The Love Police

I wanted to show this in the lecture but the technology wouldn't let me:



...and here's the website:

http://www.cveitch.org/

Pay and Sit: The Private Bench

PAY & SIT: the private bench (HD) from Fabian Brunsing on Vimeo.

Oasis - Morning Glory

A video which shows the mundaneness and difficulties of living in a Tower Block.

Videos. Streets in the Sky. The City

Hi Guys

Here is a link to some videos I have posted on youtube. Streets in the Sky documents some of the history and redevelopment of Park Hill Flats in Sheffield. Whilst The City focuses on the people of Bath's fight to stop the redevelopment of the city by Patrick Abercrombie after World War 2. Apologies for each video being in four parts, but youtube won't accept clips longer than 10 minutes. Hope you enjoy. Rich

www.youtube.com/user/richmellowyellow

POLITICS AND CONTROL IN SPACES

An example of political control and power in spaces.

Orgreave is a village in north Yorkshire.
It is usually a quiet picturesque village but in 1984, as a result of striking miners it was violated and taken control of by force. Police invaded the normally peaceful village when they forcefully dispersed the striking miners at the nearby coking plant.

The whole village became a battle ground when brutal riots occurred between police and picketing miners.

The politics of the time threatened the identity of the local enviroment, as well as importance of the place.

The village is now remembered for 'the battle of Orgreave'. The time when political issues controlled and ruled this piece of land.

To Support Theresa's inclusion the following is an excerpt from Jeremy Deller's and Mike Figgis's 'Battle of Orgreave' (2001) which illustrates the point:

In reponse to this highly 'politicised' space, artist Jeremy Deller produced a re-enactment which was directed by Mike Figgis in a film 'The Battle of Orgreave' which [in an ironic take on the staging or re-enactment of battles popular with history enthusiasts] simulates the conditions and events of that time and space, using original members of striking miners and police, many of whom have painful and haunting recollections of those events and still live in the area. A copy of Deller's Orgreave is in the LRC. There's also a Text if you click on the title of this blog entry (Response: Sally Hall)

The Cul De Sac

A cul de sac (french for "dead end") is an arrangement of houses plotted around a dead end road that branches off a bigger or main road. This is the typical housing arrangement of a housing estate that consists of a main road connecting to many cul de sacs.

The overall purposes of this living system are the control of traffic around residential areas and the control of the residents through schemes such as Neighbourhood Watch.

My mother is part of the Neighbourhood Watch scheme and this entails keeping an eye out for criminal activity or general threats to the health and well being of the other residents. If there is anything that may pose threat or upset the utopian system of the sub-urban living arrangements of our cul de sac or neighbourhood, my mother is obliged to contact the local authorities for further action.

My mother is basically a voluntary, part time human CCTV camera.

-laptop battery is about to 'die' - part2 to come ..

Click Here to Watch: Welcome to Germania!

Power/politics and control, Surveillance, Urban context, Anarchic Spaces

Questions about space versus place: Territory, boundary, affected. Are you being watched? Are you different when you become aware of being watched? How does architecture, planning and social space shape the way we move in it. Who controls space? What about anarchic spaces?

...Move along, keep left, filter, get in lane....

Will Alsop Creative Prison

Will Aslop was commissioned to come up with a design idea which would aid prisoners' rehabilitation as well as providing a better, more humane standard of living. He came up with the idea of creating a village of small blocks of self contained cells providing the prisoner with his own key, which would aid in building self respect and also reducing the prisoners' vulnerability from other prisoners. His ideas and approach of course was met with many objections. Prisons should be a place of punishment, why should it ? do two wrongs make things right ? If we take a good look at history it does not seem to have worked very well so far !

Richard Serra

Richard Serra (born 1939 in San Francisco ) is a sculptor who works with large sheet metals. He is concerned with how people move within space. His large scale metal sculptures dictate the relationship you the viewer as with the sculpture itself as well as the space in which the sculptures are placed . The sculptures force you to either move around , within or on its form manipulating your actions within a defined space. As you can see from the above example, 'Matter Of Time ' 2005 Guggenheim Museum Bilboa

Controlled Enviroment: Phenomenon Of Theme Parks and Destinations

Westin Bonaventure is the largest Hotel in Los Angeles California , it is 367 ft (112 mtr ) tall, with 35 floors , the top floor comprises of a revolving restaurant and bar. It was designed and built by John Portman. The building came to my attention whilst reading an exerpt from a writing by Fredric Jameson. He states that this building "typifies the logic of Post-modernism and social organization."

It does this from the very outset of your interaction with it. The hotel has 3 entrances, none of which directly bring you to the reception, ensuring that the design layout is controlling your movement throughout the hotel taking you past in built retail outlets. Jameson believes that the hotel is trying to be a city, a contained controlled environment, " The Bonaventure aspires to being a total space, a complete world, a kind of miniature city" The positioning of the revolving restaurant ensures you have views of the whole city without you having to leave the hotel. In the book Rethinking Architecture (Cultural logic of late capitalism, pg. 242). Jameson goes on to explain and explore how other aspects of the hotel's design has been created specifically to manipulate the user and also to point out that John Portman the architect is also a businessman and multimillionaire developer !