Monday28th & Friday 2nd

We are nearly at the end of the road, and will take on modernism via two popular texts, the novel Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh and the film 'The Fountainhead' by Ayn Rand. Although this blog is very late, I think I've hopefully flashed these items around enough for you to know.
Hopefully it's not difficult for you, in your ingenuity, to download the Fountainhead film. As a side benefit, it is hilariously funny for such a high minded melodrama so worth the money.

An Apology and Notes

Once more I am indisposed. I've had a nasty relapse. Of course I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, but there's nothing I can do but program this virtual session for Friday 25th November.

Your task, over the time of the session but with a deadline of 7pm Friday, is to submit to me via e-mail your post on Ginsberg and Burroughs. You can use your own laptops or the computer room, and I'll be asking Mathew to set up the computer in VG11 at 3pm to this blog.

There follow some notes below which would mirror those I'd use tomorrow, plus some additional YouTube sites that I encourage you to look at together (nominate somebody to operate the computer) that show Archigram at their most feisty. Simply tap in to the YouTube search 'Archigram' 'ICA' 'David Greene' then try the archigram, ICA plus 'Mike Webb' and as many others from the series as you like. Hopefully you will see some correspondence with Burroughs as you watch this rather strange even unfold.

This is a week where we deal in total alternatives, extreme rejection of the 'normal'. You might ask your self what brings this on in terms of physical and cultural context (cars, drugs, jazz, electricity, Senetor McCarthy, sexual repression, The Bomb, wealth, parents, DH Lawrence, Jackson Pollock and so on) you might ask your self what such expression means to you now, is Glastonbury the same as it used to be? Do people get high to reach a state of higher consciousness....or not? Essentially these are the questions I want you to broach in your blog.

I wonder to how many of you this kind of material feels totally foreign?

I will be reading all the blogs you send in from my armchair, under half a blanket, and will provide feedback.

Best

Paul

Session VI

Howl

The texts this week are the poem Howl and William Burrough's 'The Job'. 'The Job' is a compilation of material, so it can be skimmed for the salient issues. Burroughs of course, does not hold back. The issues we will be addressing are those of 'the machine' (both physical and metaphorical) and paranoia, plus of course, the sixties revolution in general.

Session V

Henri Lefebvre's approach to 'social space', a term we continually abuse, deserves repeated reading. Where with Goethe's Faust, we see the transcendental nature of man, the powers he can employ and abuse, as central to a 'tragedy of development' here Lefebvre attempts a more materialist analysis of compromise and ambiguity, starting with a discussion of the difference between a work and a product. When you read this piece, it might be a good idea to watch Gardeners World or Autumn Watch, followed by Grand Designs, since while you note they appear to employ the same language, that of things being 'beautiful' it should be clear to you that a 'beautiful' petunia is not the same as a 'beautiful' kitchen. Lefebvre would undoubtedly be startled by contemporary kitchen design, with it's inherent division of labour, it's obsession with hygiene and invisibility, of the relationship between the 'natural' food stuff and and the artificially satisfying 'clunk' of a drawer, the exacerbation of the perfection in the machine.

Next week

I think I shall be well enough to hold next weeks session in person! I'm very sorry that since my inconvenient hospitalization, recovery has not been as fast as I would have liked. Please make every effort to read the Berman text, and those of you thinking ahead get hold of Henri Lefebvre's 'The Production of Space', refering specifically to the chapter 'Social Space'.

3.30pm

Remember we are trying to dissect opinions, not simply express them!!

For instance, in the lastest TV ad for Green Flag roadside assistance, you will notice they utilize the ultimate emotional tag line for the audience they are trying to reach, those who have cars which arn't necessarily reliable AND play Coldplay records. They say they will come and 'Fix You'

Aaaaah.

Friday 4th November

Hi!

Open your laptops!

Firstly I would like you to feed me your individual blogspot.com address for this Critical Thinking course. If you use the comment button your message will come to me as e-mail, I will read what you've got and get back to you.

Secondly I want you to start thinking about the way the readings connect together. You started with Jonathan Meades on Zaha, an interesting piece of writing, full of wit and faint praise, perhaps a little too English by half, very clever clever. It came down to him having a problem with the way Zaha could not explain her work, not that he was going to say that directly. Then Badiou attempted to explain something it is almost impossible to explain, our economic hell, he did it by use of an elaborate and appropriate metaphor; 'We're living in a movie'. We live on the information we are given (the media) what happens if that information is false? The third piece, by Dave Hickey, simply took to the age old tactic of inversion; 'You probably think this place is awful, but actually it's great'. It is also a lyrical piece, about opportunity and, in a way, love, a love of writing and a love of ordinary things. Mike Davis started by writing a piece of science fiction, but we soon see he's not very good at it, he's not lyrical at all. The contemporary world hurts Mike Davis, it's iniquities make his blood boil, so he documents the facts so they speak for themselves, and in the process makes you understand that Dubai is indeed a shithole, and the two pieces together do at least confirm that the Las Vegas of the 1990's and the Dubai of the noughties are very different indeed, and only superficially similar to those who are not thinking.

Now to Terry Eagleton. Here we are introduced to something called Cultural Theory, where, in the first paragraph, he explains great work has been done, and goes on to explain it's transformation. Eagleton is also trying to explain something difficult in an easy way, using lots of simile people can understand (Zaha take note). You need to understand what were those great achievements in Cultural Theory and why did they happen? They certainly have a lot to do with the pursuit of truth, the underlying reasons we do things. The second thing is for you to decide whether Eagleton is nostalgic for the old days, or simply preparing us for the moment that Lady Ga Ga ends up running a university sociology department- yet another spectacle perhaps.

Once we get a discussion going and you leave comments against this blog, we can develop this conversation further as I make new blogs responding to your questions.

Finally, at the end of the session, say 4.30, you should turn to the blog beneath this titled 'Session IV' and run down to the library to get Berman's book, maybe photocopy the relevant chapters for each other. That is if you haven't been wonderful and already bought them from Amazon.