oh lysaght. oh oh lysaght.
dammit. i've been trying to get on top of my research proposal the whole night (i even skipped wonder boys) but i keep straying onto lj. sigh. i'd like to gun for the lysaght scholarship, but the research has got to be somehow related to australia. and i'm having a really tough time. hm. maybe i should establish detention centres as a symptom of bourdieu's habitus. and then pin it to some eurocentric undercurrent in the australian society today. perhaps push forward a theory of negative-symbolic capital in architecture that is producing the subaltern and er. consequently producing. er. terrorists? shit. that hasn't come out right at all. it's like saying eurocentricity = exclusion = terrorists. hm. then again...
or i could relate it to foucault and all that jazz about place and power. and then reassess the translation of bentham's panopticon to the current let's-site-all-these-immigrants-in-some-remote-desert model. then insert some chatter about surveillance. but it doesn't really fit that well seeing the panoptican and foucault were more about rehabilitating people, whereas detention centres are more akin to borders, creating inside places that are outside. i could probably relate the resultant architectural forms to issues of climate, social perceptions, political agendas, marketing strategies. but getting the plans and visiting rights are going slowly but surely kill me.
or i could go with non-place. like how shopping centres, airports, freeways are considered by some to transcend national boundaries and exist outside of the local urban fabric. globalisation indicators. yada yada. and how detention centres are similarly a form of non-place. and then assessing the architecture of the place in terms of its genericity, perhaps lack of health-safety standards. relating it with dystopia and other places that are products of a moral geography of who belongs and who does not belong in society... hospices? juvenile centres? elderly homes? prisons? and, if i had the balls, to aboriginal communities. then again, i don't really have to background to study aboriginal culture.
i think that's my main problem. i'm australian. but i've grown up in singapore. so i really lack a certain "australian-ess" that makes application for all these grants such a bloody pain. i don't even understand cricket and i've been here, like what, seven years? that's like a third of my life (okay. a bit less than that). take the recent poster annual:
(these are some of my favourites)
(and this was mine)
i've seen the actual posters and although i like the majority of them (here's the top 50) i do, to a certain extent, feel that my design was not inferior to quite a few of the pieces (is this ego talking or what?). i felt i lost out because i lacked a deeper understanding of what australia is (or, because i have a different understanding of what australia is). almost a third of the pieces were in some way a statement/apology to the aboriginal people. some were about saving the trees. a few showed the national anthem heavily censored. and others were of backyard icons (which i kinda like). mine on the other hand was just so incredibly superficial in comparison: to me, australia was about the dominant culture demanding assimilation: a buddha head dons the face of luna park. a pet-lovin' culture, spending time on the beach, learning to surf (pretty badly), loving melbourne's trams, and thinking the world of the platypus.
and i bet you unless i get serious help soon, my research proposal's going to look like it's paying lip service to australia in some sad attempt to grab cash. groan.
or i could relate it to foucault and all that jazz about place and power. and then reassess the translation of bentham's panopticon to the current let's-site-all-these-immigrants-in-some-remote-desert model. then insert some chatter about surveillance. but it doesn't really fit that well seeing the panoptican and foucault were more about rehabilitating people, whereas detention centres are more akin to borders, creating inside places that are outside. i could probably relate the resultant architectural forms to issues of climate, social perceptions, political agendas, marketing strategies. but getting the plans and visiting rights are going slowly but surely kill me.
or i could go with non-place. like how shopping centres, airports, freeways are considered by some to transcend national boundaries and exist outside of the local urban fabric. globalisation indicators. yada yada. and how detention centres are similarly a form of non-place. and then assessing the architecture of the place in terms of its genericity, perhaps lack of health-safety standards. relating it with dystopia and other places that are products of a moral geography of who belongs and who does not belong in society... hospices? juvenile centres? elderly homes? prisons? and, if i had the balls, to aboriginal communities. then again, i don't really have to background to study aboriginal culture.
i think that's my main problem. i'm australian. but i've grown up in singapore. so i really lack a certain "australian-ess" that makes application for all these grants such a bloody pain. i don't even understand cricket and i've been here, like what, seven years? that's like a third of my life (okay. a bit less than that). take the recent poster annual:
(these are some of my favourites)
(and this was mine)
i've seen the actual posters and although i like the majority of them (here's the top 50) i do, to a certain extent, feel that my design was not inferior to quite a few of the pieces (is this ego talking or what?). i felt i lost out because i lacked a deeper understanding of what australia is (or, because i have a different understanding of what australia is). almost a third of the pieces were in some way a statement/apology to the aboriginal people. some were about saving the trees. a few showed the national anthem heavily censored. and others were of backyard icons (which i kinda like). mine on the other hand was just so incredibly superficial in comparison: to me, australia was about the dominant culture demanding assimilation: a buddha head dons the face of luna park. a pet-lovin' culture, spending time on the beach, learning to surf (pretty badly), loving melbourne's trams, and thinking the world of the platypus.
and i bet you unless i get serious help soon, my research proposal's going to look like it's paying lip service to australia in some sad attempt to grab cash. groan.