''This crisis is the spectacle: where is the real?'' from Alain Badiou's The Communist Hypothesis (2010) and Jonathan Meade's ''Zaha Hadidi: The first great female Architect''

When I first read the article 'This crisis is the spectacle, where is the real?' it made me think about how much of what we are shown in everyday life is the full truth. To what extent is the media world manipulated to the point that we live in a media 'matrix world'. The media, in my opinion has a responsibility to contribute to the wider surrounding environment. What they report should influence people in a positive way so that whatever the crisis is the outcome will be aided by the public. I feel that the global crisis that is displayed in front of us but distorted to feed us a sugar coated view is not just one thing but several that sit hand in hand. Financial iniquity and increased national and global inequality are two factors that exist by feeding off each other. With the margin between the rich and poor ever increasing, people are nowhere near standing on a level playing field. With this difference of levels appearing in the financial world there is an increase in opportunities for the higher powers to feel no obligation or responsibility, therefore they are detached and more likely to take irresponsible risks.

This week it has been announced that the UK's unemployment rate has reached a 17 year high of 991, 000 16 to 24 year olds out of work. It is reported that the banks have pumped £200bn in to the economy by buying assets such as government bonds, in an attempt to boost lending by commercial banks but where is the common mans gain. There is no obvious and tangible increase in the jobs market which is so desperately needed. As seen in Badiou's essay 'no one even thinks of nationalizing a factory that runs into difficulty because of competition, even though thousands of people work there,' The lending of money can only benefit to a certain degree but how can you pay back a loan when there is no opportunity of a job.

Jonathan Meads article on Zaha Hadid appears to me to fight two sides of an argument about whether she is here to break from mistakes of the past or if she is an irrational and unexplained product that people buy into. Meads describes her offices 'like a factory'. A factory that churns out what the consumer desires, rather like a designer item. Are people buying in to a product and is it suitable for its use or to be admired as a sculpture?

The article is very forceful and at times seems to attack Zaha in a slightly sarcastic manor. She is a character whose personality is as known as her work. Her confidence is speckled with arrogance that makes us question her process seeing as how she never fully divulges her method. I find it hard to believe that she thinks she is not influenced by her surrounding historical environment. 'It is as though the possibility had never occurred to her' and that she has no rational explanation for her buildings. It is said that there are no original ideas any more and that all thoughts have been influenced by our surrounding whether we are aware of it or not. For every idea you come up with, there are probably ten other people in the world executing that same idea.

“There are no original ideas. There are only original people.” – Barbara Grizzuti Harrison