The windows of OGGB don’t cast shadows, they cast reflections. Yet, like the Venetian blinds of film noir they too project a coded message, not hiding in the darkness but blinding in broad daylight. Its refractions — and factions — ricochet across its surrounding buildings but from the height of OGGB light can only bounce back on itself: blinding. In contrast, the Human Sciences Building stands as an ephemeral monument to what is no longer and what is not yet. Whilst the HSB is being torn down, leaving lecturers and students without offices, the Business School has sea views from leather seats available with swipe card access. One only has to look at the material buildings these departments occupy (or don’t) to comprehend a disparity of funding and an ideology that universities are no longer places of critical thinking. In an excessive overidentification of colonial and capitalist ideologies, these ‘monuments’ leave nothing hidden but their normalisation. Looking closer then, at what lurks in between, it is not their materiality but the brightness of their shadows that is concerning. Their invisibility and intangibility offer a denial of an alternative as light beams embellish yet eclipse surrounding space. Anyone can walk into OGGB, but do students feel entitled to do so? Exploring these spaces as the student, come ‘consumer’; one is window shopping for study spaces that are not accessible.
