terms of reading

Summarizing my initial steps of investigation into thesis: I read. I read a lot. Some of the most relevant texts I found were perhaps more tangentially related to my topic than precisely analogous to it, as I suppose they allowed me the space to make my own conclusions and take my own perspectives.

I read an interesting article by Peter Sloterdijk called "Modernity as Mobilisation." In it, he argues that modernity has created a tachocracy (LOVE the term) in which "subject functions" (or the Nietzshian will to the self-appropriated production of self) are switched off for being too slow, too sensitive and non-universal. I suppose what he means is that modernity has bred a culture of consumption without digestion, a desire for the quick-and-easy answer, direction, meaning.

Edward Dimendberg's "The Will to Motorisation - Cinema and the Autobahn" comes up with some pretty interesting terms itself. Perhaps the most central is the idea of centrifugal space, encompassing territory, communication and speed. All of which Foucault declares outside the realm of the architect, but whatever. I mean perhaps it is precisely the division between what is within the realm of architecture and what is outside of it that has contributed the desire for objectivity, and the urbanistic clash between spaces that are necessarily objectively created (infrastructure) versus those that rely upon the accumulation of subjective experience ("space" by Marc Auge's definition).

Edward Soja defines synekism as the "critical mass potential for innovation that exists in urban areas, not typically available in rural environment." Curious.