---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: felipe velasquez <[email protected]> Date: Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 4:08 AM Subject: Re: [P2P-URBANISM WA] Postmodern / post-structuralist philosophers and P2P Urbanism To: [email protected] Dear friends, i would like to share with this group this article about the economical situation in the Amazonas, the relation with economy and sustaintable development. The tragedy endured by the Amazon rainforest. Most Latin American countries share a same feature which is having within its territory three different natural landscapes: the jungle, the mountains and the coast. My question is: why a continent that has so many resources and so important geopolitical conditions is still depending on a hierarchical, centralized and speculative economic system, which is not intended for cultural, social, economic and, let alone, territorial conditions? (Number one) And, why having these so specific natural conditions - which could allow to develop homogeneous productive systems, and would also help build better social relations, and, therefore the relations with the territory (environment) - has nobody thought of providing local economic indicators, in each area of exploitation? (Number two) These indicators would be able to achieve a better natural resources safeguarding system, controlled exploitation, productive chains, territory distribution systems, food resources, establishment and management of wealth and food self-sufficiency. The Amazon Rainforest is a territory shared by Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Bolivia and Venezuela. It is known that ,so far, the central governments, from every Amazonian country, had been more concerned about solving their capital towns' problems, connected to the global economic system, foreign debt, urban employment, violence and their relationship with the United States, than addressing the jungle inhabitants' internal problems. At this moment, the Amazonian forests are undergoing an incalculable tragedy, since the neglect of the central government led to allow the creation of timber and resources exploitation mafias. If something is not done quickly, there is a serious danger that the business exhaust what little remains of it. Although in the forest up to six different currencies are used, none is able to actually regulate the real resource, which is the forest itself, its resources and culture. In this sense, it is conceivable that the gangs are working for the money which is served by a central economy, which lacks support [1] and they are using up a true resource, capable to generate, as well, a real economic model. [2] It is about something like that contracted with money which lacks any backing or any proven system of representation, the Brazilian, Colombian and Peruvian mafias are extracting the resources (not renewable) from Latin America and, on top of that, exterminating the cultures that have lived there for ages. [1] No one knows what the dolar truly represents and the euro walks in a dangerous tightrope. Presumably the evidence of the damage that inflicted instability in the U.S. financial system is beginning to build a NO DEPENDENT system, from the others, where the production systems and wealth distribution may be fitted to the real territorial conditions in each country. [2] The reduction of CO2 emissions will have to become a real resource, able to generate a new economy. In this respect, the Amazon is a key resource, since it can purify loads of air. 2011/7/12 Stefano Serafini <[email protected]>

Thank's for the suggestion Michel. I like "wowing"!

Best,

Stefano

2011/7/12 Michel Bauwens <[email protected]>

...

dear stefano,

at the time I was active in my youth, it seems that debord was really influential with the art/cultural types, but not yet amongst the more classic left ...

I strongly recommend reading Ken Wark's Hacker's Manifesto, which for me, had the same high 'wow' factor, though I disagree with the significance of the hacker/vectoralist class reading (I think it has been superseded by peer producers/netarchical capital distinctions)

Michel

On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 11:42 PM, Stefano Serafini < [email protected]> wrote:

...

Jan,

as this was not my cultural background (I studied Middle Ages Philosophy at a Pontifical University...!), I get amazed reading for the first time La Societe du Spectacle a few years ago - quite a wow! at every page. So, I was wondering why NOBODY of my leftist and activist friends here in Italy looked to be caring anymore of Debord, a genius who forerun many other points as such. One of them confessed: we were reading Micky Mouse... :-) By the way, after that, he started reading and (as he is a famous journalist) quoting him all around.

All the best,

Stefano

2011/7/12 Jan Wiklund <[email protected]>

...

I delight this.****

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Very few recognise the situationist influence on today’s commonplace critique of urban planning, environmental hazards, and whatever. They were really forerunners, but are largely forgotten by most. I’m happy Audun give them their due.****

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/Jan****

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*Från:* [email protected] [mailto: [email protected]] *För *Audun Engh *Skickat:* den 3 juli 2011 14:17 *Till:* [email protected] *Ämne:* Re: [P2P-URBANISM WA] Postmodern / post-structuralist philosophers and P2P Urbanism****

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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

----- * *Psychogeography* was defined in 1955 by Guy Debord<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Debord>as "the study of the 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

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*The Situationist City*, book published 1999

http://books.google.com/books/about/The_situationist_city.html?id=lR_MiZPhT6...

--

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...

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*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... ****

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 helicopters currently being tested by the US Army will probably have spread to the general public within twenty years. ****

8 ****

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

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2011/7/3 Geo Scripcariu <[email protected]>****

Many thanks to Stefano and Michael for the very interesting comments along my question.

Best,

Geo****

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2011/7/3 Michael Mehaffy <[email protected]>****

Dear Geo et al.****

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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.) ****

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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!) ****

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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....****

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http://athensdialogues.chs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/athensdialogues.wo... ****

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Cheers, m ****

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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****

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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

7. Neil Leach

Best regards,

Geo Scripcariu

-- ****

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****

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