Afternova – Camping in the Ghost of a Star 2007 – 2012 —— Michael Markham tUG workshop, Melbourne, Australia.
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A matter 224 years ago Space terminated by categories arrived on a boat.
Camping, in this land, it was thought – ended.
Matter judged ephemeral was replaced with material assumed to be permanent. Country however was obscured.
It can reasonably be said an anxiety of permanence has haunted the Australian city ever since. The conservation of the perfunctory grids (and their contents) marking out the elementary sites of Australia’s colonies dominated the last 25 years of urban policy and thought. Little use to our contemporary urban frontier.
Policy makers anticipated, then feared, the 20th century metropolis. It did not come as Jeanneret’s annihilating point of light a RAYdiant city but instead a diffuse and cold nebular cloud.
wee Our urbanity might now be better regarded as unsighted dark matter, detectable only through pressure exerted upon the visible suburban terrain. What remains unconsidered, yet a real possibility, is that over the fleetingly extensive territory of our cities, sections of the fabric might empty according to a logic of economics. Other cities, in other places, at other times have experienced decline as catastrophe. Consider the cores of the mid 20th century American city.
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Is it inevitable that though Australian cities may continue to extend that they necessarily also grow? For at least the last 100 years, infrastructure engineers, town planners, and government treasury have managed the city’s growth. They have built up an expertise of expansion. Who can now begin thinking through the unthinkable? Architects – adept at turning into the wind.
of
time, Country is lived through camping. a matter of time, Weeks, years centuries. ——
Michael Markham tUG workshop, Melbourne, Australia.
ks, years,
centuries.
2 – Submissions
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