Film and Media Studies alum Majorca Bateman-Coe '24 has published an article in Architecture_MPS, the official journal of the international research organization, Architecture, Media, Politics, Society (AMPS). The article, "Kowloon Walled City as de jure retrospective: digitising and mythologizing statelessness," looks at the now-demolished Kowloon Walled City through a Marxist lens, asking questions about statelessness, postcoloniality, and digital culture.
The Kowloon enclave, a densely populated quarter within the city of Hong Kong, was officially recognized as an enclave following the First Opium War with its vast network of tunnels, passageways, and confining walls. Kowloon Walled City survived several occupations and global political conflicts until its eventual demolition in 1994. Bateman-Coe analyzes films such as Brothers from the Walled City (1982), Johnny Mak’s Long Arm of the Law (1984) and Jackie Chan and Kirk Wong’s comedy film Crime Story (1993) and puts these films into conversation with videogames that feature Kowloon Walled City, such as Welcome to Kowloon (N4bA et al., Germany, 2023), Kowloon Walled City Adventure (2014), Stray (2022) and Kowloon’s Gate (1997).
Additionally, Bateman-Coe discusses philosopher Jaques Derrida’s 'hauntology' in order to further understand the imprint Kowloon Walled City has left in the 'popular dystopian oeuvre.'
Bateman-Coe is a Ph.D. student in Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society at the University of Minnesota. Her research examines the aesthetics of power through Marxist and critical theory, with a focus on visual culture (film, video games, social media), aesthetics, animal studies, architecture, the history of technology and computing, media archaeology, and theology.
