File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2003/lyotard.0305, message 85


Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 15:35:29 +1000 (EST)
From: "Glen Fuller" <g.fuller-AT-uws.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Tramps like us, baby, we were born to run


Eric,

Ok, sorry, it bugs me when people assume I am ignorant to the gross 
paradox of being a sometimes hoon and in some sense a concerned post-
(neo)-marxist (or something like that;).
I got the 'Crash' reference but I don't know anything about Godard 
(Band of Outsiders/Weekend). I read Crash as an attempt to put into the 
words the desire for the anhilation of self-other human-technology, 
even if this desire sometimes results in your own anhilation.  

> The car isn't just a utilitarian object. It never has been. It never
> will be. 

John Urry has argued with his notion of automobilised time-space, that 
now we cannot possibly escape from the car, the car's environment, or 
car culture, etc. Automobilised time-space has become a necessary 
condition of our material existence. Part of what I am trying to do is 
mark out a radical externality from the normative ab/use of the social 
terrain of automobilised time-space, by focusing on reconceptions of 
urban space (similar to Iain Borden's book on skateboarding), and the 
social space of auto-consumption.

> Hell, even when I'm on my bike I sometimes want
> to go faster, faster, pussycat, bang, bang.

A terrific irnoy is that I haven't actually had a car for about 6 
monmths. haha! I need to get one soon, as road-centric activities by my 
subjects will occur during spring/summer, and I can't waste a whole 
year of ethnographic research because I didn't have a car. (It is 
important I get a car, and something 'cool', otherwise I will 
automatically be placed on the outside and also physically won't be 
able to participate in cruises and the like. I have joked with my 
supervisors about getting a grant...)
 
> PS - I have little illusions about the internet. This is a virtual
> drive-in where I rant sometimes after traveling up and down the 
strip. I
> have no illusions that it really makes a difference. 

Another irony, I enjoy reading and sometimes contributing to this list 
and others. They certainly have helped with the development of my 
thinking. So, in some way, it actually does make a difference.

Glen.

-- 
PhD Candidate, Centre for Cultural Research
University of Western Sydney


   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005