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

Mon Jul 11 23:21:25 CEST 2011

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 <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> 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 <geo.scripcariu at gmail.com>
> 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 <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
>>>
>>> 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 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
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
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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
>>>>
>>>> --
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>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
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