Michel de Certeau

Andy Doro & Nick Hasty

 

certeau_present.ppt

certeau_present.mov

Death/decay of city as concept - what are cities like in the 21st Century?

Models as Simulation

DOC0: Jia Zhangke, The World

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/04/32/chinese_underground_film.html
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/04/32/jia_zhangke.html

The World Theme Park,
"the fake", simulation, hyper-reality. tourism without tourism. a way of "understanding" the world through models.

 

DOC0.5: Tactical Media

Utilzing de Certeau's idea of tactics-produce new or subvert existing signs/ideas/metaphors within dominant system via various "media"

  • way of reappropriating / occuping dominant space
  • consumer as producer - using established vocabulary of production system
Theory (p.117)
act of reading is space produced by particular place/system of signs
as urban planning spatialized by walkers
text as a space of connections of ideas and re-reading of other texts
subjective act-memory, experience, expectation
non-passive art / space of dwelling

Critical Art Ensemble

 

DOC1: Rem Koolhaas, Lagos

death of urban planning/the generic city/globalization

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rem_Koolhaas
http://www.indexmagazine.com/interviews/rem_koolhaas.shtml
http://imomus.livejournal.com/2005/07/27/

Flying above Lagos in a Presidential helicopter. Koolhaas presents Lagos as a new, undefined, unexplored situation. Exotification of poverty? Attempts to understand in order to control?

Delirious New York, Great Leap Forward about the Pearl River Delta, Guide to Shopping.

 

DOC2: Davis, Planet of Slums

Mike Davis, Planet of Slums - marxist critique, de-industrialization

http://newleftreview.org/A2496
http://www.orionsociety.org/pages/om/06-2om/Davis.html
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10234
http://www.villagevoice.com/books/0606,press,72046,10.html

Davis gives example of US Military experiences in Belgrade vs. Mogadishu, Sadr City. US Military unable to comprehend and hence impose control on undifferentiated urban mass i.e. "slums"

 

DOC3: Kowloon Walled City

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City
http://www.twenty4.co.uk/on-line/issue001/project02/KWC/
http://www.tofu-magazine.net/newVersion/pages/KWC.html

Pirate kingdom, illegimate, unregulated space, ambiguous legality, triad/gangster stronghold.

Kowloon Walled City as possible model for future urban growth? Rhizome, spontaneously ordered, exists outside of government control. Is Koolhaas merely exoticizing poverty? Are these urban conditions "inevitable" or the result of bad planning and decisions, as Davis contends?

To Davis, the hugely expanding, undifferentiated urban agglomerations are enormous disasters on every level- environmental, humanitarian, health, social, economic. Koolhaas sees a positive liberation in this, we are "free" from urbanism, urban planning. "We all complain that we are confronted by urban environments that are completely similar. We say we want to create beauty, identity, quality, singularity. And yet, maybe in truth these cities that we have are desired. Maybe their very characterlessness provides the best context for living."

 

Psychogeography, experience of city

DOC4: Light Surgeons, In Passing

http://www.thelightsurgeons.co.uk/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEY6XU5pgo8

blind woman in Manchester.

 

DOC5: Chris Marker, Sans Soleil

http://www.markertext.com/sans_soleil.htm

Chris Marker in Japan.