In the garage: Assemblage, opportunity and techno-aesthetics

Abstract

How can a properly relational and anti-substantialist conception of masculinity be understood as belonging to the territorialising assemblage of the garage? Focusing on the relation between the suburban garage and masculinity, this article develops the concept of "opportunity" as part of a gendered passage of action. Two examples of the garage-assemblage are examined through their popular cultural myths. The first involves the example of disaffected working-class male youth working on cars as represented in the Australian film Metal Skin. The second belongs to the "two-guys-in-a-garage start-up" allegory of Silicon Valley entrepreneurial culture in the popular narrative accounts of the Apple computer. These examples are used to explore how different cultural contexts can have a shared but differentially attuned sense of a techno-aesthetic appreciation of the relation between technology and masculine action.