4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very wide ranging, 29 Sep 2001
This review is from: Airspaces (Topographics) (Paperback)
Don't be duped by the title, this isn't some dry and narrow techno tome - of interest solely to engineering students! In fact, it's a superb and wide ranging book which takes an interdisciplinary look at air space. It employs a myriad of examples from Literature, Philosophy, New Wave Film and Political/Journalistic discourse, all of which is tightly synthesised into a rather ground breaking thesis. Namely, the book posits that the airport and, by extension, airspace, is integral to contemporary society and culture, working as a microcosm of that culture, typifying the positive and negative actualities of intrapolitical and cultural relations and representations. The image of the airport, to my mind, evokes suprisingly polarised connotations. It is forever the place of childhood wonder: indeed, who can forget the first visit to an airport as a child for holidays? Conversely, who can forget being stuck in the lines as a result of delays? Who can forget the trouble of flying for work realted matters? And indeed, who can forget the horrors which permeate our society, as a result of technological failure and political or ideological confrontations within the airport or airplane? This sense of wonder counterpointed by more prosaic - and indeed, disturbing - connotations encapsulates the diversity of the airport as a cultural archetype, and David Pascoe's book will be enjoyed by anyone who likes to think about culture and its representations; even when this representation is ostensibly something quite anticultural, as the airport MAY seem, in all its technological and quasi futuristic aesthetic homogeneity. For me, this work was challenging, it drew me in new directions and alerted me to fresh and original ways of seeing the airport, more as a metacultural trope, radiating modernity, as oppossed to a mesh of metal and glass. Stimulating and thought provoking par excellence!
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