Academia: Inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity
Tip: illustrating Lefebvre's ideas around the production of space and de Certeau's notion of engagement with the city, and making sure you are actually illustrating said points, in a creative piece of a thousand words is not as easy as it sounds.
Laughter echoes down the street bouncing off the buildings, reverberating through the cool air. I glance around but I can’t find the source. It seems but a memory, the tinkling quality of something long forgotten. It sounds simultaneously like my grandmother, my cousin, my best friend. I can smell white lace in the air as the wind whips my hair, and I have to step back quickly as a car careers around the corner, its loud music wholly unwelcome. I want to jump out in front of it, make it stop and apologise. I want to demand it asks for permission to enter my city and my thoughts. It is gone before I can even summon the right look of righteous indignation.
I stray into the park, where lighting is sparse and beautiful. The pulse of music and secret clubs usually marks the city at night, but I am off the beaten track and the only company is in these few pinpricks. The promise of the wall should ring true here more than ever, but I still don’t feel threatened. If anything, I am more at ease than ever. In the controlled wilderness of a public space I have both the wild freedom my very basic human instinct craves and recognises as home; and the promise of the city humming at the very edges, a comforting link to society which reminds me of my place.
Here is magic and wilderness, wildlife and freedom. Beyond the trees waits modernity and technology, consumerism and life. Here is my past, my future, and at the end of this tree-lined path lies my present.
Where am I in this world? How do I stake my claim on it? How do I define it, like it defines me?
I am but a shadow and a thought, a passing imprint on this city where countless others will pass and leave their own essence behind. Soon I will be only echoing laughter in a deserted street in the hours before dawn, whether I consciously choose it or not.
Laughter echoes down the street bouncing off the buildings, reverberating through the cool air. I glance around but I can’t find the source. It seems but a memory, the tinkling quality of something long forgotten. It sounds simultaneously like my grandmother, my cousin, my best friend. I can smell white lace in the air as the wind whips my hair, and I have to step back quickly as a car careers around the corner, its loud music wholly unwelcome. I want to jump out in front of it, make it stop and apologise. I want to demand it asks for permission to enter my city and my thoughts. It is gone before I can even summon the right look of righteous indignation.
I stray into the park, where lighting is sparse and beautiful. The pulse of music and secret clubs usually marks the city at night, but I am off the beaten track and the only company is in these few pinpricks. The promise of the wall should ring true here more than ever, but I still don’t feel threatened. If anything, I am more at ease than ever. In the controlled wilderness of a public space I have both the wild freedom my very basic human instinct craves and recognises as home; and the promise of the city humming at the very edges, a comforting link to society which reminds me of my place.
Here is magic and wilderness, wildlife and freedom. Beyond the trees waits modernity and technology, consumerism and life. Here is my past, my future, and at the end of this tree-lined path lies my present.
Where am I in this world? How do I stake my claim on it? How do I define it, like it defines me?
I am but a shadow and a thought, a passing imprint on this city where countless others will pass and leave their own essence behind. Soon I will be only echoing laughter in a deserted street in the hours before dawn, whether I consciously choose it or not.