The first class was simultaneously an introduction to a multiplicity of themes and ideas that help approach a sort of Lacanian Real, and an attempt to slightly overwhelm the audience by means of this very same multiplicity. The various paradoxes around the concepts of complexity and multiplicity are there to be explored and understood… at least, necessarily, as something to be aware of…

Is there any chance to re-engage with the world? Any chance to approach an understanding of the spatial, social and historical “real” in which we, as spatial practitioners, operate?… Further more, is it possible to approach an understanding of the “real” in which we live? And even, will such an understanding provide any improvement whatsoever?

The main aim of the first class and the course as a whole, as someone already noted below, is to foster critical reflection (i.e. force to thinking), and encourage participants to take a stance regarding important issues and concepts such as the political nature of architecture and the implications of the production and distribution of space.

As we live and inhabit a world that is constantly becoming more and more visual, it seems necessary to perform such an exploration if not from within the visual realm, at least with a consistent perspective of its presence and effects on reality.

As for space, it should be understood here not so much as an abstract concept or an isolated aesthetical construct, but rather as a dialogical and intertextual reality strongly linked to culture, and thus to social, political, economic, technological and aesthetical factors. All throughout the course, anthropology, sociology, economy, geography, environmental sciences, art, cinema and other disciplines will provide points of departure for a deeper critical analysis of various spatial practices.

Participants are expected to always return to the common ground of the public realm to contrast all these gazes, layers and issues with the current condition and transformation processes of public space as well as to deconstruct and reflect upon the close relationship of space and politics.

I also suggest a re-reading of the post I wrote after the first class last semester which can be accessed through this link:

http://www.opa-a2a.org/dissensus/?p=23

[Este post será actualizado en breve. Los comentarios relativos a la primera sesion pueden añadirse ya mediante el link que aparece mas abajo]

The second edition of ‘dissensus’ will start on the 24th of September at 16.00 h. The image of the container used as working space and meeting point by the UrbanAsymmetries research group at TUDelft, after the fire that destroyed the whole faculty, provides the perfect background for the intended reflection upon the relationship of space and politics.

You can find the complete course program attached to this post, including aims, dynamics, schedules lectures and due work. Please read instructions carefully and observe deadlines for comments, abstract, paper and final presentation.

The weblog will continue to work as a dynamic complement to the course by allowing participants to comment and discuss the themes and issues explored and raised during the lectures, screenings and debates.

The main aim of the course is to foster critical spatial reflection and practice. The course pursues a critical exploration of socio-cultural, anthropological and political issues through architecture, urbanism, cinema and other visual arts. The verification of a great loss of social, critical, political and even utopian impetus in the contemporary debate and production in architecture is the underlying and motivating concern of the course. Upon generalized, common acceptance of action and production mechanisms that follow those of capitalism and the market, one must seach for alternative ways to advance towards a political dimension of architecture.

[ La segunda edición de ‘dissensus’ comenzará el próximo 24 de Septiembre a las 16.00 horas. La imagen del contenedor utilizado como taller de proyectos por el grupo de investigación UrbanAsymmetries de la Escuela de Arquitectura de la TUDelft tras el incendio que arrasó el edificio de la facultad, proporciona un punto de partida perfecto para afrontar la reflexión propuesta en torno a la relación entre el espacio y lo político.

El programa completo de la asignatura, incluyendo los objetivos, contenidos, dinámica, clases programadas y trabajos a realizar se encuentra adjunto a este post. Leed con cuidado las instrucciones y respetad las fechas de entrega de comentarios, resumen, trabajo y presentación final.

El weblog seguirá funcionando como un complemento dinámico a la asignatura permitiendo a los participantes comentar y discutir los temas explorados y surgidos durante las clases, proyecciones y debates.

El principal objetivo de la asignatura es fomentar la reflexión y la practica espacial críticas. El curso trata de llevar a cabo una exploración crítica de temas socio-culturales, antropológicos y políticos a partir de la arquitectura, el urbanismo, el cine y otras artes visuales. La preocupación subyacente y motivante de la asignatura es la constatación de la pérdida de ímpetu social, crítico, político e incluso utópico de la arquitectura contemporánea y del debate asociado a ella. Ante la aceptación generalizada de mecanismos de acción y producción que se alinean con el capital y el mercado, cabe preguntarse por vías alternativas de acción que permitan acercarse a la dimensión política de la arquitectura.]

course_program_dissensus_2.0

The Berlage Institute postgraduate program includes a Master Class each semester. This term’s Master Class is conducted and coordinated by Keller Easterling, and entitled “LEVERAGE”.

“The master class reconsiders the material and tactics of architectural activism and entrepreneurialism. Theoretical texts revisit activism in relation to, for instance, piracy, comedy, law, organization, aesthetics, sovereignty, polity and ethics. In addition, the seminar provides material for considering architecture as an index of global infrastructures capable of manipulating power in the service of many political alternatives.”

I have applied to take part in the master class as an external participant in order to prepare and update next semester’s course. Many of the extremely thoughtful and brilliant insights of Keller Easterling’s work are explored, discussed and tested during the lectures and seminar work. Further readings and studio revisions complete the schedule throughout the week, from 2nd till 6th of June.

Yesterday evening, Keller Easterling delivered a public lecture entitled “The Power of Political Phantoms: Leveraging Global Infrastructure”, that was then followed by a discussion led by Peter Trummer.

www.berlage-institute.nl

[ this post will be updated soon ]

Final presentations of the first edition of .dissensus took place during this week’s class. Final papers will be uploaded to this weblog for further discussion. Comments about the presentations and the papers are encouraged and welcome. The intensity and general level of the work produced has been really high and valuable.

More to come soon.

[ Las presentaciones finales de la primera edición de .dissensus han tenido lugar durante la clase de esta semana, la última del curso. Los textos/ensayos finales se harán también accesibles desde este weblog con el fin de fomentar la discusión de los mismos. Esta discusión puede llevarse a cabo mediante todo tipo de comentarios a este post acerca de las presentaciones y trabajos finales, que por otra parte han mostrado un altisimo nivel e intensidad.]

Más, pronto.

 

In a time where the commons have been either super-exploited (and thus destroyed) or hyper-regulated (and thus paralized or blocked) and physical public space is under siege, devastated, razed or even simply erased, there is more and more need for another kind of spatial practice, one that provides a critical, yet smart and agile approach to space and engages the production of physical spaces for actual direct communication. Simultaneously, there is also a need for another kind of cultural practitionner, another kind of architect, that is capable of operating outside the autonomous purity of architecture’s core, and willing to engage into political battles within contemporary difuse power scapes and ready to develop a sort of “productive piracy”, as Keller Easterling has named a surely more productive attitude towards political leverage that is much more agile, sneakier, cagier, than forthright.. avoiding righteousness, …”too smart to be right”.

These much needed spaces for direct communication must be hybrid in all possible ways: regarding identity, allowing for all kinds of mixtures, cross-breeding and transcultural exchanges; regarding management, by incorporating self-organized, communitarian, private and state controlled elements, simultaneously cohexisting and inter-operating; and also environmentally, by merging the physical with the virtual and digital.

_____

 Again, an ‘other’ insight was presented through both the counterpoint-class and the lecture by Javier Rodrigo who took us into an amazingly motivating, optimistic and hopeful journey through critical thinking, dialogical educational spaces and collaborative practices in and around public space. His eloquent and warm talks allowed for understanding of the very notion of modernity, built upon the idea of discourse and power relations, and the consequent immediate emergence of a constructed ‘other’, and the resulting imbrication of power and knowledge. Critical pedagogy and Freire’s dialogical method were also explored and clarified notions that, along with sociological tools to re-think spatial practices and spatial conceptualization processes, acted as an introduction and preparation for the case-study examples that he intensely explained during his public lecture.

It might be that, just as art has long time ago transitioned from the artistic object to more difuse and collective ‘art practices’, just so architecture should abandon the production of objects (images) to approach the design of processes, conversational ‘pieces’, and much more complex and collectively constructed projects, getting closer to dialogical aesthetics, to aesthetics as a form of politics.

(His texts have been also uploaded to the ‘texts’ section and are also linked below.)

W_10_01 bromberg_ava [interrogating_public_space]

W_10_02 schäfer_christoph [the_city_is_unwritten]

W_10_03 cordingley_luke [can_masdeu_the_rise_of_the_rurbano_revolution]

W_10_04 miessen_markus [spatial_practices_beyond_models_of_consensus]

W_10_05 rodrigo_javier [de_la_intervención_a_la_rearticulación]

W_10_06 rodrigo_javier [educación_artística_y_prácticas_artísticas_colaborativas]

W_10_07 rodrigo_javier [pedagogía_crítica_perfomativa]

 

Bodies are becoming like Cities. Cities are becoming more like Global Geographies.

This week’s class was an attempt at a journey through the evolution of the city under the guidance of Edward W. Soja; a quick review of the importance and scope of the three first urban revolutions, namely the emergence of organized agriculture 10.000 years ago around the first ‘cities’ (Çatal Hüyük) (1st), the formation of city-states and city-based empires starting around 6.000 years ago (2nd), and the most recent one intimately bound to the industrial revolution (3rd).

Are we witnessing the beggining of a new (4th) urban revolution?

More attention has been given to the spatial specificity of urbanism for the past few years, and Soja talks (following Lefebvre) about a trialectics of being that combines historicality, sociality and spatiality, seeing them as simultaneous and complexly interwoven, inseparable and interdependent dimensions of human life.

Attached to this spatial specifity, lies what he calls ’synekism’, the stimulus of urban agglomeration, the condition arising from dwelling together in a ‘house’ (synoikismos, syn-oikos), what Manuel Delgado calls ‘the urban magma’, one of the most intrinsic developmental forces of the ‘urban’.

Soja then focuses on the most recent and dramatic transformations that have taken place in ‘cityspace’, by exploring and analizing the restructuring geographies of Los Angeles (which can be then easily extrapolated to other cities) in his six discourses on the postmetropolis. The speed and dramatic implications of these recent extraordinary changes may be at the base of what seems to be a growing ‘unmoooring’ of the contemporary city from its spatial specifity: we are less and less attached to collective references, memory or identity, we can no longer map the metropolis, we can no longer know its borders or limits.

Blurriness.

Celeste Olalquiaga (a contemporary sensitive ‘observer’ of cityspace and its inhabitants) roots this urban sickness in a transformation of the body, a specifically urban and contemporary form of psychasthenia: ‘the space defined by the coordinates of the organism’s own body is confused with represented space […] the psychasthenic organism proceeds to abandon its own identity to embrace the space beyond, by camouflaging itself into the millieu. […] The organism succesfully reproduces the elements it could not otherwise apprehend, but in the process it is swallowed up by them, vanishing.’

‘Bodies are becoming like Cities, both increasingly tied to the topography of computer screens and video monitors, giving us the languages and images that we require to reach others and see ourselves.’

The hard materiality of cityspace seems to evaporate as the whole world is drawn into every city’s symbolic zone. In such a ’semiotic extension of details’ (Chambers), there is a simultaneous ‘loss in focus’, for there is no longer a definable ‘outside’ to cities.

_____________________________________________________________

By exploring one of the most extreme cases of urban transformation and complex urban dynamics, the film ‘Lagos Wide&Close’ on the work of Rem Koolhaas and his Harvard Project on the City in Nigerian Lagos, provides an insight of today’s cityspace, its scale, its mechanisms, its complexity and perhaps its growingly sick, almost metastasic, processes.

_____________________________________________________________

soja_edward_w    [six discourses on the postmetropolis]

bauman_zygmunt [city of fears city of hopes]

koolhaas_rem [the generic city]

 Security, Technology and Fear in the City

 

[some related texts have been uploaded to the texts section]

Traditional forms of protection have been progresively replaced by less visible and much more sophisticated surveillance systems, from satellites and cctv cameras to all kinds of alarms and biometric devices: an infrastructure of security is being ‘laid’ upon the territory.

The emergence of security as a universal value changes our relationship with the future: without a dominant fear shaping our minds (god, death, unemployment, fascism… ), an existential insecurity arises from the pressure of an unknown threat.

Such an anxiety about the presence of danger (the unknown unknowns) is used to manipulate consumer-inhabitants, it is marketized and linked to a lifestyle. Protection, Defense, Surveillance, become necessary conditions for domestic and urban life. And the inherently urban conditions of complexity, diversity, density… are challenged by a quest for simplicity and homogenization in the task of eradicating the unknown.

A strong regulation and control of public space is thus seen as a basic requirement to guarantee security conditions, what leads to zero tolerance policies, police control and repression, urban fortification and defensive landscapes.

The whole city-space, the whole territory is under surveillance, and public space is either destroyed or non-existent.

//

In a multitasking world in which our attention becomes promiscuous and we engage in a sort of continuous partial attention, Jordan Crandall describes a transformation of our visual capacities that, affected by these all-encompassing vigilant visualities and such an ecology of fear, transition to new ways of perception (precision-guided-seeing, or tracking).

Readiness, or preparedness, as the embodied dimension of this continuous partial attention and vigilance, is now, along with regulation, another operative means of the society of control.

But readiness, as an affect of our inner states, as a form of activation that is not necessarily available to the conscious mind but contains the potential for action, operating through our proprioceptive and visceral functions, can be also used to expand the time-space of embodiment, incorporating a sort of ‘constantly moving preconscious frontier’, and opening up a space between affect and contemplation.

//

When the anxiety about danger and the quest for security become primordial needs and values at a state, or global, scale, war results.

And the horror, destruction and loss of war, may be only roughly approached or described by means of the sublime.

———————————————————————– 

This week’s class will host the visit of David Reznak, an extremely sensitive and engaged film maker, who also runs ‘La Enana Marrón’, an experimental film center in Madrid. He will deliver another insight into our exploration of contemporary vigilant visualities, in the form of a short talk and a screening of a series of selected short films that address some of the issues dealt with in the class.

As in previous weeks, our guest will also take part in the school’s lecture series, with another lecture/screening on Thursday at 10.45 in the main lecture room. Once again, I strongly recommend attending both the class and the lecture since they will complement each other.

David Reznak’s first long documentary (after many awarded and acclaimed short films) ‘ La Osa Mayor Menos Dos’ premieres in Madrid and Barcelona on May 9th.

This post will be updated soon.

zizek slavoj [ ideology today ]

zizek_slavoj [ the matrix ]

zizek_slavoj [ welcome to the desert of the real ]

zizek_slavoj [ multiculturalismo_o_la_lógica_cultural_del_capitalismo_multinacional]

[Versión en castellano más abajo] 

Michael Haneke’s cinema of disturbance poses a series of interesting and urgent questions about the contemporary condition and its effects on personal relationships. Perhaps Benny is actually an inhabitant of ‘surmodernité’, aimlessly wandering between non-places, transit points and temporary abodes, and constantly ‘watching’ a filtered ‘virtual reality’ that he believes to be in total control of, but is in fact not only controlled but also actively produced by the media.  

But beyond the pessimistic and nihilistic views of Baudrillard’s simulacra, what’s most interesting is to try analyzing the consequences of Benny’s (our) inability to distinguish Deleuze’s actual and virtual, and his (our) will for control or power exercised through his (our) voyeur’s gaze.

The total breakdown of communication and personal relationships that Deleuze brilliantly explains by stating that ‘Eros is sick’, is perfectly enacted in Haneke’s film: only money or power differentials link one character or movement to another. The appartment seems to be divided into plots of land, and thus private ownership defines also domestic life. Communication with Benny is often based in money and short notes, and his parents are either unable to communicate or much more concerned about their own social standing and image. Meanwhile, Benny develops his own personal version of the universal schizophrenia that Deleuze posits as the result of the ‘diffuse conspiracy of capital’.

Who is really doing the manipulation? Who controls what is ‘real’ and who creates memories?

Several narrative machines and tecniques are used in Funny Games to remind the spectator that what he/she is watching on the screen is actually a fiction. A fiction that Haneke uses to reflect on the de-sensitizing effects of aestheticized violence in cinema and media. He wants to treat violence as what it really is - serious pain or injury to the ‘other’- and he does, truly and fully, by concentrating on the effects of this violence on the characters, rather than by showing violence itself on the screen. The spectator is forced, almost ‘raped’, to both imagine, or make-up the ‘real’ violence taking place outside the screen limits, and to project his/her own perceptions on top of the ‘figures’ inhabiting the film, that are less characters than projection surfaces for such perceptions.

[ El perturbador e inquietante cine de Michael Haneke lanza una serie de interesantes a la vez que urgentes preguntas acerca de la condición contemporánea y sus efectos sobre las relaciones personales. Quizá Benny sea en efecto un habitante de la ’surmodernité’, vagando sin aparente objetivo entre no-lugares, puntos de tránsito y moradas temporales, observando constantemente una ‘realidad virtual’ filtrada, la cual él considera bajo su control absoluto y sin embargo está siendo no solo controlada sino producida por los medios.

Pero más allá de las pesimistas y nihilistas visiones del simulacro de Baudrillard, resulta más interesante analizar las consecuencias de la incapacidad de Benny (o la nuestra) para distinguir lo ‘actual’ de lo ‘virtual’ deleuzianos (ambos reales), y su (o nuestra) voluntad de poder o de control, ejercida a través de su (nuestra) mirada de voyeur.

El absoluto fracaso comunicativo y de las relaciones personales que Deleuze explica brillantemente al afirmar que ‘Eros está enfermo’, se escenifica perfectamente en la película de Haneke: únicamente los diferenciales de dinero o poder conectan unos personajes con otros, unos movimientos con otros. El apartamento parece dividido en parcelas de terreno y por tanto la propiedad privada define también la vida doméstica. La comunicación con Benny se basa frecuentemente en el dinero y en pequeñas notas adjuntas, y sus padres son a veces totalmente incapaces de comunicarse y otras veces están mucho más preocupados de su propio status social e imagen. Mientras tanto, Benny desarrolla su personal versión de la esquizofrenia universal que Deleuze propone como resultado de la ‘difusa conspiración del capital’.

Pero quién está realmente llevando cabo la manipulación? Quién controla lo que es ‘real y quién crea los recuerdos, la memoria?

En Funny Games se emplean varias técnicas y máquinas narrativas con el fin de recordarle al espectador que lo que está viendo en la pantalla es en realidad una ficción. Una ficción que Haneke utiliza para reflexionar sobre los efectos in-sensibilizantes de la violencia estetizada y coreografiada en el cine y los medios de comunicación. Pretende tratar la violencia como aquello que realmente es - un grave daño o lesión hacia el otro que la sufre - y lo consigue, de forma auténtica y completa, concentrándose en los efectos de esta violencia sobre los personajes que la sufren, mucho más que mostrando la violencia misma en la pantalla. El espectador es obligado, casi violado, a imaginar o inventar la ‘auténtica’ violencia que tiene lugar fuera de los límites de la pantalla (fuera de campo), y a proyectar sus propias percepciones sobre las figuras que habitan la películas, que son, más que personajes, unas pantallas de proyección para estas percepciones. ]

————————————————————————————–

Another interesting guest lecture will take place during the class on Wednesday. Aida Sánchez de Serdio (PhD in Arts) will help us deal with the cinema of Michael Haneke providing an experienced gaze on the field of visual and cultural studies. She will also participate in the semester’s lecture series on Thursday, when she will deliver a lecture/screening entitled: ‘Out of Field: The Politics of the Gaze, The Politics of Representation’. It is again strongly advisable to attend both the class and the lecture, provided they will be different and complementary. Furthermore, Aida’s reflections and research will be of great help in order to approach the definition of additional narrative machines. Please join us at the main lecture room on thursday around 10.45 am.

[ Otra conferencia invitada tendrá lugar durante la clase del miércoles. La doctora en Bellas Artes y profesora de la Facultad de Bellas Artes de la Universidad de Barcelona, Aida Sánchez de Serdio, nos ayudará en la tarea de explorar el cine de Michael Haneke aportando una mirada experta en el campo de los estudios culturales y visuales. También participará en el ciclo de conferencias del EDC de la ETSAV el jueves, ofreciendo una conferencia/proyección titulada: ‘ Fuera de Campo: Política de la Mirada, Política de la Representación’. De nuevo es un placer recomendar la asistencia a la clase y a la conferencia, ya que serán diferentes y a la vez complementarias. Las reflexiones y el trabajo de investigación de Aida serán además de gran ayuda en la definición de ‘máquinas narrativas’ adicionales. La conferencia del jueves será en el salón de actos a las 10.45 am. ]

augé_marc [no lugares - una antropología de la super(sobre)modernidad]

massumi_brian [realer than real - the simulacrum according to deleuze and guatari]

sanchez de serdio_aida [fuera de campo]

This week’s class will host the visit of Marta Sánchez of Pragda Films, to offer a counterpoint on the ‘borders’ theme. Her visit will be double-worth since she will also deliver an interesting lecture/screening on thursday morning as part of this semester’s lecture series. The contents of her participation in the class on wednesday and the lecture on thursday will not be the same, so it is strongly advisable to attend both. It will be worth.

On the other hand, as I was suggested last week, some material related to the class has already been uploaded just in case you want to check it before the class.

[ La clase de esta semana incluirá la visita de Marta Sánchez de Pragda Films, que ofrecerá un contrapunto al tema ‘fronteras’. Su visita es doblemente valiosa ya que incluirá también una conferencia-proyección el jueves por la mañana, incluida en el ciclo de conferencias del EDC de la ETSAV. El contenido de su participación en la clase del miércoles y el de la conferencia del jueves serán diferentes, por lo que es muy recomendable acudir a ambas. Merecerá la pena.

Por otro lado, tal y como se sugirió la semana pasada, he ‘colgado’ ya algunos textos relacionados con la clase por si alguien quiere acercarse al tema antes de la misma. ]

cruz_teddy [Transborder-flows: Urbanisms Beyond the Poverty Line]

sassen_saskia [Ethnicity and Space in the Global City: A New Frontier?]