the controversy were exposed when we began to view it as a story? Does story signify that you are ‘recalling anything from the past’ because in simplified terms that’s what a story essentially becomes? When an event such as 911 occurs is it considered non-communicative because society experienced it directly? This leads me to Hall’s comments on how the media/ television programming is edited and altered for viewing purposes, which leads me to believe that we as viewers are newer perceiving the entire story. So basically has communication become whatever the middleman says it will be and when we experience it almost first hand as in 911, then is it not communicative? Do we need the middleman in order to communicate because in order to make a story you need a teller and we all know that a story is never told the same twice? Though every communicator and every altered interpretation of the story, the path of communication changes does it not?

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Martha Rosler_In the Place of the Public; Observations of a Traveler

Bigness is where architecture becomes most and least architectural…Bigness implies a web of umbilical cords to other disciplines whose performance is as critical as the architect’s…the makers of Bigness are a team. Beyond signature, Bigness means surrender to technologies; to engineers, contractors, manufacturers; to politics; to others. It promises a kind of post-heroic status-realignment with neutrality.
-Koolhaas

Rosler makes an interesting comment/observation within her text regarding the supposed difference between ‘architected’ and ‘engineered’ space. She writes, “except for a few high-profile terminals, the airport may not be usefully described in terms of ‘architecture.’ Airports reflect the thinking of engineers. The airport…is useful to elide the distinction between architected and engineered space.” What is this difference that Rosler speaks of? What are the definitive differences between architected and engineered space? Are such distinctions understood as present within our profession/discipline or are they distinctions which those people exterior to the profession/discipline (observers and the general public) construct for themselves? If such distinctions do exist are they useful any longer? Beyond the obvious answers, why did such distinctions arise in the first place and from where? Should not all ‘building,’ whatever typology, be considered to be within the realm of architecture? As we produce ever larger and more programmatically rich mega-structures (such as airports), is it not important/imperative for us to collapse, at least for ourselves, any and all supposed distinctions/separations between those parties involved, especially architects and engineers? Should we not embrace a mindset/strategy towards mega-architecture similar to that as outlined by Koolhaas in the above citation?

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Martha Rosler_In the Place of the Public; Observations of a Traveler

Via a series of ‘airport as’ metaphors, in which increasingly more facilities not connected to travel are included as being part of the airport, Rosler renders an interesting depiction of the composition of this contemporary architectural typology. The airport is depicted as ‘modern corporate space’ which utilizes information to organize and control individual people, as a ‘shopping mall’ (which Rosler find as the only apparent model to which an air terminal is able to aspire), as a ‘museum (both art and natural history), as a colonizer of land, and as well as a multi-functional information/transportation system with primarily operational concerns (for example, the efficient routing of passengers). Are these metaphors simply the beginning of what will become an ‘airport as’ phenomenon? Have we seen other ‘airport as’ metaphors emerge since this article was published over a decade ago (for example, airport as hotel/residence)? Can a theory of ‘mega-architecture’ which utilizes ‘programmatic alchemy’ as a structural and organizational mechanism (such as Koolhaas’s Bigness) be viewed as a positive phenomenon? If we extend the logic of the ‘airport as’ metaphor, we arrive at ‘airport as city’. If the airport begins, as Koolhaas would say, to compete with, represent, preempt, even become a city, what would be the relationship between such a mega-structure and it’s surrounding urban tissue/physical context? Should we be concerned about the move towards ‘mega-structures’ as cities, or embrace it as a cultural/societal/architectural evolution? Furthermore, will mega-structures such as airports, if capable of becoming autonomous ‘city-containers’ in our post-industrial landscape, denote the end of truly democratic public space (where anything goes and almost anything is allowable)? Will Rosler’s ‘non-private space’ be the hygienic simulation of public space which supplants (and I hesitate to use the word) ‘authentic’ public space?

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Martha Rosler_In the Place of the Public; Observations of a Traveler

It would appear that the act of flying, at least with regards to commercial flight, is a destabilized experience; one disconnected from the euphoric possibility of actually “being in flight.” It is a simulation/illusion which supplants that of a possible reality. As Rosler states, with flying “there is no journey, only trajectory.” Furthermore, the author notes the importance of de-realization to the vocation of air traffic control; it is only through the de-realization of very real situations (which are recast as information flow) that these professionals are able to cope with their jobs effectively. The question that arises then is this: is derealization/simulation one of the only effective coping mechanisms, both as individuals, and entire societies, that we possess which enable us to function at all in our contemporary world? Why does a distancing from reality, a derealization, appear to be our only method of contemporary existence? Are we not able to handle the world we have created for ourselves unless it is filtered by media, business, politics, or another agency of derealization?

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Paul Virillio_The Overexposed City

...architecture is an instrument of measure, a sum of knowledge capable of organizing society’s space and time by pitting us against the natural environment. This “geodesic” capacity of defining a unity of time and place for activities now enters into open conflict with the structural capacities of mass communication.
-Virillio

To adapt the infamous lyrics of Madonna, we are increasingly living in an immaterial world. The continuing advancement and evolution of technology (information, communication, transportation) serves to sever individual and cultural experience from previously held notions of space, place, geography, and time; redefining some, while rendering others obsolete. Seemingly, architecture and urbanism is presented with a paradoxical problem: how is architecture/urbanism, which is a material entity (made up of physical elements) to reconcile itself with that which is immaterial (information and communication technologies). Can architecture exist without a geophysical reality? Can there be such a thing as insubstantial architecture; architecture without substance? If so, what can it be used for, what is its ‘value’?

As a parallel question, what is the contemporary relationship between state of the art technology and architecture/urbanism? At the end of his discussion, Virillio writes “the metropolis is no longer anything but a ghostly landscape, the fossil of past societies for which technology was still closely associated with the visible transformations of substance; a visibility from which science has gradually turned us away.” If we understand there to be a disconnection, a growing divide between new technologies and their composition and the structure and organization of the physical world, are we to assume that architecture/urbanism will be surpassed and discarded as no longer useful in the face of these new technologies? Is architecture merely a respondent to technological advancements, reacting to, appropriating and adapting these as they emerge? If so, what happens if architecture no longer has a means by which to relate to new technologies? Or is this itself impossibility? Will architecture always be able to find a way to locate itself within the structural capacities and systems of the technological state of the art? Can we understand architecture itself to be a continuously evolving technology?

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Paul Virillio_The Overexposed City

Every surface is an interface between two milieus in which constant activity prevails, taking the form of an exchange between two substances placed in contact with one another…contamination is at work in the concept of surface: the surface-boundary becomes an osmotic membrane.
-Virillio

Virillio's discussion surrounding boundary, surface, interface and time is most interesting. One could certainly logically believe Virillio’s argument that the interface (a contemporary high-tech type of surface-boundary) is capable not only of creating distance and “depth of field”, but of collapsing physical space (near and far, here and there) and eliminating “time distances” forming a new technological space-time that is ubiquitous and instantaneous; a permanent present which has no relation to history/memory/future. Could there be positive possibilities and/or value in a metaphor such as architecture as interface, or architecture as surface-boundary? How would such a concept manifest itself physically? Is this a way to negotiate the relationship between architecture/urbanism and technological space-time? With regards to the concept of space-time itself, how does space-time relate to historical/chronological time? Can these two opposing ‘times’ co-exist, or has space-time ruptured historical/chronological time? Can something as seemingly enduring as historical/chronological time ever be fully destroyed?

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Jean Baudrillard_The Ecstasy of Communication

Baudrillard’s closing paragraphs presents the reader with the metaphor of contemporary existence as schizophrenic, characterized by “too great a proximity of everything…the total instantaneity of things…the end of interiority and intimacy, the overexposure and transparence of the world.” Is this schizophrenic “new state of things” in which Baudrillard sees our universe as having shifted from hot (passionate, expressive, competitive) to cold (ecstatic, obscene, communicative), a fair and accurate depiction of our ‘quotidian’ existence? Is Baudrillard’s notion of schizophrenia cultural, personal, or both? On many levels it would seem one could agree with Baudrillard in so far as one can identify a general state of cultural schizophrenia, a cultural mindset where interiority becomes extroverted and exteriority is injected, where a state of confusion and terror exist, in contemporary times. But I am uncertain of whether or not such notions translate to the level of the individual. If Baudrillard’s notion of schizophrenia relates to the individual as well as the culture in which the individual resides, are we to understand ourselves as atoms within a system we have no control and influence over; a contemporary existence in which we are, essentially, pawns? Is the condition of the postmodern individual that of a schizophrenic existing within a world of obscenity and ecstasy? That of a “pure screen, a switching center for all the networks of influence? Is it fair to say, on the level of the individual, that interiority and intimacy are dead concepts? Are we to view ourselves as devoid of any control over our own trajectories within a system of ecstatic communication? If so, is ‘individualness’ no longer a relevant construct/concept? Is the contemporary individual dissolved into the systems of information and communication, forever lost vis a vis traditional notions of individualism?

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Jean Baudrillard_The Ecstasy of Communication

All functions abolished in a single dimension, that of communication. That’s the ecstasy of communication. All secrets, spaces, and scenes abolished in a single dimension of information. That’s obscenity.
-Baudrillard

In describing the creation of this condition of obscenity, Baudrillard argues that it is through the transistorizing and miniaturization of our circuits, energy, and environments that the traditional ‘scenes’ that defined our collective lives have been relegated to uselessness and consequently, gradual disappearance. The body (human scale), the physical landscape, time, public space (no longer a spectacle of the social and the political), and the private realm (no longer a secret but a virtual feeding ground for the media) have been collapsed and compressed by omnipresent, excessive information and communication networks and flows. With the loss of these scenes within the “more visible than visible” ecstasy of communication what new scenes (or rather scapes), if any, arise to take their place? What is the composition of these new scapes, their makeup, and how do they relate to one another within the established networks of communication and information; upon the “smooth operational surface of communication.” What new criteria are we to utilize in order to understand the newly unfolding “networks of influence” our world is composed of; their boundaries (if any), organization, structure, and interrelations? Or perhaps we are to discard the concept of scenes as no longer relevant within the ecstatic and obscene dimensions of information and communication flows? Baudrillard writes, “wanting to apply our old criteria and the reflexes of a scenic sensibility, we no doubt misapprehend what may be the occurrence, in this sensory sphere, of something new, ecstatic and obscene.” Do we discard our scenic sensibility for a new sensibility within the seemingly singular dimension of information/communication? And what would the framework for this new sensibility be, if no longer scenic?