This week I'm going to try something different.We are going to deflect ourselves for one week only from 'readings' to 'browsings' in the spirit of Marshall McLuhan. You are asked to browse YouTube for material on McLuhan's 'media is the message' (even clips from 'Annie Hall'), Reyner Banham's love of Los Angeles and William Burrough's paranoia. Spend about an hour doing doing this, and select your favourite clip so that when we discuss this arena further in the class, you can contribute by saying 'look at this!'
I tried it this morning and it was amazing how much interrelated material came up, from Norman Mailer ranting about Clinton's 'sexgate' to Hunter S Thompson interviewing Keith Richards. I started somewhere, but I ended up somewhere else that was somehow in the same field.
Our aim is to:
a) get some kind of grip on what the hell Marshall McLuhan was talking about
and
b) ask the poignant question 'what if he's right?'
I suspect this is an ever more important task for our age, since knowledge seems to be changing. The world of Colin Rowe seems light years away. The most paranoid see the objective is to abolish thinking altogether!
Hint for Dissertation Nine:
This is a highly pertinent topic, since the mode of production of architecture has changed so quickly over the space of one generation (mine!) It is important that if you take on such an issue of current interest, it is backed up by historical enquiry, otherwise it just becomes musing and speculation.
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