Michel, et al, In answer to your question Michel, yes my book The Beach Beneath the Street is, among other things, about urbanism, seen through the work of the the people who would become precursors or founders of the Situationist International. I thought there was still something to be said about their practice of the dérive, about psychogeography, about unitary urbanism, that was not coming through in the existing literature on all that. There's extracts up now on the p2p-foundation website, although not the parts about p2p urbanism. regards Ken _____________ Prof. McKenzie Wark Culture & Media, Eugene Lang College 65 w11th st New York NY 10011 USA
"Julio Cesar Perez" <[email protected]> 07/11/11 6:18 PM >>> I join Nikos! Both writers have nothing to do with our ideas and conceptions and they frankly influenced negatively a lot of youngsters with their confusing and almost inextricable texts...
Best regards: Professor Julio César Pérez Hernández Harvard University Loeb Fellow'02 President Cuban Chapter C.E.U (Council for European Urbanism) President Cuban Chapter I.N.T.B.A.U (International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture and Urbanism) Architect and Urban Planner/Designer www.cigarclub.lu/perez e-mail: [email protected] Phone: 047 382727 Cell phone: 52373606 -----Mensaje original----- De: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] En nombre de Nikos Salingaros Enviado el: Monday, July 11, 2011 5:21 PM Para: [email protected] CC: p2p-foundation; Ken Wark Asunto: Re: [P2P-URBANISM WA] Postmodern / post-structuralist philosophers and P2P Urbanism Hello everyone, I'm entering this debate late, and on an immediately personal note. As one of the workers in p2p urbanism, I do have a clear vision of what we are trying to do. Please note that I have criticized both Derrida and Deleuze in the harshest possible terms -- calling them intellectual impostors in several articles and books. So I'm not going to consider any positive influence of their thought on p2p urbanism. Of course this is my opinion. Best wishes, Nikos On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 5:17 AM, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:
Ken has a new book on the situationists, which you may want to check out,
will be book of the week soon on the p2p blog,
Michel
On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 3:17 AM, Geo Scripcariu <[email protected]> wrote:
Thanks a lot Michel and Audun. Great suggestions to research further, excellent links! I read partly, some time ago, "The Society of the Spectacle" and I felt (avant la lettre, before embarking in this PhD,
that)
Debord is the kind of thinker that has a lot to do with my own interpretation of Open Source / P2P Urbanism.
Best,
Geo
2011/7/3 Michel Bauwens <[email protected]>
Dear Ken,
is your new book on the situationists dealing with this topic?
Michel
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Audun Engh <[email protected]> Date: Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 2:17 PM Subject: Re: [P2P-URBANISM WA] Postmodern / post-structuralist philosophers and P2P Urbanism To: [email protected]
I suggest the french writer Guy Debord - 1931 - 1994
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Debord ,
and the Situationist International movement that he was part of. SI
had
an important role in initiating the May 68 rebellion in Paris.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situationist_International
Guy Debord and other Siuatinists were among the first to criticise le Corbusier and modernist planning, and hail the uncontrolable diversity of historic cities, from a radical, anti-authoritaran perspective.
See for example "Nine Situationist theses on traffic", from 1959,
FULL TEXT BELOW
-----
Psychogeograp>>> precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychogeography
------
The Situationist City, book published 1999
http://books.google.com/books/about/The_situationist_city.html?id=lR_MiZPhT6 4C
--
Early Situationist critique of le Corbusier: See page 157 of this book:
http://books.google.no/books?id=bREQibN9i-sC&pg=PA157&lpg=PA157&dq=guy+debor d+corbusier&source=bl&ots=OpizpIvHm8&sig=Raiw0fhYgciq6B-xdBwl2GZ24lA&hl=no&e i=qVgQTrHtGoWcOsCawaML&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CE8Q6AEwB g#v=onepage&q=guy%20debord%20corbusier&f=false
----
Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vftL-hHPttQ
Society of the Spectacle, part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV6k_SKkHKQ&feature=related
Parts 2 - 8, and other Situationist films, - see the menu
----------
Guy Debord
Situationist Theses on Traffic (1959)
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Guy_Debord__Situationist_Theses_on_Traff ic.html
1
A mistake made by all the city planners is to consider the private automobile (and its by-products, such as the motorcycle) as
essentially a
means of transportation. In reality, it is the most notable material symbol of the notion of happiness that developed capitalism tends to spread throughout the society. The automobile is at the center of this general propaganda, both as supreme good of an alienated life and as essential product of the capitalist market: It is generally being said this year that American economic prosperity is soon going to depend on the success of the slogan “Two cars per family.”
2
Commuting time, as Le Corbusier rightly noted, is a surplus labor which correspondingly reduces the amount of “free” time.
3
We must replace travel as an adjunct to work with travel as a pleasure.
4
To want to redesign architecture to accord with the needs of the present massive and parasitical existence of private automobiles reflects the most unrealistic misapprehension of where the real problems lie. Instead, architecture must be transformed to accord with the whole development of the society, criticizing all the transitory values linked to obsolete forms of social relationships (in the first rank of which is the family).
5
Even if, during a transitional period, we temporarily accept a rigid division between work zones and residence zones, we must at least envisage a third sphere: that of life itself (the sphere of freedom and leisure — the essence of life). Unitary urbanism acknowledges no boundaries; it aims to form an integrated human milieu in which separations such as work/leisure or public/private will finally be dissolved. But before this is possible, the minimum action of unitary urbanism is to extend the terrain of play to all desirable constructions. This terrain will be at the level of complexity of an old city.
6
It is not a matter of opposing the automobile as an evil in itself. It is its extreme concentration in the cities that has led to the negation of its function. Urbanism should certainly not ignore the automobile, but even less should it accept it as its central theme. It should reckon on gradually phasing it out. In any case, we can envision the banning of auto traffic from the central areas of certain new complexes, as well as from a few old cities.
7
Those who believe that the automobile is eternal are not thinking, even from a strictly technological standpoint, of other future forms of transportation. For example, certain models of one-man helicopter>>> The breaking up of the dialectic of the human milieu in favor of automobiles (the projected freeways in Paris will entail the demolition of thousands of houses and apartments although the housing crisis is continually worsening) masks its irrationality under pseudopractical justifications. But it is practically necessary only in the context of a specific social set-up. Those who believe that the particulars of the problem are permanent want in fact to believe in the permanence of the present society.
9
Revolutionary urbanists will not limit their concern to the circulation of things, or to the circulation of human beings trapped in a world of things. They will try to break these topological chains, paving the way with their experiments for a human journey through authentic life.
----------------
Audun Engh INTBAU Scandinavia www..intbau.org
---
2011/7/3 Geo Scripcariu <[email protected]>
Many thanks to Stefano and Michael for the very interesting
comments
along my question.
Best,
Geo
2011/7/3 Michael Mehaffy <[email protected]>
Dear Geo et al. I would point to Virilio as much more related to P2P urbanism, in several respects. He points out the failures of technology and the
role of
competition and conflict between people as a key dimension of urbanism -- and the converse of that is their cooperation, and the strategies they adopt to mitigate conflicts. (In his criticism of technology's unintended consequences he is a bit more related to Ellul too if you know his work.) Broadly speaking, and at the extreme risk of over-simplifying, I think the structuralist project is finally recovering from a period that can best be characterized as epistemological muddle, that rose up around the central problem of meaning, and the false positivist expectations that language could somehow arrive at a clear position outside of external meaning. As is implied by Godel and others, this was a misunderstanding of what language is or how it really works. In this I think Whitehead especially (and Alexander, who is essentially a Whiteheadean) point the way out of this Kantian muddle. (I won't name names, but would include some of the folks you mentioned!) I am very interested in this topic and have been nibbling away at it since grad school days. Here is a paper I gave recently on it, if you're interested. At a conference with Nikos, as a matter of fact. (I don't dwell on the latter structuralists (or "post-structuralists" as they are known more commonly in the States) but I think you will see the implications....
http://athensdialogues.chs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/athensdialogues.wo a/wa/dist?dis=47
Cheers, m
On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 3:01 PM, Stefano Serafini <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Geo,
it's hard to give an answer to such a question, yet I cannot see
any
relation between p2p urbanism and Derrida and Deleuze. All the other Authors you quoted can be in some way related. First of all, Foucault, then Baudrilard, and in a traditionally meant "political sense", Zizek. I don't know enough the thought of Leach. Would add Henri Lefebvre.
Nevertheles, at the first place I would put Christopher Alexander.
Best,
Stefano
2011/7/2 Geo Scripcariu <[email protected]> > > Hi All, > > Which of the following philosophers have anything to do -- in your > opinion -- (and what) with P2P Urbanism? > > 1. Baudrillard > > 2. Michel Foucault > > 3. Jacques Derrida > > 5. Gilles Deleuze > > 6. Slavoj Zizek > >>>>> Geo Scripcariu > PhD Student / Open Source Urbanism > UAUIM Bucharest > Mobil: +40745-09.61.91 > Direct: +4031-401.29.42 > Tel/Fax: +4021-410.54.15 > E-mail: [email protected] > Str.Sabinelor 123 Bl. 119 Suite 16 > Bucuresti-5 050854 Romania > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the > "P2P-Urbanism World Atlas" group. > to register to the group > http://cityleft.blogspot.com/ > To post to this group, send email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/p2p-urbanism-world-atlas?hl=en
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