One thing that has been bothering me lately about this thesis, which up until now I haven't been able to place my finger on, is that I am essentially attempting to apply the dense theories and subtle thinking of academia to what is ultimately and essentially a product that caters to consumer popular culture... and, well... just how valid is that? (I feel as if I am attempting to discuss rugby using only literary analysis terms, or economics using Middle English or.. you know.)
In reading an article from Design Issues about biophilia vs. technophilia in design culture today, I came upon a statement that I've probably encountered dozens of times already: "The idea that technology cannot be an anodyne for society's ills is a relatively recent development." What stopped me this time around was the fact that I had just so recently been casually browsing an issue of Wired magazine, in which a giddy faith and excitement about technology is overtly quite alive and well. What do you mean, people are losing faith in technology? For normal people, the type of "normal" people over at Dwell magazine, who are raving about LivingHomes, who are paying attention to Steve Glenn's every move, their faith in technology doesn't seem to be taking a hit from the supposed jadedness of the academic world. To the normal world, the academic way of looking at their world may as well not exist. And yet.. the normal world is where actions need to happen, solutions need to be found. I am clearly identifying problems with the aesthetic glorified by LH in my thesis, but because it is couched in the thinking of academic spheres, how will those problems ever be solved in a real-world way, a way that affects investors, builders, and homebuyers?
I've always worked under the assumption that if I happen to have the ability analyze something deeply and poetically (i.e. I've been armed with all the rampant theory and learnedness of four years of an expensive liberal arts education), then by all means apply I should apply it to anything and everything, be it the cheese on my hamburger patty, the most recent Tate Modern show, or a line of sleek and alluring residential homes in Southern California.
On the other hand, I have this nagging suspicion that none of this research will ever bear any real world relevance to the design and construction of actual homes in the future, even though I am really enjoying it. My whole reservation about writing a thesis in the first place was that a semester-ful of knowledge and writing will get us no where in actually suggesting improvements to the state of affairs in Green housing today, in getting closer to tangible solutions. The real estate market operates on principles of marketing, consumer desire, etc. not on the poetry of Whitman or academic descendants of Thoreau's transcendentalism or the writings of cultural philosophers, no matter how thought-provoking and spiritually uplifting. I've been trying desperately to find academic work that bridges the gap between cultural theory and sociology/economics but I'm only finding texts that fall squarely in one camp or the other. And I'm not sure that I have the background and authority to do the bridging myself. (Or the time, for that matter.)
So... any suggestions? Or have I just been thinking about this too much?
Either way, it's definitely too late to back up now, and as I said, I do enjoy theory and academia.. I just wish other people outside of college would take the time and energy to think the same way about these houses as the way I am trying to think about them now.
03 December 2007
falling into a gap?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I don't think it's the job of the academic to worry about applicability; relevance is enough.
What I mean is that as long as your ideas are relevant, somebody may come along with both the academic background to understand it and the economic savvy to implement it. Criticism on current green architecture practices implies at least that an entrepreneur who addresses these issues would in some sense be more successful. Entrepreneurs love success.
I always like to point to the partnership of number theory and public-key cryptography as an example of the abstract effecting practical innovation. The mathematicians of neoantiquity never foresaw an age of SSH and online banking, but here we are relying on the difficulty of factoring huge semiprimes to live our modern lives.
There is always hope for the applicability of new research, even if you're not the one who sees it.
thanks for your comment, mysterious person. (=P) i know exactly what you mean when applied to science and even philosphy.. but there are differences in what each academic field tries to address; for example, if you ask many anthropologists why they are doing their work, they would answer that they hope to affect solid, social change through understanding different peoples. that's why anthropologists are going to iraq to see if they can help achieve peace. that's why tufts has a focus on public anthropology in its curriculum. but not every field is like that (and not even all anthropologists are so actively involved in contemporary politics). art and architectural theory seem to me like fields that are full of great ideas to people with the intellectual capacity to love and enjoy them, but give them to an entrepreneur, all they would do is dumb down the ideas to make it easily consumable to the average person in the name of profit. not too helpful.
i think the goal instead is that these discourses are trying to make people think with these ideas, rather than give profit-mongers the tools to make money off of the lowest common denominator. the problem is that most people don't even like to read. most people aren't out to spend hours learning so they can challenge the status quo.
so sometimes the pen just doesn't feel so mighty.
Post a Comment