On Terry Eagleton ‘After Theory. Chapter 1: The Politics of Amnesia’

‘The golden age of cultural theory is long past’. It has been swallowed by the consumer strategy of mega-corporations targeting our Achilles spot: self-indulgence. Since the revolution in our world perception, which made us to realise that it is OK to be human with needs and these needs can be discussed and studied, we are constantly being reminded HOW to fulfil our needs and that they MUST be fulfilled.

The idea of ‘after theory’ theorists to study every day life was truly revolutionary. Yes, they would talk and write about sex; yes, they would study pornography for their PhD thesis. And.. they were cool, they were rebellious. So why shouldn’t we, generation NEXT, go with the flow and simply have fun discussing flavour of malt whiskies in the dissertation (surely doing daily research on the matter in the nearest pub)??
Well, it seems to me that there is a quite big chunk missing from the ‘generation NEXT’ equation: sex, drugs and rock-and-roll are not revolutionary matters any more. However, they are marketed as such. To be rebellious you have to rebel against something. Popular culture theorists threw historicisms away and pronounced common people and events of today the subjects of study. Though, the dismantled theoretical foundations were well known to them. They were studied, understood and only after torn down. That act made popular culture studies viable and its students cool.
Popular culture is still cool, but this ‘coolness’ is just an echo from the past amplified by capitalist structures to make us not only consume more and more, but ‘also identify our own fulfilment with the survival of the system’. And I and many others from my generation are accepting this baby- food-like processed and adapted theory still thinking that we are rebelling against something openly talking about sex and watching life TV for educational purposes. I think we are just being lazy. This laziness is being encouraged as we often hear that ‘our own opinion matters the most’ (obviously not supported by any facts, because life experience is way more important than texts by some Marx or Derrida). I feel I am missing on something and planning to read more, but will I? To be frank, I don’t know - it is comfortable and what is more important widely accepted to be lazy.

On ‘Fear and money in Dubai’ by Mike Davis

I will compare Dubai with Russian dolls: it is bright, it is shiny, it gets larger in geometrical progression and no one knows how many more semi-similar skyscrapers it will hatch.

Literally, Dubai has ‘world-within-the-world’ (Island World) and consists of ‘cities-within-the-cities’. Technically, it operates as an independent economic entity with its own laws for one and lawlessness for the other. Dubai is ‘Russian doll world’, where the tiniest and hideously horrid figure, often missing an eye or a mouth, is hidden inside many layers of beautifully crafted shells. This multilayered world has its own creator (and co-owner), Sheikh Mohammed al-Mactoum and , naturally, it is own unprecedented religion… Religion of fear.

It, as a proper religion, drives all layers of society. Slave-like workers fear the absolute power of the employers; the employers fear to loose this absolute power, hence ignore labour regulations, substituting them with local Draconian laws.

‘Creator and Co’ being a trinity of oil producer, distributor and a middle man between West and Islamic militant groups, use fear as the most stable currency to fund the building site of the century.

On Jonathan Meades 'Zaha Hadid: the first great female architect'

Once my physics teacher told me one thing I would remember for all my life: ‘Never use the words meaning of which you don’t know to seem smarter, you will end up being a fool’. I will confess from the very beginning: I don’t know anything about Zaha. I know nothing except that she is a starchitect, she is the first woman to receive a Pritzker Prize, she was born in Iraq, studied maths in Beirut and architecture in AA, she designs not just buildings but furniture and amazing shoes.

I have neither read Derrida to fully comprehend the theory of deconstruction behind her early ‘paper’ works, nor do I know sufficiently enough about the concepts of her latest designs.

So, following advice of my teacher I would not argue about quality or aesthetics of Hadid designs. I am way more interested in pidgin of architectural society mentioned by Jonathan Meades (by the way, I suppose he doesn’t exclude himself from it, taking in account his striking expressions weaved in the essay*).

‘The gulf between clumsy, approximate jargon and precise, virtuoso design is chasmic’ [well, even for my non-British ear it sounds quite clumsy http://www.zahahadidblog.com/movies/2007/07/03/video-interview-with-zaha-hadid]. However, isn’t it Zaha’s strategy to avoid annoying questions aimed to ‘jeopardise’ her concepts? She skilfully looses the main focus of the conversation with ‘syntactical mishaps’ confusing the opponent. Like a rabbit, trying to escape cunning fox, she circles in the woods of architectural jargon, leading the interviewer nowhere. She knows she will get away with use of the language because: a) her mother tongue is not English and the most importantly b) she is ZAHA. She worked hard and long for her name and now it is working for her.

Hadid is not just a successful architect; she is an extremely smart business woman. She has carefully created architectural ‘Zaha Brand’: mysterious world of foggy architectural terms, digital design extravaganza and non-explained concepts. Seems very illogical… But is it?, - she is a mathematician after all.

*Some curious terms from Meades:

Chutzpah - (pronounced /ˈxʊtspə/) is the quality of audacity, for good or for bad. The word derives from the Hebrew word ḥuṣpâ (חֻצְפָּה), meaning "insolence", "audacity", and "impertinence." The modern English usage of the word has taken on a wider spectrum of meaning, however, having been popularized through vernacular use, film, literature, and television (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chutzpah)

Esperanto - is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language.[2] Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto, the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887. The word esperanto means "one who hopes" in the language itself. Zamenhof's goal was to create an easy and flexible language that would serve as a universal second language to foster peace and international understanding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto)

Pidgin - (pronounced /ˈpɪdʒən/) language is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common, in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different to the language of the country in which they reside (but there is no common language between the groups) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin

Lingua franca - (from Latin, literally meaning Frankish language, see etymology under Sabir and Italian below) is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca)