Why on earth would you need to buy tools and rent shop time when you could go to a build party for free?You even stated that builders helping builders was part of your project.

First, for the sake of the project I’d like it to be “self-sustaining” which in this case means owning the means to the production of the firearm. That’s a really powerful idea in this context, especially when it comes to defense against state violence.

Second, I’d ideally like to put on a build party. I didn’t add this to the project description because I don’t want to plan it and have it fall through since that wouldn’t be fair to the folks who planned to attend. If the project is funded it’s likely I’ll organize something for folks to attend.

Third, I’d rather not attend someone else’s build party because I’ll be filming for the documentation which I’m sure some folks wouldn’t appreciate, and I’ll also be going more slowly than most people would at a standard build party.

And fourth, I’d like to put the build tools on display in the gallery as artifacts of the process.

But why? What are you trying to prove with your thesis?

I don’t think it’s really a matter of proof, exactly. There are interesting legalities with firearms wind up presenting themselves as physical artifacts. This is especially true in California. Beyond that I think the idea that firearms can be manufactured by individuals is really interesting first from the point of producing artifact; machining, engineering, object art, etc. Second, removing the concept of production of arms from a monolithic entity to the individual changes the dynamic state violence.

Firearms law (who gets what, when, and where) can be made moot pretty easily. What’s that reality say about law and politics? What about the distribution of information for construction of same? When do questions of legality become transformed from restriction of physical possession to a First Amendment issue?

I see people taking issue with the distribution of the documentation as much as if not more than the actual construction of a firearm. I don’t take this lightly, this isn’t a lark.

If you think this project is interesting please head over to Kickstarter and help me fund it!

This is a project that’s been a long time coming. Since taking a hiatus from UCSD to work, I’ve been working out how this project could be presented, where it fits with my own work, and how I could accomplish it technically. At this point I’ve got a reasonable, do-able project that I’m really excited about. Work keeps me really busy so it feels great to have a project I’m really looking forward to doing. Especially great is that this is a project that I can carve out time to do in a reasonable way. I’m so excited about it, even the prospect of waiting to get funded or not is going to be agonizing. But it would be irresponsible for me to take on the project without a good source of funding since I’d likely not be able to see it through and that would be profoundly disappointing.

It might be crass, but I think it’s probably going to be asked: Why can’t I fund this myself? And it’s worth answering! Because I simply don’t have the money. I could go on about patronage of the arts but what it comes down to is car payments, student loan payments, etc. I would love nothing more to be able to self-fund all my work, believe me. But the reality is that I can’t, and if other folks would like to help fund my work that would be fantastic.

If you’re backing this project, I sincerely thank you! It should be a fun experience and produce something I think is interesting and meaningful.

Both in opposition to, and in conjunction with the suburban, the “new urbanity” of what Gandalsonas calls the “x-urban” landscape (178) is one in which our understanding of the urban-suburban duality has broken down. Beyond the spaces in which we live and work, Gandalsonas’ Scene: X points to our use of screens to mediate space as symptomatic of post-suburban life, including the confusion between watching, and being watched.

This relationship between screen and living condition –the notion that the TV series Cops is symptomatic of the suburban decay– raises further question of viewership for Blade Runner narrative. Gandelsonas suggests “Cops” provides a window via which x-urbanites may view the suburban condition (180), it would seem our position as viewer to Blade Runner is even farther removed than the x-urban. This is entirely appropriate, considering that as Gandelsonas notes the x-urban view is international (180), our view from the “x-x-urban” may well be interplanetary.
While the science fiction genre is filled with space exploration, Blade Runner is entirely terrestrial. Scott’s presentation of the Los Angeles of 2019 is one in which even the notional lines that Gandelsonas suggests divide urban, suburban, and x-urban development (181) have apparently collapsed. In place of horizontally spacial delineation, the near-future Los Angeles of Blade Runner is literally stratified; The decaying urban core sits at ground-level, and the sprawl continues vertically, with the x-urban manifesting as completely contained live-work high-rises. For example, the Tyrell Corporation building in which we see office, production, and living space for employees (including Tyrell) is so massive that it’s most easily approached from the air. Effective transit, as Gandelsonas points out as the means by which the police create walls of surveillance to enclose suburbia (181), has made a transition from ground-based automobile to the airborne “spinner”. The police patrol the mid-level suburban sprawl from the air, and the classically urban ground-level is left to rot.

We might even approach the J.F. Sebastian character in Blade Runner as representative of an iconic gentrifying force (178). Based on his employment with the Tyrell Corporation, and his relationship with Tyrell himself (as evident by their game of long-distance chess), we can assume Sebastian is quite wealthy. Since he’s been prohibited from leaving earth for an off-world colony due to a medical condition, he instead prefers to live and work in a loft-like, ground-level urban building that provides the space he requires to construct his robotic “friends”.

Using Scene: X to inform our viewing of Blade Runner is made more convincing by the fact that the camera never ventures to a “x-x-urban” extra-planetary locale. If we were to assume that the drama unfolding in Blade Runner is indeed akin to “Cops”, we’d be viewing from a luxurious off-world colonies.

Click for full-size alpha-masked title card!

Bonus wallpaper!

(chead.jpg via Alana Post)

Might be a terrible “concept” though. We’ll see..