Session Eight: Marshall McLuhan The medium is the message

In this session instead of reading a book we asked to browse YouTube for material on Marshall McLuhan's 'media is the message'.
McLuhan Said: "The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium - that is, of any extension of ourselves - result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology." - (Marshall McLuhan )

Mcluhan was one of the first to discover and spread the message of the effects of technology as it relates to human behaviour changes in communities. His thorough examinations of electric technology and media come up with the phrase “The medium is the message”.

Our society is transformed from industrial age to the information age in the 20th century. We are interested in the process and the growing trend towards repetition, virtual reality. These technologies create an extension of the human body and McLuhan warns us “we become what we behold”.  What he means by it is that electronic technology becomes an extension to our senses, primarily sound and sight. He calls the vehicle as an extension of the feet, permitting the travel between places only faster and with less effort.  But with every extension there is an opposite reaction, phrased by McLuhan as ‘amputation’.

Cars made us walking less, made us fat and less healthy. Cities are developed and life becomes faster paced more stressful and makes us more impatient.
Like the telephone or now the internet extend the voice but amputates the abilities to write letters well or communicate with other people face to face. Getting information from Google for our architectural projects is made our life easier, however at the same time it become less physical experience.  Also using computer software’s to draw our designs made hand drawing skills weaker. Our abilities are changing, transforming and these developments has advantages and disadvantages. We have a responsibility what message we put forward as designers and the media we use.

Session Eleven: The Epic II - Ayn Rand: The Fountainhead

The Fountainhead is the story of an architect, Howard Roark, who battled against the standards of society, the collectiveness, who believes modern architecture is greater to the style of traditional Greek elements. He wants to break away from the old and create something new. He is an individual who doesn’t want to compromise his values; he is selfish and doesn’t function through others.

Ayn Rand’s purpose of her writing and beliefs of individualism and anti-collectivism comes from her childhood, - as a Russian immigrant saw the rise of Communism in Russia. Her family lost their business, struggling to feed themselves because they were supporter of White Russian’s and they didn’t want to compromise their beliefs.

To be at the top 1% of Architecture you need to be able to situate yourself well and you must compromise your values – as Keating did.
It is translucent in Fountainhead the evil communist character, the Mephisto is Ellsworth S. Toohey. He uses the Banner newspaper to attack Roark and trying to change his mind to compromise his design, give up his values and join the masses.
He uses Roark’s actions of blowing up the housing estate to bring him down in court and show everyone that Roark is a trouble maker. At the beginning his speech the public is totally not in favour of Roark but in the end, after facing his enemies in the courtroom, he wins the battle and builds his modern skyscraper without compromises while getting the girl too.

Ayn Rand created—like so many American Dream stories—a happy ending, a symbol of Capitalist success the architect proudly standing on top of his skyscraper, described as a ‘Tower to Supremacy of Man’.

Session Ten: The Epic John Dos Passos USA

USA by Dos Passos - at least the three chapter I had to read - is a clever way to make us aware of the 'false' picture of the American Big Dream. The writer used short biographies of three well known person's—Thorstein Veblen, Henry Ford and Frank Lloyd Wright—to introduce us to the 1930's America. The writer had a brilliant social observation? or he was just mesmerized by the social way?

People were taught to believe they could live an idyllic life in America. Just like the film starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman titled  'Far and Away' where they traveled from Ireland where they had abandoned their old life to move to America in hopes of claiming free land in Oklahoma all-the-while having to suffer though trials and tribulations of that is the price of this dream, nothing less than a piece of your soul.

All three chapters in the the Big Money tells a tragic tale of Faustian development, destroy, break away from the old and move on to something new doesn't matter what the cost. 

First up, Thorstein Veblen a very bright individual - a non-Marxist critique of capitalism - who broke away from his Norwegian farmer family way of life. Who is a bit different, he can't say yes and at the end he fails because of his unusual personality and social awkwardness.

Tin Lizzie - 'Mr Ford the automobileer' who changed the way people lived for ever creating and standardizing cars. He was a creator, an innovator who didn't have bad habits, who never borrowed money, who only strive for profit and he didn't care about his workers, that is so familiar character we have already met previously. 

Henry Ford is a great example of Faust, however it gets too much for him when he gets older. He was afraid that he would be shot or his grandchildren would get kidnapped. So he returned to -the old way - his father's farm where he begun his journey as a child. 

The Architect - Frank Lloyd Wright story also a success like Ford's with some difference. He was a famous designer who made something of himself in the world. However, he struggled with bankruptcy and divorce that actually sees him failings as a man. 

These threes stories carries the same message that Dos Passos wanted us to learn, to be a capitalist you need to be selfish and need to be a success so you are not on the same level as the majority of people. But what is the price, to give up yourself, to be afraid and fail as a man/woman.

Session Seven: Counterculture Howl by Allen Ginsberg

Drugs, sex, rock & roll, experimentation, freedom fighting, dark matter, the words that I would use to describe this poem in one sentence.
It is a riveting piece especially after I listened to Allen Ginsberg reading it on you tube.

This poem, like marmite —you either love it or hate it. I started to love it reading it the more I read it while attempting to make all the pieces slot in, much like doing a puzzle, starting with the outside pieces and working in.
It reminds me of Jim Morrison's music/lyrics what I listened to a great deal as a rebellious teenager.

Jim Morrison's Quote:

Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.

  

There is a YouTube video of Ginsberg' Howl mixed with Jim Morrison's music called the underworld superstars a rare unreleased piece. It's worth watching especially if you don't get Howl-

Allen Ginsberg writes about his personal experiences, his deepest fears too in the first part of the poem. You can't really relate to him and this writing unless you tired or lived like him or you have ever felt deeply depressed in your life. This message has been portrayed using the word 'who' throughout.

In the second part his focus is on the industrial civilization and the rejection of the modern world. He uses God Moloch as a reference to a person or thing demanding or requesting a very costly sacrifice.

In Part three he is writing to his friend Carl Solomon who is in the madhouse - saying his madness his rebellion against Moloch and I am with him, and extending my hand in union. Ginsberg gets emotional feels compassion towards his friend. He knows that capitalism is destructive and Society is ruthless. 

Session Four: Marxist Thinking - The production of space by Henri Lefebvre - 'Social Space'

I found 'Social space' by Henri Lefebvre puzzling and in most parts I found myself questioning and disagreeing with his theory, mostly due how limiting single minded view it imposes on any inquisitive mind. .

Let's just forget about the fact that he was a communist for a second and think about him as a philosopher.

Henri Lefebvre is examining with a deep approach into the subject that explaining the two terms involved 'production of space'.

In Hegelianism we are a product of nature (humanity) created by nature.

The concept of classification of social space, Lefebvre talks about it as possibilities from nature, production to works and products. He talks about nature doesn’t know that it creates products only creates what humanity uses.

How would he know what nature feels? Why does he think everything have to be produced?

On one hand the burden of proof to his hilarious theories can easily be flipped around because he makes assumptions about something intangible and clearly beyond his comprehension and the current level of intelligence (or lack of thereof) as if it was a fact, or that his perception is the only valid and undeniable truth, please tell me it isn't so... Smiley face.


Lefebvre comparing nature and its agents as a production entity that doesn't produce anything, only mankind produces.

A product by definition is created by a process of manufacture and processing of materials by some organized agents—man and beast—alike in this sense. God or the flying spaghetti monster dont even factor into my reasoning.

Politics, religion, juridical forms are the product/creation of violence much like mountains are the production/creation of natures and ever violently changing form and to control and change climate.

I think it is arrogant to think that we are the only ones that produce. Nature produces in a more subtle manner and trade as well. For example: Flowers are colorful —they know why they need to be vibrant colours—and produce a perfume smell to draw insects to pollinate them, that helps the flower at the same time bees produce honey out of it (Oops! Nature produced honey). Nature created a free market they are exchanging products and services, trading in its purest form, something we try to mimic and mostly fail...

Having read The production of space, I am reminded that we do not truly understand how nature and its agents/mechanisms function if there's a greater conscience behind it and to the philosopher its far easier to speculate since to imagine the alternative would reveal the real secrets of the universe. Mankind is only able to scrape tiny pieces of which make out our most brilliant inventions/discoveries, and nature does so in manner we can only mostly admire from afar.