the fear in infrastructure

those who have ever seen 'irreversible' by gaspard noe will probably remember the eerie rape scene in the tunnel under the street. next to it being a gripping scene that left you sick and disgusted with mankind - great acting, one shot only, oh my god you get the point - it perfectly illustrates the scary thing with infrastructure.

linear infrastructure that is.

you see, the annoying thing with long, enclosed lines of movement like tunnels, but also trains, is that you can see the exit, but you're not there yet. and anything can happen on the way there. well, they tell you anything can happen. of course no ghouls will jump out of the walls or paratroopers will descent through a freshy blown hole in the ceiling, but you never know.

man is prone to fear. fear of not having any options left. perhaps an analogy with a famous computer game is at its place here. we all know pacman. heck, pacman has been an essential part of many 80s youngsters youth. either at home or in the arcade, we all tried to eat all the balls and avoid getting caught by the ghosts. however, we were always given an overview of the game map, indicating where the ghosts were, instead imagine a 3D version of pacman. you are running through endless hallways, all exactly alike, and you don't know what is either behind or ahead of you. you just have an arrow indicating where the exit (kind of) is. this fear (i can already see myself doing this in a nightmare) of infrastructure as an exponent of fear is something i aim to investigate. can infrastructure dissolve fear? is visibility enough?

let's call it infearstructure.

but there is hope: just think about the light at the end of the tunnel - or, as two famous dutch comicbook characters (a duck and a canary) once said: 'and at the end of the tunnel, one big tropical swimming pool!'

potential weapons for a music festival

visited the 'city is ours' festival this saturday, at the terrain of the haagse hogeschool in the hague. music was good (digitalism, goose, freeform five) but the execution of the whole thing was kind of sketchy. it started at the door, where there was only one bouncer to search everybody. in these times of threat level red/orange/pink/whatever it is most important to make sure that nobody with evil intentions gets into your music festival, so there better be a good check. by one guy for 5000 people.

anyway, the festival was called 'the city is ours' because MTV (the great company that brought us room raiders, taildaters and other left-ear-in-right-ear-out programs) claimed that with organizing it, it would show the city how freedom, love and happiness could unite a city. for 30 euros though. on an island with a big fence around it... what struck me however, was that when you ordered a coke, you got one in a bottle. nothing wrong with it, you'd say, if you ignore the fact that they gave you a capless bottle. can i please have the cap, i asked. i'm sorry sir, the bartender said, we can't give you the cap because you can use it as a weapon then.

stop right there.

who would ever use this



as a weapon?? it's a goddamn freakin' PLASTIC coke bottle. we're not made of sugar are we? not allowing me to have a cap on my coke bottle is about the only reason that makes me want to use it as a weapon instead of something like:

A FESTIVAL FLYER



festival flyers piss me off, even more than dutch schlager songs inbetween performances. there's just too many of them, most of them are ugly and i don't want to go to a party with bubbling beats. festival flyers kill by the power of numbers, very very large numbers.

KIDS



why in the name of god would you want to bring your kids to a festival. if i come home, i am bruised, battered and kind of drunk. i don't want to imagine what could happen to your kids. plus, they run around too much. kids can be lethal in that they annoy other people that come to you to beat you up instead of your kids. i mean, they do look quite right?

NICKELBACK



simply seeing this photo makes me wanna kill myself.

FOOD



festival food is a slow killer. and it's a very nihilistic and existential one. only the next day, when you try to summarize all the beverages and snacks you consumed during the festival, and you suddenly realize that you probably ate stuff that even pigs ignore, you feel very small. festival food is normally made from the stuff they scrape off the bottom of frying pans, and then moulded, sprayed or pasted into a shape that more or less resembles regular food.

if there is anything that should not be allowed at a festival, it should be festival food.

to graduate ot not to graduate

for now, mostly not to graduate, due to:

wait. maybe i should restart this blog and write completely uninteresting stories about what i am trying to work on for my graduation project at the faculty of architecture at the TU Delft (don't click this link, this website sucks), aptly named: the global anti-global; on speed, security and space

my research will focus on the increasing influence fear has in the built environment of the cities around us, the streets we walk through and even the houses we live in.

this is what happens when fear takes over our lives:



in sydney, asian and pacific leaders have gathered for their annual(?) meeting on economics, killing people and (because it's totally cool to talk about) the environment. the city has been closed down at a cost of 100 million US dollars.

i understand that it is not favourable if any of the worldleaders gathered in sydney gets hurt (we don't want people going crazy over dead presidents do we now...) but from a completely paralyzed city no one benefits.

didn't some wise man once said "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself"? well, this is exactly what we are afraid of now, i'd say. when i walk around on amsterdam train station i see billboards of the train-ticketguy, and apparently, he also helps fighting terrorism. but i can still take my knife ('but sir, it's okay, it's a breadknife.") on a continental flight in the states.



anyway, the plan is to finally start using my blog regularly (yes, i'll give it another try) to report on my graduation process, and not to spend any time on either of these things:

facehunter
go fug yourself
entourage
facebook
youtube
flickr
archinect
wikipedia
soulseek
...