On Temporary Contracts

This article makes obvious the cultural predicament which we are faced with on an ever-increasing level. Affected by the overwhelming ramifications of this kind of lifestyle it seems tenuous to suggest such a simplistic reaction as this but....
I feel presently that, largely due to our image-driven culture, we have become estranged from the process of making and the consequences that accompany it. We favour our vision as a vehicle of communication, understand meaning through sight and accept possession through image. The realm of the image is so easily deceptive and contrived, yet simultaneously so convincing, that we are repeatedly forced to wonder whether we actually do believe something or not. Through the emphasis of this one (uncertain) mode of sensing over the remaining, it seems plausible that we could be incorrectly understanding our environment.
So I propose that if we were to place materials into the hands of students, and were to encourage a less product based education, that the flimsiness of the image could perhaps become more apparent, and the seductive value of the tactile and temoporal realms could lead to a more comprehensive understanding of what is valuable. This seems appropriate to architecture as well. If it is too image based at present, perhaps this is because of this sensory imablance mentioned earlier.

Week Three Readings

Ellen Dunham-Jones' "Temporary Contracts"
Gail Faurschou's "Obsolescence and Desire: Fashion and the Commodity Form"

In her article, Dunham-Jones writes of the ubiquity of the temporary contract in today's world. Our society seems to be built to reap short-term profits and to avoid long term commitments and responsibility. This can be seen in the increasing temporariness of marriages, fashions, jobs and even companies. Wal-Mart can be seen as the perfect embodiment of the temporary contract – by fuelling our desire to consume and throw away and by typically leasing their buildings so they can exit a market when they can gain bigger profits elsewhere.

Faurschou ably describes the pervasiveness of fashion in our society and its role in supporting our capitalist economy. She argues that fashion removes symbolic ties from things, aiming to turn anything into a mass-produced commodity product (that people must buy and replace as soon as the next improved and more up-to-date product is available).

Faurschou’s discussion of fashion fits well with Dunham-Jones description of the temporary contract. Fashion is the ultimate temporary contract – encouraging one to buy certain products to look a certain way until the fashion is changed, requiring one to buy new products to reflect a new image.

Is fashion and the temporary contract a necessary result of capitalism? Capitalism is designed around the “free market” that determines what, where and how goods are produced and distributed to consumers (all for creating profit – the more profit, the better). In the quest for ever-increasing profits, markets are created to drive consumption of new products, aided through fashion. The temporary contract underlies most of capitalism, allowing people and corporations to chase bigger profits by casting away previous commitments. If we agree that fashion and the temporary contract are not ideal ways of running our world, are there anyways to discourage these practices within capitalism? Do we need an entirely new system of values and/or economy?

Week Three Readings

Ellen Durham-Jones - Temporary Contracts
Gail Faurshou - Obsolescence and Desire

Temporary Contracts deals with the idea that our culture of consumerism has lead to a non-committal attitude. We have a large industry that thrives on the purchase-use-discard-repurchase cycle, mainly the large corporations like Wal-Mart. Our interest in technology perpetuates this phenomena by releasing a "new" version of software or hardware and by cross-pollinating gadgets to make hybrid gadgets thus creating a multitude of product. This strategy has been allowed to blossom due to the heavier weighing on reception of product rather than production. We are lead to believe that we need a newer, upgraded version of something everyday. Is this a phenomena that will die as fast as it's "old" versions of product? Or do we foresee as even higher turnover rate? The major issue that should be a key to the answers to the questions is the fact that the temporary contract has seeped into our relationships and families. We now dispose of spouses and friends at a greater rate, we see people as commodities...when is this okay, if ever?

Obsolescence and Desire uncovers fashion as a commodity and its ramifications. Fashion is forever recycling images from the past and reconstituting them in a mix of history and commentary. Fashion presents history in a watered-down way by emulating previous styles. In this way it is the pastiche of Jameson's postmodern analysis.

The ideas presented by Baudrillard provide a clear idea of the symbolic. It is interesting that the gift morphs from an arbitrary object to a definition of a relationship to a symbol and finally to a confirmation of the uniqueness of the exchange....from arbitrary to identifiable.

How do we react to a culture we partake of that values a commodification of everything? Is it another waxing and waning, do we wait for it to pass? If a little shop closes in a small town, and Wal-Mart is to blame and we do nothing is that wrong?

Week Two Class

-i think that the grand narrative is a myth. The idea may have only existed as a result of our labeling. We tend to organize things into bins so that the sorting is easier later. Modernism is a bin so maybe that's one of the factors in perpetuating the idea of the "grand narrative".
-Post modern is a rejection of the compartmentalizing in a certain sense, or maybe the post-modern bin looks a lot like a junk drawer.

Week Two Readings

Fredric Jameson – Postmodernism and Consumer Society
David Harvey – An Enquiry in to the Origins of Social Change

I find the approach of Jameson a bit too referential in his approach on the subject of postmodernism although it seems necessary if only to offer exemplary diversity. While some of his commentary is easy to follow i.e. his description of pastiche. The rest of the article felt like touch and go as far as understanding mainly because of my lack of knowledge of the examples given.

David Harvey presents a thorough examination of the Reagan years. The idea that aesthetics overtakes ethics becomes problematic. Therein lies the lies that provide a veneer for a country when it really needs a solid core. How can it be right to allow a superficial power rule a country? In what aspects in our life do we allow the aesthetic to overtake the ethical? Does it in the end fill our plate or just make it look like it is full?

The dialogue between modern and post-modern is a half turn in the wheel so to speak; I think it is part of a waxing and waning that permeates most everything in our world…action and reaction. What might follow post-modern is a modern-like period.

If post-modern is pastiche then it has much to offer to the critique of modern. If it is then a serious mimicry, but only mimics parts, then it must delve deeper into those parts. Therefore, modern acts a jumping off point for post-modern allowing a number of points to be further undressed or not.

Week One Class

In terms of the question of how do we increase the interest of the general society in acquiring the work of an architect: We approach every potential client in a humble way. There is a lot of perceived arrogance in our chosen field, it can reflect poorly upon the profession. Ideally we should see ourselves in service of society on all levels.

Week 2 Reading Notes and Comments

Fredric Jameson's "Postmodernism and Consumer Society"
David Harvey's "The Condition of Postmodernity. An Enquiry into the Origins of Social Change"

Fredric Jameson attempts to describe 'Postmodernism' in a roundabout way by discussing examples of it in film, literature and architecture. Jameson links the emergence of postmodernism to that of the consumer/multinational capitalist society. David Harvey’s essay continues the discussion on popular capitalism in his critique of the Reagan presidency. Their analysis of the consumer culture couldn’t be more applicable today. I wonder how the rise of the Internet and our new “information age” would change these essays if they were written in 2007. (Jameson writes of “the disappearance of a sense of history” – this might be true since I already place these two essays in the past and question how much they speak of present issues.)

I agree with Jameson’s analysis of the Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles. I visited the building a couple years ago and came across many of the same issues that Jameson highlights. I entered the hotel from one of the elevated entrances and assumed that there must be some other more prominent main entrance that I had missed (apparently there isn’t). I remember finding the hotel difficult to navigate and waiting a long time for the heavily used elevators.

I question the ability to assign a category (such as postmodern, high modern, nostalgic, etc.) to every work, as Jameson and Harvey so readily do. Does every work have to be categorized? Is it right to do so? The author of a work might have been thinking of very different ideas than those ideas imposed on it by the assignment of a category.