From Novel to Law

 

The novel 1984 with its Orwellian society of a supposed utopia has managed to remain relevant today through the medium of the book. If 1984 is liberated from its current medium that is linear with a close-ended narrative, could its new readings result in a rapture that informs and alters the perception of reality? Deconstructing 1984 thus allows us to realize the pertinence of deviancy in society through investigating its potency in dismantling structures of power by exposing the disjunctions and gaps in them. 

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In the creation of multiple readings through the notion of deviance, the Situationist International’s rejection of usual directives suggests the possibility of the existence of uncharted ways of inhabiting space. An intertextual reading of Tschumi and the Situationists reveal parallel sentiments of chance, where the collision of events is the construction of situations occurring within the gaps. Through techniques of the dérive that allow for collisions between Inmate, Judge and Jury, coupled with the détourning of allegorical symbols of law and excerpts from 1984, the element of chance is embraced and taken on as a key agent in the production of multiple readings of Law.

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The peeling back the cover of the novel 1984 vis-a-vis an intertextual reading of the Dialogic Imagination uncovers the strained existence of dissent and deviance birthed within the cracks of society. Amidst its violent conflict with power and control, allegories present in architecture operate as a foil to convey and allude to notions of power, as opposed to their actual use and habitation. This intersection between logic and pain in the subconscious creates the gap between prescribed space and the space of the mental process, suspending both time and logic, thereby positing deviancy and its abstraction and interpretation by the creative user as an experimental methodology. By applying Tschumi’s graphical technique of questioning assumptions through the collisions between actors, movements and space onto the gaps in 1984, the novel’s fixed narrative is subverted, emancipating it to an outpouring of new readings. 
 
When deviancy as critical method is transposed to the rigidity of Law and its execution in the Former Supreme Courts, assumptions are apprehended through the systematic exhibiting of the fallacy in how their reading is inherently ambiguous and thereby not fixed. Deconstructing the Former Supreme Courts consequently reveals its flippant and superficial qualities, hinting at an architecture that is not only an image but the possibility that the rituals associated with it are outdated or not the one and only. The implications of the subjectivity of Law are far-reaching as it problematizes the current authoritative legal system by putting forth the re-arguing of Trial by Jury in Singapore’s context, siting the jury as creative user. If deviancy is defined as having an individual opinion on a matter, the architecture of the Supreme Courts should then be an artifice whose gaps allow for multiple readings of Law by the jury.

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If Law can never be assigned to a singular reading, how might the element of chance liberate Law’s complexities and contradictions through multiple readings that allow its constant re-apprehension?