Students: Gabika Bočkaj and Povilas Laurinkus
Thesis Advisor: is not named
Abstract: Vegetopolis intends to address socio-political issues pertaining to housing rights and the role of the community in an urban, democratic environment using the medium of animation. Animation offers more critical distance in engaging with problematic issues in society - usually associated with, or attached to, certain identities of race, class and national identity – without letting the viewer fall into the trap of immediate identification or emotional response. It is our hope to use animation within the framework of satire in order to open up a doubling of reflection upon the presented material.
The primary level of critical engagement occurs through the subject matter (i.e., the story) being presented in a constitutively allegorical medium (i.e., animated fable). The secondary level of reflection is brought about by questioning the posited “message” of the fable by means of satire. This double-reflection thus should destabilize any possibility of uncritical acceptance of the imbedded “message,” opening the possibility for a truly independent critical stance.
Throughout the story several themes should become apparent. The first being the tension between the city residents and a city developer whose ruthless actions affect their lives drastically. The second central theme, which is closely related to the first, is the rights of citizens to participate in determining their role in securing their housing and the importance of the communities in which the people are claiming their rights to housing. Lastly we will look at how the organization of space and the meaning of "neighborhood" or "community" in the present-day metropolis is changing due to globalization and how this affects the residents of said neighborhoods and communities. At the end we touch upon the role of the media and publicity as supporting agents that help citizens to claim or buttress their rights in democratic societies.