The Wall_2020UndergraduateThesis

The Wall Undergraduate Thesis Project Media infrastructure | architectural graphical novel Beijing,China

Miaoxin Wang Advisor: Karen Lange

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Media, Controversy, Empowerment Media technology has shown to be a vain and glorious species, as technology advances, its users gain access to its power in a democratic manner where anyone can grab attention, economic gain, or political agency. However, the promise of democracy in the mediascape has only been abused by centralised political authority and tech companies to enforce censorship and restrict data accessibility. The society as a whole needs to be challenged through a lack of censorship and authoritarian jurisdiction to visualise and mobilise active forces in participation of social changes. This challenge is attempted by an architectural proposition located in Beijing that materializes the decentralisation of media authority, demarcation of publicity and privacy, vulnerability of public ambience, symbolism, and a panoptical presence in an environment that is highly censored and charged with political and cultural attention. Without alluding in to any dramatic shift in political power, the Wall imagines a different reality where architecture exists in a disconnection with economy but draws inspiration from Chinese culture to contextualize a radical idea inspired by western literatures. However, it is the desire to push the possibility for architecture to initiate something outrageous evolving from the rapidly changing mediascape

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The interactive comic is available online at: https://walterwang.cargo.site/.