Date: October 2015
Medium: Plastic Straw, Acylic sheet, Image projected on the wall
This is a group project of two. The main idea and model making was done together however a 1000word essay was written individually on our own thoughts about the research and the model.
This project investigates current issues around the urban in Auckland (New Zealand). We were asked to re-imagine and create a new city which emphasises this issue. My focus was on Which aspects of the existing Auckland does it communicate on the contemporary issues of society and culture? How are we occupied in this space or Auckland? All of these enquires lead me to think on the relation between city and its inhabitants or how the city is organized.
We focused on the effect of media and how it influences transforms and creates illusions to the city. The new Auckland is divided into two sections( two worlds) where one side is run by hegemony and the other side, dominant.
We focused on the effect of media and how it influences transforms and creates illusions to the city. The new Auckland is divided into two sections( two worlds) where one side is run by hegemony and the other side, dominant.
This idea was motivated from the reading ‘The Agony of Power’ by Jean Baudrillard. In relation to Debord’s idea of the reality and the image-based society, ‘Baudrillard argues for a shift historically from a world of domination’ verses ‘one driven by hegemony.’ In the text, he states, “In order to grasp how globalization and global antagonism works, we should distinguish carefully between domination and hegemony.” (Baudrillard, 2005, p33)We wanted to relate this idea of antagonism between two parts of the Auckland.
Baudrillard, J., & Lotringer, S. (2010). From Domination To Hegemony. In The agony of power (p. P33). Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e) ;.
The domination section underlies a similarity between dictatorships. There is one ruler that controls the city.The ruler or the media is the dominator and citizens as dominated. People in this section are manipulated and forced to eat, dress, work or think in a certain way, a way that the ruler commands them to be.
The hegemony section also operates in a society that is controlled by the media. However, there is no external force, it internalizes ourselves into discipline in the society.In contrast to the domination, hegemony operates in various types of media where different channels, blogs or magazines are biased to their own thoughts. The media itself becomes the nature of hegemony. It controls the society not by external force, but persuading and advertising on how we should think, what we should buy or what we should believe.
The hegemony section also operates in a society that is controlled by the media. However, there is no external force, it internalizes ourselves into discipline in the society.In contrast to the domination, hegemony operates in various types of media where different channels, blogs or magazines are biased to their own thoughts. The media itself becomes the nature of hegemony. It controls the society not by external force, but persuading and advertising on how we should think, what we should buy or what we should believe.
This idea relates to how our New Auckland was displayed. The whole scene was layered in three different sections: the projector, the model and the wall. This illustrates the threshold between three mediums that represents the unreal and real space. The projector or the image projected out represents the society of the two cities. The hegemony seems to present itself with color and portray a sense of brightness to it. The domination has no color or characteristics to it, conveying a sense of emptiness and dullness. Also, two parts of the cities are upside down to give a clear contrast between the two. The plastic straws represent a line of network and the model is a landscape of the city.
