Beyond Thunderdome

Currently most creative industries operate on a global scale. In the last decades there has been an enormous output of work exposed through a virtual platform accessible to everybody.

Our combined and shared outputs have led to a marginalisation of individual strengths. Architecture seem to have lost its ability to proactively engage with its audience. Or did it ever? Buildings designed in Australia differ no more that those designed on other continents. There seems to be an acceptance of global trends represented in glossy renders as if we are reading a fashion magazine. When we look at advertising the same people in the same environments appear to sell us the same culture we want to subscribe to. However it seems we can’t recollect the actual product or its need for us to have it. Something strange seems to be happening...

A cinematic approach to rediscover architecture?

This studies unit will search for a reading of the ‘origin’ image of current architectural and urban design practice with cinema as a comprehensible example. In cinema the story or its meaning seem to have become second to the form in which it is delivered. The visual language of the film often overrules the character building and its special effects are a substitute for the tension or complexity of the narrative.

The same structures seem to be used and re-used to control an optimised version of itself for an audience that is pre-decided, prescribed, tested and eventually economised to sustain a maximum pro t. But which  lm did we actually see?

In 2018 all films are the same. In 2018 all architecture is the same.

The transformation of creative cultural industries has not happened suddenly. This studies unit will investigate the slow change into this hypernormalised state using cinema, architecture and urban design, (others?) to not only challenge the perceived blandness but search for possibilities to exploit it through drawing, filming, analysing, curating and editing.

This studies unit will be delivered in combination with the The Road Warrior studio.