To Metaphor or not to Metaphor...

The project has arrived at a Big crossroads... the big white elephant in every room these days appears to be the recession/depression/economic crisis/tsunami due to wreak havoc on these shores and others around the globe throughout 2009 and beyond. Personally I have been morbidly drawn to observing this secenario unfold via newspapers, newsnight and BBC business editor Robert Peston's blog. I am addicted. Then one day I began to start reading a series of metaphorical parrallels between the decaying vessels strewn all over Purton Hulks, and the slow strangulation of what remains of the British or even Western economy.

The question I now ask myself, is whether I can translate the dramatic real-time episodes of the economic crisis into prescient influences or drivers for my designs..

As the project stands, I am creating my own 'Dances of Death' series using Jean Tinguely's original titles from his 1986 collection, while my own palette of materials consists of beached barges and naked spitfire anatomy. The juxtaposition between the barge and the spitifire is envisioned in order to investigate the architectural spaces manifested by the layering and intersection of differently-paced technologies.

This in itself could be enough, with other references such as chronology and seismology providing fertile technical soil in which to plant the semiotics inherent in the material palette. However the individual pieces would still lack some kind of 'raison d'etre'. It is for this reason that I am willing to take the risk possibly overloading the project by tying everything back to the economic crisis.

To do this I need a methodology, a form of [empirical] investigaion, which I belive I have eventually found, in Complexity Theory. Complexity thoery was presented as an area of Study by Doctor Rachel Armstrong, who rather conveniently has been working very closely with Prof Spiller of late, so I really can keep the project 'in-house'. Next step is to identify the key drivers within the science of complexity theory that present design questions and hint at tactics with which to navigate and choreograph the Dance of Death series within my chosen sight, Purton Hulks.