Reflections on Technology, Media & Culture
sublime
Mixed feelings
Here’s the grimy hull of an abandoned ship on an isolated beach surrounded by barbed wire and covered in rust and flaking graffiti. If you like that kind of ruin then you are drawn to it. If not you will probably keep away. You are either attracted or repelled; you approach or avoid. (My instinct was to approach.) To approach … Continue reading
Vertigo on a stick
Rooftoppers are those reckless photographers and video makers who scale tall buildings. It’s important in these images that the photographer is in the frame, as evidence that they were there. The vertiginous effect is enhanced by the use of a handheld monopod camera extension known as a “selfie stick.” So climbers hold their cameras about a metre … Continue reading
Betwixt and between
Architecture is not a polite discipline. According to architectural theorist Bernard Tschumi, “the ultimate pleasure of architecture lies in the most forbidden parts of the architectural act; where limits are perverted, and prohibitions are transgressed. The starting point of architecture is distortion” (91). Rem Koolhaas asserts something similar. Design is not “meticulous definition, the imposition … Continue reading
