Oxford Road Regeneration

The regeneration of the Oxford Road roadside architecture via construction sponsored by Americans is a modern day retelling of The Emperor’s New Clothes. Or is it? Facsimile mall fronts boast a potential future of the BBC car park, the cornerhouse and the over-street covered arcade, a third quarter perspective three dimensional building plans are juxtaposed with photographs of people laughing together. South Oxford road as a mindscape, a lived out dream for the Yuppy flying north for the winter.

“This £300m scheme will bring business into the area. There’s a mile long stretch from the universities to Whitworth park that is an underdeveloped retail zone, offering a –3% drop to the cities potential gold reserves. There’ll be gyms and a nando’s and cat themed bakeries and a Boots. All of it made of glass and steel done in the style of Joseph Paxton. But smart tech enabled. Pedestrians can choose to have their favourite music play as they walk in order to give a televisual sense of scope in their lives, remembering years as a montage accompanied by Florence And The Machine or Kitchen Jumper. Instead of the selfie they’ll be the actualfie, people will actually see other people with a hologram shone under their face, makeup made of light. Driverless cars will potter along the smart road on duvet wheels, it’s occupants talking to artificial intelligences through their glasses about gopro pro-sport statistics.” Said Alphonse Masters, lead designer on the project. He was giving a press conference in front of the cornerhouse, addressing a crowd of ten.
“This is our heritage!” someone shouted, thin body tucked deep into a waterproof jacket. He had that hair.
“The visual concept of Manchester is unimportant. London has Big Ben, New York has the Statue of Liberty, Manchester has The Stone Roses. And rain. Sometimes it might feel like the world is ending, and that’s because it is. Constantly ending and beginning, a reality shaped onion with as many layers as moments in time constantly growing into infinite. There is the potential that we can extend human lifespans far beyond our current frame of mortality. Five or ten times a lifetime today. What would one do after experiencing everything, becoming a master at every subject, to have done everything? Perhaps mutate into a piece of intelligent art positioned in the wilderness, thinking thoughts for eternity. We have several such pieces being commissioned already, conceptual art pieces in which a consciousness could exist in post-biology. The Venus De Milo could have a supercomputer fitted that predicts weather patterns. Every work in the Tate could be animated by holograms and answer questions from the visitors.” said Alphonse.
“What is the point in all this.” Somebody else called out.
“I…It’s the gateway to the knowledge capital.
Improved public community zone realms
Leisure Strategy, including 1000 new jobs.” He said, tanning in adolescent rage. A bolt of lightning zipped through the air and into his eye. On an MRI machine you would see his body turn into light. Around the corner turns a Finglands bus, the last artifact of the 20th century drives away towards Rusholme never to be seen again.

This place of opportunity

and enterprise, of love and

laughter, of culture and

community, of knowledge

and invention.

This place.

This powerful partnership.

This theatre of ambition.

Robin Williams Makes Us Think

I'd been thinking about the time in which I met Robin Williams. He had bitten through a SCART cable as he tried setting up a playstation 2. Is his destruction in his creativity? Let's even gaze at the possibility that his death is remarkable. We live in a celebrity world where I question the motives of people I've never met. In hindsight, we could muster the cheeky little thought that suicide is unreasonable. Perhaps even ironic. But this brings up a question in which how society perceives death.

The new death aesthetic is part of a social regime in order to make people comfortable with death and therefore fearless. What better freedom than being able to choose when you die and for it to be accepted by your friends and family? Perhaps they would cheer you on as you went through a bottle of paracetamol or laugh at you as you kicked in the noose. But this isn't part of the society we yet live in. Death is talked about in hushed tones in dark rooms. It is a secret. Imagine yourself on your death bed in the far future. Somebody holds up an old photograph of a baby. It is you.

Are You There Margaret? It's Me, God

Although over 50% of British people say that they are Christian, over 50% of the population isn't sat in church on a Sunday morn singing hossana before shaking hands with the vicar by the vestibule. Saturday echoes in memory, the vicar is more akin to a large iphone playing a religion app on his data nexus ie his human brain. I attended a church grounds the other day, and amidst the gravestones and broken branches I discovered a half empty bottle of beer. Is this the kind of respect we pay to the institution of a god?

It is the post modern view that God is dead. Excess leisure time has allowed us to have teenagers and in doing so, fostered rebellion against authority which in turn causes an opposition to that which appears to dominate before becoming that dominating factor in the lives of their children. It turns out the Christians were right when they believed Elvis was the antichrist, although as they were stuck using the logic and language of Christianity rather than post-modernism their message appeared laughable. But yesterdays joke becomes tomorrows news.

There is a segment in the consciousness that fits a sort of God-shaped jigsaw piece. Many people will turn to spirituality, money, exercise, drugs and so on in order to fill this piece, yet a horse is not a car. It is only the all powerful Jehovah that can occupy this space as he is the one true God. Alongside Buddha and the holy lord Ganesh, the fatal trinity occupies the pyramid of heaven. A lot of hipsters nowadays think that God doesn't exist, because it makes them seem cool and edgy. The concept of an all powerful being that created everything before time existed is metal as fuck and therefore seems pretty 'cool' to me.,

There is a lot of cynicism in our society and this is due to our pop culture. You want to watch Bruce Willis shoot John Travolta with a machine gun over and over again, laughing as popcorn and goo drips from your mouth? Don't listen to them, they are full of shit. You can conquer all enemies and realise all the night visions and should. The ones who author pop culture are white Americans with a chip on their shoulder and their heart on their sleeve and a quill in the hand; that's why they are writers in the first place. Nihilism is the philosophical equivalent to a hollow egg. An egg should form more eggs, that is its eggness. If you are a true nihilist you should wait til winter, set a bath and sit in it, awaiting your death cocoon to become around you as you smile smugly at a godless universe.

Where is God? We need him now more than ever. Or do we? Perhaps not. Or maybe we do? Or perhaps we don't. Also it might be possible he's already here. Or maybe not. Who knows for sure? Maybe someone does.

None of it is real and therefore we should tell all children that father Christmas isn't real either and cancer patients that they will die. It is better to grasp onto the little hanging skin of reality which we have left in the face of cyber present. Convert churches into server stacks. New religion in which every member is Jesus. Vatican City can become a theme park. Baroque spaceships that transport a hologram that thinks it's God. The religion of the dolphins. Systems of belief. Modern day Bethlehem. Fiction affecting fact so that the fiction is fact. "I believe in...something." A mahogany statue of Jesus crying tears of blood donated by the parish. A factory that makes sacramental breads. Flim flam men.

"It further cements in my mind over the years that God isn't dead and I was wrong all along. And dumb." - Hermann Nietzsche, 1927