Reassembling the Remote

Acknowledgements: There are countless people to thank for the support they have offered over the course of the year long project, particularly given the unprecedented transition into online delivery due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The teaching and pastoral support I have received from both staff and fellow students has been second to none throughout this year, even whilst many of themselves were experiencing some of the most isolating and draconian lockdown measures in the world.

I would like to express a massive thank you to Zoe Loomes who has been one of the heavyweight of my project throughout this year, offering both constant academic and pastoral guidance beyond her duties as a tutor. Zoe’s ability to understand my project at times where it was beyond incoherent, and to then provide me representational and design precedents for it ,has been a significantly appreciated, and for patience to do so has been second-to none.

To Alban Mannisi, who has been instrumental in pushing me theoretically and being a 24/7 sounding board for my ideas, proposals, and complaints that challenged the boundaries of landscape architecture discipline - I can acknowledge I am not the easiest of students to deal with. I am beyond grateful for the opportunity he has given me to present at the Archifest 2020 Singapore conference.

To Tom Black, Elise Northover, and Kyle Black - argueably one of the three major fundamental tutors in beginning my final year project trajectory through the role of the map as a design tool, as well as the introduction to Deleuzian thinking through notational methods. Having come from an architecture background feeling a bit disillusioned with the lack of economic and political critique within practice, these three have allowed me to explore these themes throughout my time at RMIT where it would not be possible at other landscape institutions in the country.

To Philip Belesky - for briefly teaching a computational mapping tool seminar that has provided a backdrop to my approach in the project. The gap of using computational tools in landscape architecture was a significant reason as to why I chose to study at RMIT and nonetheless has been pushed forward throughout this project. It is a field I plan on pursuing further after graduation and I’m fortunate to have been taught by him in a discipline where computational knowledge is difficult to find.

Being an ontological enquiry, there was a bit of irony in that I found myself having my own ‘ontological’ crisis in regards to the value and agency this project within the discipline of landscape. Moments of self-doubt were frequent and without the support of the tutors listed above the conclusion of this project would not have been possible.