1/2 Chapter
Like a written note to a friend, I feel the need to open with I-have-not-written-for-a-long-time. Although my posts serve a different function than a letter, the excuses are nearly the same. It’s not that I haven’t thought about writing or wanted to write. Somehow, the stamina and ability to follow through has not been. Every … Continue reading
Institutionalizing ‘radical’
I heard a lot of academic stuff this past week; by which I mean guest lectures and presentations. Some of it was good, most of it was eh but what really got me thinking was not the substance of these talks but rather the title of one in particular: ‘How to be a Radical Geographer.’ … Continue reading
Intentional String Theory (aesthetic with no inside)
Can aesthetic reveal truths? Or is it that when we find truth (an instinctual, fleeting feeling of certain ‘rightness’) we also find aesthetic? I think both are possible, but, at this moment, I feel the urge to state that aesthetic can never be intentional. When we create for aesthetic and aesthetic only, it disappears. It … Continue reading
Performing the Rehearsal: The Strip Tease of Modernity
Hegel changed the course of modern philosophy when he asserted that history, driven by changes in the ideals and values of a given people, is contradictory by nature. Yet modernity for Hegel was characterized by a sense of universality, thus lending itself to a certain idealism which was soon shattered by Marx, who used Hegelian … Continue reading
Some Thoughts on Transportation Education I
Waiting on the subway platform in the first hours of the morning, I usually experience some kind of infrastructure euphoria. Even the rats, who at this time, are so bold as to come right up to your feet, are a part of my utopian vision for a more collective MTA consciousness. It might be a … Continue reading
Material Proximity
Where does sculpture end and geography begin? That was the unshakable question that developed in my head during a recent trip to the Noguchi Museum in Queens. A few days prior, I’d been reading Derek Gregory’s Ideology, Science and Human Geography chapter “Structural explanation in geography,” a discussion of Maus and Levi-Strauss’s elementary methods of … Continue reading
Some Shitty Wine at the Thing
A friend and I use to joke that Thursday nights in New York might as well be dubbed some shitty wine at the thing because of the numerous opportunities to partake in free alcohol and visual culture. Also known as exhibition openings, these alternative happy hours draw a wide range of people: underemployed students and … Continue reading
Second Story Social Exchange
Like the rest of America, a great deal of socializing in New York occurs outdoors, with one marked difference–it’s often a few stories off the ground. If you’re like me you might’ve assumed that New York City rooftop leisure is a product of 21st century real estate development, particularly in the outer boroughs where condos … Continue reading
Photogenic Factory Reproduction
Let me state the obvious: modern technologies instigated new forms of consumption in the early 20th century. This is well documented in the visual arts–particularly in photography. Right now New York is home to a number of good exhibitions showcasing photography as the medium that truly represented the changing social and physical landscape of a … Continue reading
Simulated History: Sidewalks and Streetscapes
One of my favorite moments of urban life is walking down a quiet street and listening to my shoes hit the pavement. The sound is a softer version of the clop clop I associate with horses and I’m inevitably transported to the 19th century; I imagine walking on down an uneven, dimly lit sidewalk that … Continue reading
