Friday 12 October 2012
Coincidence?
Wednesday 10 October 2012
Tech: 3D printing possibilities
the 'democratization of vice' apparently... print-maggeddon.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenkotler/2012/07/31/the-democratization-of-vice-the-impact-of-exponential-technology-on-illicit-trades-and-organized-crime/
print yourself a handgun
http://haveblue.org/?p=1321
print yourself a new species
http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-chemputer-that-could-print-out-any-drug?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Weekly+Newsletter&utm_campaign=b60382892c-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email
ubiquitous TED talk on it all
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E97Kgi0sR4&feature=player_embedded
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenkotler/2012/07/31/the-democratization-of-vice-the-impact-of-exponential-technology-on-illicit-trades-and-organized-crime/
print yourself a handgun
http://haveblue.org/?p=1321
print yourself a new species
http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-chemputer-that-could-print-out-any-drug?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Weekly+Newsletter&utm_campaign=b60382892c-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email
ubiquitous TED talk on it all
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E97Kgi0sR4&feature=player_embedded
Monday 8 October 2012
History & Theory #2: Hickey & Davis
Dave Hickey, "At Home in the Neon" from Air Guitar and Mike Davis, "Fear & Money in Dubai" from Evil Paradises.
I don't agree with everything Dave Hickey writes about Vegas, but I'd definitely be willing to kick back on his porch and talk it out over a beer. He writes with such a down to earth friendly affection for the place that it is hard at points to disassociate the childhood memories from the social theory he is gently rolling out. Davis though, I can just see him furiously stalking the airport as he waits for the first plane outta there, glaring angrily at all the happy shoppers lashing out their petro-dollars on Hermes and Mont Blanc. He would find Jebel Ali International hell on earth. I don't think anything he could've found in Dubai would have altered the preconceived notions he already had about the place. I don't really want to have a beer with him.
This isn't going to be a direct comparison about the two chapters, they're too different. They have loose juxtaposing threads of ideas, but the main body of each text too wide to try and pin down too hard.
Vegas can romantically be seen as the epitome of the American dream - you could be a lucky sonuvabitch and hit the jack pot, going from a down and out roady musician to a highroller, a place where anything is possible, somewhere to strike gold. The architecture isn't the only thing that is Disney about the place - its the story after the story, the silhouettes walking into the sunset, happy ever after. Its the potential for the Cindarella ending, the ultimate draw of rags to riches chance. The city is a built on the possibility of a fairytale - that's why people like to see all the crazy buildings. They desperately want it to be real, but its just a pipedream that lasts as long as the weekend.
Unless you live there like Hickey - he's found all this... hope... intoxicating, I think. A bit of rose-tinted spectacles from his childhood maybe, but who can blame him, writing in the bland Clinton mid nineties? Look at the rest of America at that time. Nirvana didn't come out of nowhere, they were just saying how desperately fucking boring everything was. So bored, lets just kill ourselves.
But not in Vegas, baby. In Vegas, there is a chance something might change.
Which is the opposite of Dubai. Dubai isn't about chance, and it isn't about making it big - or losing it all. Dubai is about getting there, and being big already. And then showing everyone that you are the richest guy in the room. The problem with Evil Paradises, is that Davis just can't accept the human element. His righteous anger against the profligate tourists who flock in for this hyper-real superficial world, just makes me think of the mad old man outside the station, foaming at the mouth and screaming, "the end is nigh!" as everyone rushes passed having a good time. He isn't wrong though, its just that he writes like he expects moral indignation and principles to define how people act - he sounds a bit naive. He just can't relate to how these people are so fascinated by shopping and showing off their status. He can't really believe people are ACTUALLY like that. He mentions that soon there will be 15 million people visiting Dubai as tourists per year... with the intention of making you think "Isn't it disgraceful!" but what you actually conclude is, "Well, 15 million people can't be wrong" (although they probably are). I don't agree it's what people should do, but clearly, it is what an awful lot of people WANT to do. There's no accounting for taste. For people's habits, and their motivations, he should stay quiet - the way he writes exposes his own prejudices about consumption in the face of overwhelming counter evidence.
However, where Davis is most compelling is where he describes the segregation between the imported working labour and the locals, or the service industry expat community.
I went there a few years ago, for some random business jaunt. I am told it is ridiculously hot - I couldn't tell you though, as I didn't step outside the chilling envelope of the air conditioning the whole time I was there. From airport to limo to hotel to office and back and forth for three days - everything was controlled and monitored so I didn't have a moments discomfort from the pounding heat outside. Yellow air heavy with sand. On the way back to the airport, sitting stationary in 5 lanes of traffic ("you're not stuck in traffic, you ARE traffic"), I watched two Indian guys working on the road, in standard issue heavy boiler suits (stripped to the waist, against the workers regulations which control how they appear when you DO see them), wearing unregulated T-shirts wrapped around their heads to protect them from the sun. Until that moment, EVERY single thing I had seen had been sheet-glass-hi-tech-computer-controlled-luxury. These guys were digging up the road with one pickaxe between them. The readout of the temperature in my limo said 51C. A sense of the strictest hierarchy pervades the whole place, and you are reminded everywhere, even by the air temperature.
Its like my definition of whether you're a northerner or a southerner in England (do you think Bovril is a spread or a drink?)... in Dubai, if you don't have air con you are fucked. If you do, life is pretty great. Air con is the broadest class indicator, and then they continue exponentially on upwards.
Dubai is all about class, exclusivity and money. Vegas is the same, but recognises the ultimate levelling factor of chance. You can be small and make it big or, just as importantly, you can be big and lose it all. Losing it all isn't what Dubai is about - they only know how to deal with the winners, and the winners are guys who have money, already. The feudal societies of the Emirates and Saudi Arabia that have bankrolled the place are more than happy with that status quo - lets not just gamble it all away, eh?
 |
The Burj going up in 2007, from the hotel room.
With the Dubai exchange in the bottom of the picture above
|
This isn't going to be a direct comparison about the two chapters, they're too different. They have loose juxtaposing threads of ideas, but the main body of each text too wide to try and pin down too hard.
Vegas can romantically be seen as the epitome of the American dream - you could be a lucky sonuvabitch and hit the jack pot, going from a down and out roady musician to a highroller, a place where anything is possible, somewhere to strike gold. The architecture isn't the only thing that is Disney about the place - its the story after the story, the silhouettes walking into the sunset, happy ever after. Its the potential for the Cindarella ending, the ultimate draw of rags to riches chance. The city is a built on the possibility of a fairytale - that's why people like to see all the crazy buildings. They desperately want it to be real, but its just a pipedream that lasts as long as the weekend.
Unless you live there like Hickey - he's found all this... hope... intoxicating, I think. A bit of rose-tinted spectacles from his childhood maybe, but who can blame him, writing in the bland Clinton mid nineties? Look at the rest of America at that time. Nirvana didn't come out of nowhere, they were just saying how desperately fucking boring everything was. So bored, lets just kill ourselves.
But not in Vegas, baby. In Vegas, there is a chance something might change.
Which is the opposite of Dubai. Dubai isn't about chance, and it isn't about making it big - or losing it all. Dubai is about getting there, and being big already. And then showing everyone that you are the richest guy in the room. The problem with Evil Paradises, is that Davis just can't accept the human element. His righteous anger against the profligate tourists who flock in for this hyper-real superficial world, just makes me think of the mad old man outside the station, foaming at the mouth and screaming, "the end is nigh!" as everyone rushes passed having a good time. He isn't wrong though, its just that he writes like he expects moral indignation and principles to define how people act - he sounds a bit naive. He just can't relate to how these people are so fascinated by shopping and showing off their status. He can't really believe people are ACTUALLY like that. He mentions that soon there will be 15 million people visiting Dubai as tourists per year... with the intention of making you think "Isn't it disgraceful!" but what you actually conclude is, "Well, 15 million people can't be wrong" (although they probably are). I don't agree it's what people should do, but clearly, it is what an awful lot of people WANT to do. There's no accounting for taste. For people's habits, and their motivations, he should stay quiet - the way he writes exposes his own prejudices about consumption in the face of overwhelming counter evidence.
However, where Davis is most compelling is where he describes the segregation between the imported working labour and the locals, or the service industry expat community.
I went there a few years ago, for some random business jaunt. I am told it is ridiculously hot - I couldn't tell you though, as I didn't step outside the chilling envelope of the air conditioning the whole time I was there. From airport to limo to hotel to office and back and forth for three days - everything was controlled and monitored so I didn't have a moments discomfort from the pounding heat outside. Yellow air heavy with sand. On the way back to the airport, sitting stationary in 5 lanes of traffic ("you're not stuck in traffic, you ARE traffic"), I watched two Indian guys working on the road, in standard issue heavy boiler suits (stripped to the waist, against the workers regulations which control how they appear when you DO see them), wearing unregulated T-shirts wrapped around their heads to protect them from the sun. Until that moment, EVERY single thing I had seen had been sheet-glass-hi-tech-computer-controlled-luxury. These guys were digging up the road with one pickaxe between them. The readout of the temperature in my limo said 51C. A sense of the strictest hierarchy pervades the whole place, and you are reminded everywhere, even by the air temperature.
 |
| Walk to the office? Fuck that, lets take the limo. |
Its like my definition of whether you're a northerner or a southerner in England (do you think Bovril is a spread or a drink?)... in Dubai, if you don't have air con you are fucked. If you do, life is pretty great. Air con is the broadest class indicator, and then they continue exponentially on upwards.
Dubai is all about class, exclusivity and money. Vegas is the same, but recognises the ultimate levelling factor of chance. You can be small and make it big or, just as importantly, you can be big and lose it all. Losing it all isn't what Dubai is about - they only know how to deal with the winners, and the winners are guys who have money, already. The feudal societies of the Emirates and Saudi Arabia that have bankrolled the place are more than happy with that status quo - lets not just gamble it all away, eh?
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