Midterm Part 3

Here a link to my design project in my dropbox.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/apdg7o27m8ajqm1/Yt5qHQ_UbC



Originally I had shot all my own photography to make a much clearer visual storyboard.  But when shooting, my camera formatted my card on accident and all the pictures I had taken up until then were lost.  Only the first couple pictures in the piece above are original.  Everything else is pulled off the internet.

Midterm Part 2

Inspector Tyador Borlú and Power Relations

At the beginning of China Miéville’s The City and The City, Inspector Tyador Borlú arrives at a crime scene, immediately it is clear that he is the one in charge of the investigation.  However, as the case becomes more and more interesting, more convoluted by unexplainable answers to impossible questions it becomes un clear who has the power in the city.  Throughout The City and The City, while it may appear that Inspector Tyador Borlú loses his power, he is in full control of the investigation the entire time.

Inspector Tyador Borlú begins the novel with the lead of investigating the murder of an unknown women.  Soon after starting the case he is called into the police chief’s office.  During a short discussion, Borlú is told to postpone his other case files and focus on this case because of the many unknowns involved with it.  As the investigation continues, Tyador believes that breach had to have been committed for this crime to have happened.  Gathering his files, he waited until there was a full meeting of the oversight committee at Copula Hall.  At the meeting he present his case to the 42 members of the committee, 21 from each city.  In his case files he documents that the only possible way for the crime to have happened was for breach to have been committed.  After arguing about technicalities, the committee decides that the case will not be handed over the Breach and instead Inspector Borlú will continue with the case.  After that meeting Inspector Borlú was effectively named the most powerful man on law enforcement because he was given a case involving breach, instead of Breach handling it.  

Still on the case, Inspector Borlú decides he must travel to Ul Qoma to further investigate.  Given an express training on seeing and unseeing in the new city, Borlú headed into Ul Qoma for the first time in many years, and the first time on a case.  On his entering Ul Qoma, he is met by Senior Detective Qussim Dhatt, Borlú counterpart in Ul Qoma.  Now for the first time it appears as though Borlú is losing power.  He is in a new City that is completely foreign to him, and he has to work along side a detective who knows the city.  As they investigate the murder further, Dhatt seems to take the lead as he knows the city better, yet all the while, Borlú still remains in power as he is the only person to have followed the case in its entirety, he has the first hand experience that could not have been achieved by reading a file.

As the investigations continues, Borlú is met by Breach.  During the encounter, Borlú effectively ignores the Breach and continues on the investigation not caring about the possible consequences that could follow.  Miéville adds the scene with the Breach to give Borlú the ultimate power of the story.  The Breach is the institution with hegemonic power in The City and The City.  “Hegemony is a state or condition of a culture arrived at through a negotiation or struggle over meaning, laws, and social relationships” (54, Practices of Looking).  The people in Besźel and Ul Qoma have for generations given into the practice of leaving ultimate power to the Breach.  When Borlú defies the Breach and continues with the investigation, he become the most powerful man in law enforcement.

Even when faced with challenges, Inspector Tyador Borlú overcomes them and continues with the investigation at hand.  He is given power by the Besźel police chief, the oversight committee and through his defiance of the Breach.  Even when he felt powerless upon entering Ul Qoma, Borlú continued to hold power through his knowledge of police work and the case.

Midterm part 1

Social norms in Rilao

Our group, while focusing on the social norms of the city, decided to branch out into the the ecologies of the city and how each different group practiced social norms.  We narrowed the city into 4 main groups; Surfurbia, Autotopia, Bohemia, and the main "downtown" area that encompasses the other three.

Surfurbia is the area by the beach.  With both LA and Rio having large beach cultures we imagined that the beach communities would resemble local Manhattan Beach.  The people would be very laid back, live in a "shack", have a few ties to the community and focus their lives around healthy living.

Bohemia would be the mountainous area of the island.  The residents of bohemia base their lifestyles around the community.  Money is not necessarily the driving factor of work in the community, instead favors drive it.  Technology does not play a big part in the residents day to day lives.  The architecture of the community is very modern and different.  There is no underlying theme around the community, every house is different.  We imagined that public nudity would be a social norm in this community.

Autotopia encompasses the rest of the island that is inhabited.  Here there is no sense of community.  Everyone stays to themselves and does not interact with their neighbors.  The main center of life revolves around the car.  Autotopia works much in the way the show Weeds portrays suburban life, minus the drug dealing moms.

The central district, like Downtown LA is mainly a centre for commerce and is where the people of Rilao work.