[P2P-F] Fwd: [P2P-URBANISM WA] Postmodern / post-structuralist philosophers and P2P Urbanism

Sun Jul 3 15:47:07 CEST 2011

Dear Ken,

is your new book on the situationists dealing with this topic?

Michel

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Audun Engh <audun.engh at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 2:17 PM
Subject: Re: [P2P-URBANISM WA] Postmodern / post-structuralist philosophers
and P2P Urbanism
To: p2p-urbanism-world-atlas at googlegroups.com

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

------

*The Situationist City*, book published 1999

http://books.google.com/books/about/The_situationist_city.html?id=lR_MiZPhT64C

--

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+debord+corbusier&source=bl&ots=OpizpIvHm8&sig=Raiw0fhYgciq6B-xdBwl2GZ24lA&hl=no&ei=qVgQTrHtGoWcOsCawaML&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CE8Q6AEwBg#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_Traffic.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 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

---

2011/7/3 Geo Scripcariu <geo.scripcariu at gmail.com>

> Many thanks to Stefano and Michael for the very interesting comments along
> my question.
>
> Best,
>
> Geo
>
>
>
> 2011/7/3 Michael Mehaffy <michael.mehaffy at gmail.com>
>
>> 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.woa/wa/dist?dis=47
>>
>> Cheers, m
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 3:01 PM, Stefano Serafini <
>> stefanonikolaevic at gmail.com> 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 <geo.scripcariu at gmail.com>
>>>
>>>> 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: geo.scripcariu at gmail.com
>>>> Str.Sabinelor 123 Bl. 119 Suite 16
>>>> Bucuresti-5 050854 Romania
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the
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>>>>
>>>
>>>  --
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>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Michael Mehaffy
>> Visiting Faculty, ASU
>> NEW ADDRESS to July 1, '11:
>> 4630 S. Lakeshore Dr., #267
>> Tempe, AZ 85282
>>
>> Permanent Address:
>> 333 S. State Street, Suite V-440
>> Lake Oswego, OR 97034
>> www.tectics.com
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> 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: geo.scripcariu at gmail.com
> 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
> p2p-urbanism-world-atlas at googlegroups.com
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/p2p-urbanism-world-atlas?hl=en
>

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