Back to what I was blogging about before: Do you think we could use this novel to inform a narrative/ character to drive the project?
The story effectively involves an Architect (Maitland), who crashes his car into a left-over piece of land in the middle of a motorway interchange and cannot escape. It is very much a contemporary version of Robinson Crusoe.
Maitland is a symbol for a society founded on capitalism and consumerism. The island serves two purposes in the novel. Firstly, it is used as a way of embodying the mental struggles that he goes though on the island. Secondly, it is representative of the kind of alienating, non-place, urbanism of the capitalist society.
Through the course of the novel we see his attitude change from one of needing to escape to one of needing to dominate the island and everything on it.
There are quite a few themes in this we could pick up on. The nature of the island for example could be related back to the islands of void in our site. Any thoughts?
Ballard, J.G. (2011). Concrete Island. 4th ed. London: HarperCollins.
Sounds good to me. Could we perhaps write a narrative to sit along side our master plan. A fictional character who embodies our theory
ReplyDeleteI thought your novel was really good at instantly immersing the rest of us in the group into what your project was about, it was an easy way to begin to access some of the more in depth theory you were talking about. Could be a well sweet thing to have as a narrative when you come to your designing bits as well…can’t wait to see that! Was that builder who fell asleep in the deck chair based on your Dad Matt?
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