How

Homi Bhabha, in Ecological Urbanism, writes; “It is always too early or too late to talk about cities of the future. The ‘just city’ or the ‘generic city’ fl oats before our tired eyes in the half light of dusk and returns to our expectant gaze in the dawn of the new day.”
Bhabha, H in Mustafavi, M, Ed., 2010, Ecological Urbanism, Baden, Switzerland



Victor Turner’s work on liminality will be my primary framework. He states “if our basic model of society is that of a ‘structure of positions’ we must regard the period of margin or ‘liminality’ as an interstructural situation.” (Turner, 1967 p.93) Van Gennep stressed ‘the importance of liminality, the transitional time or condition in which one, or a group, or a territory, or the season, is not what it was and not what it will become, but something in between, something marginal, vague, and flexible’. Quoting Van Gennep, Turner says that “all rites of transition are marked by three phases:separation, margin (or limen) and aggregation.” (Turner, 1967 p.94)
Turner, V, 1967, The Forest of Symbols, Cornell University Press, New York


Here is my first image, thinking about the highway as a liminal space;

The mounds relate to the burial mounds or tumuli that can be found throughout the world as gateways to the afterlife. They are a really interesting example of landscapes of narrative and of liminal space. Stonehenge was recently found to function in a similar way as do the pyramids.

The crosses relate to the discussion below about the highway as public space, narrative and expression in these spaces.

The 'Golden Arches' in the background relate to the burial mounds visually and currently act as our major marker points along the highway, markers at a set distance relating to the length and time we can currently travel in a car. Will this change in a post-resource socitey? Many of the towns in Australia started because of a similar situation. On the road to Bendigo gold fields there were rest points a days walk apart; Diggers Rest, Gisbourne, Woodend, Kyneton, Castlemaine, Bendigo. Originally camp by water points, they grew into a store, a pub and a town.

In a larger sense I'm interested in the transition to a post-resource rich society but also on a small scale the space of transition and the narratives we have around them.


Rem Koolhaas in his address to the Ecological Urbanism Conference argues that ‘a hybrid condition is the condition of the day.’ (Koolhaas, 2010) Conditions of modernity and the end of modernity are occurring simultaneously. He sees the coexistence of modernity and endlessly improvised, spontaneous conditions that don’t consume much energy. This suggests to me a liminal state.
Koolhaas, R, 2010, ‘Advancement Vs. Apocalypse in Ecological Urbanism, Baden, Switzerland


Currently the only ligitimate expression that we have along the highway are memorial markers for the victims of car accidents;

And the ubiquitous circle-work, most likely the inspiration for Ben Morieson's 2001 work Burnout;

There are some interesting examples of artistic practices that work with the road as a medium for expression, possibly illegally, like Jessica May's work with roadkill which redefines the highway as a site of contestation.

I like this bit of absurdity by artist Erik Johansson using the road as a canvas to play with scale.