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
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