The Monumental Condition

Thesis Positioning Statement #5

The architecture of memorial is a fascinating field when considering the broader issues of control within the built environment.  The monument has the innate ability to fashion and shape the communal consciousness and dictate the priorities of memory.  They can be an aggressive political tool, as is evidenced in the former USSR, or they can be a sombre reminder of the devastation of war, as is seen in the countless unmarked graves in Flanders, Dieppe and the Somme.  Almost always, though, they represent the potential held in future endeavour.  They reflect on the past, but the goal is to represent the future as it relates to certain ideals.

Khatyn Memorial Complex, Belarussian SSR, 1970.

Architecture Democratises Information

Thesis Positioning Statement #4 

Because cultural identity is tied up in the mechanism of cultural production, control of those mechanisms is a hotly contested battleground.  Those who are able to garner power over the way our representations of space are generated, are in turn able to manage our broader cultural identities.  Because how we identify ourselves in turn affects basically any daily decision process we make (our behavioural patterns, consumer patterns, voting strategies, commitment to education, family roles etc.) the importance for a benign presence driving these processes cannot be stressed more highly.

Small Scale Strategies for Control in the Built Environment.

Thesis Positioning Statement #3 

There exists in the world, countless instances of behavioural manipulations subtly conveyed through form, patterning, architecture and media.  The motivations for these interventions are multiple, but are usually associated with some kind of power structure whose goals are to inflect behaviour patterns to their advantage.  In each case, the proponents of the control, are seeking some kind of strategic advantage.  This could mean anything from political alignment, consumer spending and military advantage to patriotic pride and defending the interests of the populous.  What follows is a brief outline of some of these strategies.

Control Through Inte­­raction.

Thesis Positioning Statement #2

Projection One from Andy Payne on Vimeo.

The Violent Response

Thesis Positioning Statement #1

Although the causes of the London Riots between 6 - 10 August of 2011 are numerous, there several consistent themes that continue to be cited both by observers and the rioters themselves.  Alongside the anti-Keynesian austerity measures that slashed funding for youth and community infrastructure, overt police control has been blamed for the violence. The most damage occurred in the most impoverished areas that are also, not uncoincedentally, dominated by minority ethnicities.  According to local Labour politician David Lammy, the pre-existing tensions between ethnicities and the police were exposed in the Broadwater Farm Riots of 1985.  In this case “cracks that already existed between the police and the community became deep fissures” and the riots of 2011 are “eerily, worryingly, dreadfully similar”[1]