Transgressions-2-3

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[ ransgressIons A Journal of Urban Exploratlon lssue Contents 2/3 Editorial 7 Alastair Bonnett 目命 Two Walking Days 国 Jean MacRae 11 Ralph Rumney「“s Revenge and Other Scams - 13 Luther Blissett The Transgressive Geographies of Daily Life 20 Alastair Bonnett 、 Shopping for Principles ˇ 、 Martin Parker 38 Oid Gotland, New Babylon 林园 5 「 55 Graham Birtwistle Debate L A response from Race Trailor 68 Race TIraifor and the Myth of the“Mulatto「 71 Debate 2: City Primeval: Fredy Perlman, Primitivism and Detroit 14 Ftom Socialigy ox Barparie to Communism or Civilisation 81 Reports: Notes from a “Post-colonial“ State by Amanda Araba Ocran Where「s Wally? by Nigel Ayers 、 ˇ Sleeve Notes by Howard Slater and Jason Skeet R 切园沥 . 0 86 89 95 Transport of Delight by the Roads Advisory Committee 99 Dislocation on the Isle of Dogs by Fabian Tompsett 101 Review Articles: : l Detained and DEtourned by Peter Suchin 106 “ 医 Neutral and Commercial . . . Just like Everyone by Howard Slater 110 诊一 Academic Architectures: The Strangely Familiar by Simon Sadler and Benjamin Franks 115 Published August 1996, London & Newcastle Pc

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Reviews: ABSTRACTS G Depord i Really Dead (book) London Psychogeographical hssociation Newsletter and Manchester Area PsycRogeographic (newsletters) TRventory (magazine) n : per | 其 C “ | R目途 , ‖ The articles abstracted below have been refereed. This means that the editor has sent out each article to two or three people prepared to comment on its contents. These Stelarc and Rainer Linz (performance) comments are sent back to the author who then makes amendments to her or his paper. ODlivion and Days Betweer Stations (magazine and newsletter) The BookafSodom (book) Shopping for Principles: Writing about Stoke on Trent「s“Festival Wmmeer 厂 (exhibition) 1 Returr io ife Duplex PIanet (film) | Here Comes Everybody (report) 1 Break/fow (magazine) Mar a Sxitcase (newsletter) Landranger 168 (map) Melancholic Troglodyte (magazine) Park? by Martin Parker In this paper Iattempt to debunk certain understandings of the post-modern by writing about wTriting about a particular place: Stoke-on-Trent「s “Festival Park“. I assess the credibility of different accounts of Festival Park and use textual devices to stage a rather stilted “conversation“between different stories. I conclude that the only way to judge these different stories is to clarify their intended consequences- The Listening Voice (newslette) The Transgressive Geographies of Daily Life: Socialist Pathways Within Everyday Urban Spatial Creativity by Alastair Bonnett This article is about the transgression of everyday space. It asserts that Ccultural workers need to abandon the clapped-out mythologies of avant-gardism and become agents for the politicisation of everyday spatial creativity. Drawing on two detailed Case-studies, it shows that spatial transgression is politically contradictory (and that its radical potential may,for example,be seen to be structured and enabled by Conservative identities). The article concludes that the socialist imagination exists as a tendency within everyday spatial transgression but only becomes explicit through the politicisation of daily life. Old Gotland, New babylon: Peoples and Places in the Work of Jorn and Constant by Graham Birtwistle Some twentieth-century artists have created not only new artefacts but theories, Projects and movements. This article addresses two such figures, Asger Jorn and Constant (Nieuwenhuys). It focuses on the way both men sought to extend painterly Concerns into the realm of architecture and planning and expanded the artist“s role to include the shaping of social and cultural attitudes and situations. People,places, environments 一 Teal or imagined, past present or future 一 are the“materials“to which these two artists turned.

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ABSTRACTS London Psychogeo8rQP 月 Manchesier dread PychogedQ TJnvenfory (magazine)「 Stelarc and Rainer Linz (perfo and Days Between Sfahoi The articles abstracted below have been refereed. This means that the editor has Sent out each article to two or three people prepared to comment on its contents. These comments are sent back to the author who then makes amendments to her or his paper. The Book afSodop (bool) Shopping for Principles: Writing about Stoke on Trent“s “*Festival YMeneer 厂 (cxhibition) Park> Rerurm i0 ife Duplex Planet (film) Here Comes Everybody (report) (magazine) Man a Sxitcase (newsletter) Landranger 168 (map) Melancholic Troglodyte (magazine) by Martin Parker In this paper Iattempt to debunk certain understandings of the postmodern by wditing about writing about a particular place: Stoke-on-Trent「8 “Festival Park「. I assess the 2 credibility of different accounts of Festival Park and use textual devices to stage to way rather stilted cconversation“ between different stories. I conclude that the only judge these different stories is to clarify their intended consequences:. The Listening Voice (newslette) The Transgressive Geographies of Daily Life: Socialist Pathways Within Everyday Urban Spatial Creativity by Alastair Bonnett This article is about the transgression of everyday Space. It asserts that Cultural workers need to abandon the clapped-out mythologies of avant-gardism and become agents for the politicisation of everyday spatial creativity. Drawing on two detailed case-studies, it shows that spatial transgression is politically contradictory (and that its radical potential may,for example,be seen to be structured and enabled by conservative identities). The article concliudes that the socialist imagination exists as a tendency within everyday spatial transgression but only becomes explicit through the politicisation of daily life. Old Gotland, New babylon: Peoples and Places in the Work of Jorn and Constant by Graham Birtwistle Some twentieth-century artists hayve created not only new artefacts but theories, projects and movements. This article addresses two Such figures,Asger Jornl and Constant (Nieuwenhuys). It focuses on the way both men sought to extend painterly concerns into the realm of architecture and planning and expanded the artist「s role to include the shaping of social and cultural attitudes and situations. People,pPlaces, environments 一 real or imagined, past present or future 一 are the“materials「to which these two artists

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Transgressions Transgressions A Journal of Urban Exploration ISSN: 1360-3876 NO.1 A few copies of Transgressions 1 are still available. They can be obtained from the editor or reviews editor for 7.50 (for individuals) or f17.50 (for institutions). BEditor: Alastair Bonnett Contact: Alastair Bonnett, Transgressions, Contents: Situationist Poise, Space and Architecture by James Burch Geography Department, An Account of Some Experimental DErives in Newcastie by James Burch University of Newcastle, Fantasy Island by David Bell Newcastle, NE1 7RU, England TELEPHONE: 0191 222 6439 FAX: 0191 222 5421 e-mail: AlastairBonnett@ncL.ac.uk Production and Reviews Editor: Fabian Tompsett Manchester「s Gay Vilage by Steve Quilley The Trouble with Camp by Jon Binnie The Transmaniacs: Reports from Italy“s Situationauts by Roberto Bui and Riccardo Paccosi Interview: Tom Vague Contact: Transgressions, Document: Narrowcasting in Fibrespace by Mark Pawson and Jason Skeet Salamander Press (London) Ltd., 84 White Horse RoOad, London, E1 0ND, England RevieWws Stewart Home (London, England) Jeff Hopkins (Londor, Canada) Cetie mauyais repuiation by Guy Debord; Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord; The Perfection of suicide is in its Ambiguity by Guy Debord; TAe Magazine Network by Geza Pemneczky; The Margins aof ihe Ciby ed. by Steve Whittie; NesropRopia: A Amanda Ocran (Vancouver, Canada) David Pindar (Southampton, England) Uypar Paraple by Darius James; Race Luther Blissett (Bologna, Italy) Cinema; 3yd Sfone; 任isR Maer Editorial Board Matt Sparke (Seattle, USA) Peter Suchin (Newcastle, England) Subscriptions Transgressions is published once a year (subscriptions are for 2 issue5). Institutional subscription rate (both UK and non-UK): f35 Individual subscription rate (UK): f15 Individual subscription rate (non-UK): f16 or US425 Unwasged subscription rate (UK only): f10.00 All cheques and Imternational Money Orders should be made payable to Transgressions and sent to: Transgressions Geography Department, Daysh Buiiding University of Newcastle Newcastle, NE1 7RU England Civilisation by Sid Meier; Exploding

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MNotes for Contributors to Transgressions 印 ITORIAL 1. Transgressions is a radical forum for the discussion of the subversion and libertarian renewal of urban society and space, Contributors should note that Transgressions y Alasfalr Boppe 才 seeks t6 publish work that is$ well written,intelligently provocative and Previously unpublished. 2. Contributions can be of any length. Longer submissions will be refereed. Submtissions may take the form of articles, debate pieces, reviews (of anything) or reportage and 「 neWwS Pieces. 3.、Submissions (three copies) should be sent to the editor: Alastair Bonnett Uxban Explorations: Mapbping the Socialist Transgressions Department of Geography Imagination University of Newcastle The so-called “political life“ of late capitalist societies is a bloated and sad affair. Newcastle NE1 7RU England 4.For articles an abstract (three copies) of 100-200 words should also be supplied 5. Submissions need to follow our house style i order to be considered for publication (exceptions to this policy can be made, but Please contact the editoD: 5i, References in the text should take the following form: (Apple, 1976, p.4) Sii、。 Direct quotations should put in double quotation marks. Quotations within quotations Should be put 训 single quotation marks.Long quotations should be indented. S5iiil.。 Footmotes should be placed at the end of the article and before the bibliography. Siv.。 The style for the bibliography is as follows: FUSS, D. (1989) Essentially Speating: Feminismy Nafure and D沥erence New York, Routledge MANUEL, F (Ed.) (1973) Uiopias and Diopian 7hoxght London, Souvenir Press ROBERTS, M. (1991) “Mutations of the spectacle: virines, arcades, mannequins「 French Cxlfural Studies 2(3) pp.211-249 SMITH, N. and KATZ, C. (1993) “Grounding metaphor: towards a spatiatized politics「 in M KEITH and S. PILE (Eds) Place and the Polilics of Idendity London, Routledge Sy,、 Subtities should be in lower Case 6. All submitted material should be double spaced and typed on one side of the sheet. If a Piece is accepted the authors will be requested to send a copy of their work on 3.5“ disk. … It「s a rearrangement of taxes, a consumer group Campaign, some crime statistics desires. i just sits there, self-absorbed and immobile, squatting moronically on our both Indeed, it doesmt feel like politics at all. It feels liike something else, something I ss. meaningle yet nt omniprese ly sickening perpetually distant but oddly frenzied, ysuppose i is experienced as What it is, bureaucrac In this editorial Pm going to set out a few ideas about the kind of politics that this But we journal is engaged in. Transgressions is interested in developing critique. dare we all that「s 识 But hope to offer something more.Critique is essential. We contemplate,endless interpretations and representations of the status-qu0, then risk becoming mere clerks of the spectacle: mesmerised by the machinations of and absorbed into the hum-drum complacency of late capitalism. Power What Lm trying to say is that we need positive visions as well as critique. Visions that engage and support the latent socialist tendencies already at Wo心 within Our Cf societies. We need a project willing and able to lever the corpulent buttocks bureaucracy off our flattened poltitical imaginations- New Continents,,.New Explorers Exploration is a political act. It was political when used as the vanguard of capitalist colonisation,the first intervention of the new oppressor,And it「s political when adopted by contemporary capitalists, endeavouring to introduce exchange values into new and uncharted psychological and social Socialist explorers are necessarily fascinated by capital「s voyages. For we seek t take the notion of exploration and turn it back on its progenitors. We wish to go on a long trip of discovery within authoritarian territories. A trip to Places Where, or so 训 is told, we may witness the exotic stirrings of socialist creation and brutal customs that demand the suppression of desire.

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丨 8 Transgressions No.2 And how do we do that? Well, Irve jotted down (maybe that should read laboured Editorial 9 all night over“) four principles for the new urban adventurers, four tendencies that 3. Linkages locate and encourage the socialist imagination in the belly of the metropolis: Just drifting isn“t enough anymore. It merely replicates the bored passivity of the ideal consumer. The new urban explorers aren“t lefty AQnexurs, twiddling their dandy canes at every moment of degenerate surprise. Instead they seek to make links and alliances 1. Uxzcharted zornes A market dominated society offers pre-formed commodities (in the form of things, identities, believes etc.) which map out our careers as consumers. It is the task of the neW explorers to destabilise such fantasies and open up passages (literally and metaphorically) to unfamiliar pleasures and forms of community,Socialist adventurers are required to exhibit themselves, and inculcate in others, a strange yeaming for what we may (记 only for strategic reasons) choose to mythologise as the “blank parts of the map“the“uncharted zones“. Here we may expect to find new between the different moments of socialist revolution they identify. This process entails drawing in disparate and initially mutually uncomprehending projects into an inter-iinking democratic tendency,Enabling mutual recognition between,Say,the sujllen trespasser ofeveryday space and the high-minded priest in her hippy commune, would challenge and transform the orthodoxies of both. The latter becoming aware of, forexample, the inadequacy of the politics of cloistered and snooty“alterity“ (with its attendant aesthetic of extremism) and the former of the socialist implications and connections that lie fallow in his or her moments of transgressive pleasure- rituals of identity and rationality. But it is not the content of these regions that matters The practices of urban exploration and creative political inkages are designed to so much as the restless and revolutionary spirit that drives the dissatisfied off-spring lead towards the conditions for the establishment of integrated (geographically and/or Of bureaucracy ever OnWards. socio-economically) zones of socialist creation. These zones are necessarily hungry to The central irony of such voyaging is that these “new“ and “uncharted「 destinations already haunt the imagination of daily life. We must grasp the complexity of, and latent desires at work within, the apparently monotonous and work-a-day culture that SUITOunds U … grow and extend themselves through the entire capitalist world-system-. They will meet a diverse set of resistances. Their survival and expansion depends on an ability to operate efticiently, effectively and without sentimentality. As this implies, although we at Transgressions have a passing, 讪 faintly patronising, interest in hippy enclaves, along with their economically parasitical, drug or arts grant,based economies, our 8e8a-sick brains aren“t quite so pickled as to regard them as political role-models. They 2. Politicising dally Le are merely another part of the urban milieu pregnant with promise, full of the kind of Potentials that we wish to channe] into a wider process of socialist transformation. The city squirms with a kind of deranged hope … the principles, ideas and practices of socialist change already exist within both its past and present. The new explorers do not desire to impose the avant-garde fantasies of a few bo-ho geniuses, but to seek out and identify already existing non-authoritarian and properly democratic moments 4. Asainst nationalism amdQ of urban living. y are yox Rangipg around here7 (Tm aniernaz认) Bloody Estoniaz (仁 m an jnferzaz辽) Want fo be beaten xp?7 Im an ipfernaz认) Maybe yox donf河 ihe Soviet regine7 These moments may be brief, banal and tantalisingly ephemeral: the worn-out, dog-eared clichks of the street (“who ever you vote for the government always the line of trespass etched across the corporation「s fields … or they may exist at the level of what we might call the “cryptic imaginary“, games played with and on the fantasies of the muling class, pungent items nosed up from their strangest ceremonies and memories. Alternatively, of course, such moments may be substantial and selfconscious;: workers co-ops, communes, so-called “liberated zones「... Each moment will be full of contradictions, open to different forms of political appropriation. It is not the task of the urban explorer to go all gooey and start celebrating every last instance of human kindness. Her or his ambition must be to identify contradictions whilst exposing and identifying existing communistic dynamics. This process may be understood as an attempt to politicise everyday life. It is an active and Creative process but it lays no claim to originality. In this sense,at least, the terrains we seek to map are neither empty nor uninhabited. They are already teeming with a billion socialist rebeltions. Chorus from by JMKE, an Estonian Punk band A curious and largely undiscussed nationalistic insularity permeates English and American radicalism. The resultant parochialism has encouraged the development of naive and myopic forms development of of socialist practice.For instance,ideas about the “British〉(the English left doesn “t even comprehend its own nationalistmt) or“American「“socialist initiatives「or, even,“autonomous zones「 , that are oblivious to the international constitution of the capitalist nation state and economy. Socialism cannot be parochially nationalistic,but neither can it be“international“, for the two are intertwined, the latter being both sibling and aspiring heir to the former The new explorers have to operate between the cracks; forging politically defined alliances with those who refuse to sustain capital「s territorial fantasies. There「s a lot more to say on the implications, both Practical and theoretical, of what T「ve been touting. Obvious questions to ask concern the role of the state and our analysis of the class system, racism and sexism. These are important issues, each of

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10 Transgressions No.2 which deserves more space than I can afford here, and each will be addressed in various Ways in future issues. However Im not in an apologetic mood. Lhaven“t been interested here in wheeling out some new mega-theory to slot up amongst all the others on the groaning shelves Two Walking Days of college libraries. What I wanted to set out is something that appears absent from the self-consciously “playful「, but appallingly arid discourses of (what remains of) the existing left. As they retreat into a self-destructive and suffocating“alternativeness「 Vy Jeal1 MacRae (whetherin the guise of factional grouplets who「ve given up trying to talk to any body but themselves, or identity fetishists) they have severed all contact with the political Hfeof the everyday, of the rebellious viscera of the city. Day 1 Itisin amongst the entrails ofthe urban that Transgressions seeks to find its home; amongst the ordinary acts of liberation that are waiting to be mapped, identified and lnked together, amongst all that blood and guts, where a socialist society is already thrashing around. “<Nice day for crocheting“. … Why have I always assumed that everybody knows knitting when they see it He was trying to be polite, acknowledge my Presence, there, on the bridge.Ifeel too visible but then again, I am here to be Seen. Iam i the offabricating a map; selective and authored, a gendered and specific occupation. But, my hands are cold and I「“ve left the house without money for coffee. That makes me nerVOUS. Blurb on this issue Welcome to Trangressions ntmber two,We brought you this issue despite an onslaught by the IRA. Their bomb at Canary Wharf on London「s Isle of Dogs managed to destroy the bank we deal with as well as other items and papers达 the review and production editor“s flat contingent on our successful production. Evidently these malcontents feel that cancelling their subscription just doesn“t go far enough. Thankfully, truck loads of semtex weren“t the only Tesponse to our first issue, We“ve had plenty of positive feedback and bemused interest. We are also pleased to congratulate James Burch, whose essay“Situationist Poise, Space and Architecture「, Published in our last issue, forms the core of a dissertation that has since won the British Society of Art Historians Annual Dissertation Prize. Steve Quilley「“s piece on the production of gay space in Manchesterhas also won praise, and is being reprinted i a forthcoming edited volume of new queer writings (edited by gordon brent ingram). I keep moving and begin to think about how the act of tavelling and ariving s constructed retrospectively. A narrative occurs as I walk down tbe bridge Iamp heading toward &a to si and drink,、AA narrative ig 0cCurring and I andive once again. I meet & ffiend and I am embarrassed t0 Pull out my needles and cotton; my mapping instmments. Iexplain so he doesn“t think me rude. The water is on the other side of the fence directly 训 front of me. I wander along trying to find a break through which I might pass. It「s uncomfortable because I「“ve never been here before. Perhaps my sitting here for over an hour has forced me to sustain a dialogue with this emotional position. I notice every movement and sound because I“ m suspicious; or perhaps s me that is suspicious and out of place, in this Place. Alastair Bonnett I leayve the water and travel vertically to the plaza where I“ve been sitting. My lungs are distended with carbon monoxide fumes. I begin t0 think that the Vancouver juxtaposition of my movement and the destinations might theoretically cancel each other out. Can site = PS: People Keep asking Row we are funded. Well of course, most academic journals, which believe nothing save their own survival as institutions, are subsidised by universities, publishers and other organisations who find them useful for their research profiles. Transgressions doesn“t share this nihilistic attitude and, hence, doesn“t get any money from anyone (not that we haven“t tried). It pays for itself entirely though subscriptions and by shop sales. place Places/destinations are being articulated through areconstruction, aIetracing- My map wWill really only exist in those places where memory and records coincide. … . The railroad tracks provide“a iind of Hnearity to my direction. They disappear and reappear between the buildings as Imake my way east. There is no official break until .the viaduct. On the other side is a“green space“designated in the language of parks and recreationl It「s getting late, but only because I“m not familiar with this geography. I sit at the very edge of the lawn because i feels safer than the parking lot a few meters aWay. I“m really mapping a view not a site. Would I feel different over there? The tracks disappear into a train yard. I decide not to trespass because I don“t want to be alone. It「s not part of the grid, there aren“t lefts and rights to choose from. I speculate as to why Iam so timid. Am Itoo deliberate in my choice of movement2

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12 Transgressions No.2 DAY 2 TI「ve started late because I thought it would rain. Railway street on the weekend. It「s quiet, too quiet. [realize that I am not indifferent to questions, interaction, some kind of acknowledgement that what Iam doing is conspicuous. I try to remember the last RALPH RUMNEY“S Wa止 terms of each site/destination. Ldon“t remember them in sequence. They have Ilost one of the nairatives. Yet Irve resituated them as fixities. Losing my way i any direction is not unconscious. REVENGE AND More fumes in front of this hidden little door. It「s official. It has a sign with instructions. It too exists anderneath somewhere. I work the needles quickly. So that Ican get away fast. I worry about my health more than my person. 「 The eight ball. A new location, a destination. I am here because it「s windy and i 01THER SCAMIS may still rain. I glance at the sky and decide that although it「s clear one never knows. hm accounf of 加 psychogeographical warfayre copnducjed Ineed some food. Ineed to sit by choice not by time. Perhaps a bit bored but donrt want to admit that Weakness.【I already look back on this walk with nostalgia,see during 加 f995 Venice Elenpial ExAiDHfop of Copfelmpoyayry A mysefin a memory that relates to the personal rather than the event of walking. I see how I felt rather than where I was. y Lpher It「s funny to be sitting across the water from a familiar place. Idecide to image the immediate rather than the view. There is nowhere to sit and the stench of ammonia is Overpowering. What do the people who park their cars and go to dinner think?7 There is something about this thought that strikes me as ironic. Its now quite cool and as I make my way past the bridge, the pool appears as a refuge. It「s8 an easy place for me to be. I stand 训 the bleachers and watch the sWimmers clock distance. I am consciously staying here because I am tired of this walk.Iwant to quit but force myself to continue. After all it「s only seventeen minutes aWay according to my rules. 0. WHY VENICE? Venice is a ghost-town. There is no longer any moonlight to kilL From the 1950s the native population has been reduced by a half as the town has been standardised, commodified and placed at the disposal of the tourist industry,a PIOCeSS that has sentenced many Venetians to deportation to the inland. Those who have remained Im here. On a map, you are here. I canrt decide what to image and then see the Tock. I think about a title …“omamental rock““. It is amusing. I want to get this over with so that Ican decide where I want to go. I think about how strange it is that once Ihave made that decision, to make this the last site, I will in effect, fall ofF Imy Own map. So, how does a map, this map,act as 8 referent to anyone or any Place. T determine a beginning and an end. The map will be de-sited, without emplacement within the social. I wonder whether this map can have a memory without the subject. have become unpaid“walk-ons「 i a never ending show. Out of season, the calli (Venice“s characteristic narrow streets) are empty, the nights sad and desolate. There are also serious problems of pollution: the town runs the risk of gradually sinking into the sea due to the building of a methane pipe-line in the gulf. The mayorp,Massimo Cacciari, is a Heideggerian philosopher of the Left Democratic Party. He is one of those opinion-leaders who un with the hare and hunt with the hounds: on the one hand pretending to disagree with the conversion of Venice into a gigantic museum and seeking ta rrevivify「 its corpse by organising international An Or Gallery Working Project (Vancouver) conventions, exhibitions, trade-fairs and other spectacular mega-events; and, on the other,manufacturing a preservationist point of view when O0pposition moveIments demand a REAL, uncommodified revitalisation. Politicians lament the decadence of the town only in order, frstly, t0 justify their Perpetual scream “Owners of all lands,unite and invest money in Venicel“and, secondly, sell municipal properties to the bosses of the multinationals. I quote from 8 release which the squatters of the centro sociale autogestito“Morion「 published in the European Countier Nehwork on January 30th, 1995: The junta of the Commutme led by Cacciari has an idea of “town“which completely different from ours. The Stucky Mill since 1955 one of the symbols of “Empty Venice“,

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14 Transgressions No.2 Ralph Rumney「s Revenge and Other Scams 15 belongs to the Caltagirone brothers, well-known housing usurers. By mutual consent, the Commune and the Caltagirones have planned to invest 200 billion lire 训 building a luxury hotel, aresidence, a big store, a Congress hali and 200 new flats to sell at 5 million live per square metre, JUNK-ART, MACABRE OBSESSIONS AND TV SMITHEREENS「 by Arianna di Genova Have you visited Venice together with Luther Blissetb the ibe which gave up identity to adopt a pseudonym and put this signature on piratical actions and metropolitan legends? If you haven「t yet this evening the meeting place is the Foresteria Valdese, 讨 Calle Longa di S. Maria Formosa, where you will be able to admire the wonderful Paintings by Loota, the art monkey. The official flyer has been delivered at the Giardini. You will see a likeable chimpanzee that holds brushes and makes amusing pictures. Go The Malibran theatre, which was closed 15 years ag0, as occupied during the 1993 Countercarnival by people who wanted to convert itinto a theatrical and musical lab. The Police vacated the squat a few days later, and 15 comrades from the C.S.A. Morion are now on trial for the occupation. The building belongs to the Commune, which invested hundreds of millions to repair the roof … and now wants t use place as the seat of the mainstream company Teatro La Fenice, and find out whether this is tue or false. Maybe you w训 forget for a while that president Scalfaro and Lady Diana landed at the lagoon today. In the meantime,some let daybreak, The drunk survivors themselves wander in the narrow streets of the town tickets for “a seat on the frontshowing of the last parties go adtift in opposite directions who are following Luther those of mark identification row of the Apocalypse“ (the only the rehearsal of the stopping by plans their upset Blisset), Last night the police should have been performance The building. RAL the Situationautic Theatre in front of those who Finally, … square the cleared cops the but “Two dickheads and a mubber duck「, And there「s more; another Casino in the Italgas areaor at the Maritiima, the empty Manin barracks at the Gesuiti assigned to the CNR1.. And the mayor has proposed the New York based Chase Manhattan Bank 一 which played a major role 记 starving the Indios of Chiapas 一 for the management of the next tourist terminals i Fusina, Tessera and Punta Sabbioni. In the meantime, hordes of Japanese tourists crowd the berths of the gondolas and pay through the nose to listen to gondoliers singing false traditional songs in pidgin have not lost their curiosity about notions of “Body“ and “Face“ can g8aze at the“Virtual Self-portraits“installation by Btissett at the Enpleinair Gallery. One can become JTim Morrison or, better still Marlene Dietrich or even Luther MNeapolitan. So there “s no need toexplain why Luther Blissett declared psychogeographical war omin Venice. It seems that this town just cannot help providing ever more areas for radical Criticism,Since Futurism (and Marinetti「8 statement “Let「s kill the moonlight“) Venice has been such a popular target for avant-garde assault that it has been compeliled to recuperate criticism by admitting the“Avant-garde「一 including even the most tmculent Performance Art - into the formerly traditional International Biennial of Contemporary Arts. Every second year, since 1895, the town mingles with the Biennial. The centennial edition was ttled “Identity and Alterity“. It hosted a reactionary celebration of Portraiture as well as the attempted re-establishment of representative art. The event「s generalmanager Jean Clain even commemorated the invention of identity cards. How could Luther Blissett, a multiple name and an “open context「 challenging the bourgeois notion of identity,not embark upon psychogeographical warfare with Jdentity and Alterity“7 clearly distinguish between psychogeography and anti-art agitation in the actions I am going to report. In the case of Loota “the art monkey“, anti-art even collides with the struggle for animal liberation. 1. EPIPROLOGUE The article extracted below is taken from the national communist ne One night, during the first weck of the Biennialt, Luther covered the walls of the whole town (with the exception of the Isle of Giudecca) with hundreds of psychogeographical stickers. These stickers were red 30cm long stripcs with 2 white the green inscription “LUTHER BLISSETT 一 WAY 一 JUNE-SEPTEMBER 1995: A GREAT AL PSYCHOGEOGRAPHIC PERFORMANCB“ (this was the only action which featured Blissett「s name). bi-directional arrow and Venice s a pedestrian city, highly suitable for labyrinthine drifts. A bi-directional arow does not lead to a destination but provokes cogitation on the notion of dkrive. On the 7th and 8th of June, at dead of night, Blissett harangued the last drunk patrons 训 taverns and clubs and exhorted them to gather in parties and follow the arows. This was the so-called “Rendezvous with nobody“、“How many hours must pass before I can meet another Luther strolling along the calli by aleatory detours? And where shall I met them? And how shall I recognise them?“. As an answer to this last question, As it s impossible to tell the town from the exhibition, it is similarly impossible to Manijfesto (10th June, 1995): 2. RALPH RUMNEY「“S REVENGE 工 Luther handed out visiting caids decorated with Blissett「s androgynous face and the caption “This ticket is valid for a seat on the front-row of the apocalypse““. It was also -a Way of stating that the decline of the West must end where its rise beganm, that is in Venice, an ancient maritime republic which played a major role in the preliminary commodification of eastern societies and paved the way for their It should be mentioned at this point that these dlkrives owed their collective title (“Ralph Rumney「s revenge“) to the expulsion of the well-known English Psychogeographer Ralph Ramney from the Situationist International 讨 1958,soon after he had undertaken a memorable drift in. the calli. But there again, it must be admitted that the only revenger“ I personally met during my drift was a dead-drunk

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16 Transgressions No.2 Ralph Rumney「s Revenge and Other Scams 17 Pregnant Scottish woman. It was 4am i the moming, we were both tired and I didn“t understand her grumbled English. ITwas at a loss for a moment and felt myself heavy with centuries of bourgeois civilisation. could be constructed. Loota did not exist. However, a few months before there had been intermnational press coverage on some monkey paintings expensively retailed at an exhibition in Vienna. So many People would have heard of an ape Painter and easily imagined Loota was the same artist. Actually, “Loota“ was just a corruption of Luther.. 3. LOOTA THE PAINTER In another semblance, that of a handsome young man, Luther went to the Giardini di Castello and handed out folders to art critics and Upper-class guests. The folders were Printed on expensive coated board and flared the headline“LOO TA 一 THE ART MONKEY「“. Two awful scribblings and the logo “LB - Liberty for the Beasts「 flled up the front-page. On the back there appeared the following text: In 1985 the Animal Liberation Front broke into the University of PennsyIva nia laboratory where Dr Thomas Gennarelli had conducted,overthecourseofov er 15 years, USseless experiments on cercopithecuses and other primates, causing them cranial traumas 火 The ALF stole the renowned “Gennarelli Tapes「“ and showed them to the world. The experiments were finally stopped by the government because the scientists involved were unable to prove their usefulness. Some chimpanzees, including Loota, were bought by Ronald Cohn「s Gorilla revealed himself to have a IQ of 80 (approximately that of Forrest Gump) and was trained in painting. One year after his death,the Hans Ruesch Foundation (contact Motta 51,Box 152,6900 Massagno, Switzerland) proudly exhibits these paintings, Imaking people understand how much cleverness and delicacy are annihilated everyday 训 the slaughterhouses of counterfeit scientists. Had Loota「s head been broken opem, we would have been denied these littie treasures. Inside the folder a fabricated *Andreas Ruesch「 appeared as the author of a tangled, Taving exegesis on Loota「s artworks. I quote some CXCerpts belowy, Loota represents nature as an archetypal world which counterbalances the intrusive, Painful memory of the experience to Which humans constrained him. I like to think those thin blue lines wandering on the canvas and changing tonality (picture no.16) are the outline of a mountain range. Perhaps that blot is an island (but has Loota ever seen an island, or is the idea of “Island「 part of the genetic heritage of his species7) on which are memories of some shining pebbles. In spite of the fearful adventure lived by him, Loota「s is a strange secret alchemy arousing sympathy, faith and optimism towards and againsteverything … And what can Isay about the double purple marks repeated and Staggered 训 dark red (picture no. 4) on the ochreous background resulted from the use Of Loota「s downy nape as a brush? All this can recall the late Kandinsky1 The folder was also sent to many critics and faxed to the local and national newspapers. All its readers were invited to the inauguration,at 6pm,Saturday 10th July,at the Foresteria Valdese,Calle Longa di S. Maria Formosa,castello 5179, Venice. So what was Luther up to7 Luther Blissett had linked true stories together into a canard. The ALF break-in, the Gennarelli experiments, the Gorila Foundation and the anti-vivisectionist activity of the Hans Ruesch Foundation are all real things and events. But these facts were just the background against which the legend of Loota hour the 月吴河 : : 、 The local papers published notices of the exhibition. On the fixed day and visitors to the Foresteria found only a double-headed leaftet, on the front there was the Photo of a banana whose Chiquita logo had been replaced by Luther「“s face. On the back there was the following text: HERE IS A PICTURE of the situation: the phanmaceutics industry kills. They kill us while they are pretending t0 cure us. The medicines they Produce are almost alW8yS useless, Yet they test 山eir products on people and animals,with their consent and wWithout. To confront this situation, 尧 inadequate and ridiculous to claim animal dghts 〖 is absurd t0 P0Se 25 animals Pseudo(a phrase which belongs to liberal juridical tutors, or to anthropomorphise them. The dictatorship of medicine and medical culturs has to be assaulted 记 other ways. When denouncing the scientific faliacies of animal experimenters, 训 is necessary t give up simplistic, back-to-nature, Tomanticismt. Who is not 训 _the hire of the stockbreeders can see that NO 余o OR GENETIC TEST IS RELIABLE. Any ilness artificially Provoked by unnatural, intrusive means does not have the same effects 25 an iliness “spontaneously“ arising from inside an organism or provoked by a polluted environment. IT“S FOR THIS REASON THAT WE CAN CHALLENGE THE VIVISECTIONISTS, NOT BY STRESSING THAT TO KILL A MACACO OR A MANDRILL TS TO DEPRIVE THE WORLD OF A POTENTIIAL ARTISTI While an ape is rousing interest 训 heryhis paintings, how many others are massacred in the labs? Do you give a fuck about them7? LOOTA IS JUST A PRODUCT OF MY IMAGINATION. THERE IS NO PAINTING HERE. HANS RUESCH IS N THE DARK ABOUT THIS ACTION. TVE JUST MADE USE OF HIS ADDRESS AS A DISGUISE,FOR HE「S ANOTORIOUS ANITVIVISECTIONIST AND ONE OF THE FEW YOU CAN TRUST Now you can go away and fight vivisection and all the other abuses of medical power You don“tneed any “art monkey“ for thatl “ LUTHER BLISSETT, the animal liberation anti-artist Some joumnalists stood aghast, incapable of deciding what to write2, A little child, whose parents had read the advert in some local newspaper,began t0 Cry o0nce he realised there was no monkey. As a matter of fact the papers had not Published 2 key detail of Loota「s story, his death. The father, who had taken his baby to the exhibition to see the monkey rather than to admire the Paintings, Spat out three or four unrepeatable epithets and took the child away. He didnt give a damn about art or the Biennial. Maybe he was the only decent fellow in Venice.

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18 Transgressions No.2 Ralph Rumney「s Revenge and Other Scams 19 alll This is the text of the leaflet which vindicated the prank by listing the artists whose 4. VIRTUAL SELF-PORTRAITS Portrait Was on the card: Luther has the gift of ubiquity, While ghe was delivering the Loota flyer at the Giardini di Castello and at the Lido (Palagalileo) , s/he also spread invitation cards for the installation“Virtual Self-portraits“. These cards represented the faces of several famous artists and bore the folowing text: VIRITUAL SELF-PORTRAITS 一 Interactive video installation Inauguration: Friday 9th June at 6pm Clairvoyants foresee the future in their polished crystal spheres. From remote times, the shamans of the Berber tribes have reached states of deep meditation simply by gazing at their own reflected image. According to many archaic cultures, a portrait imprisons part of the spirit of the represented person and, therefore it s forbidden,feared or held in utmost respect The origins ofself-portraits melt into mystery and myth (the propitiatory shapes of huntsmen in Altamira, Narcissus beloved of his own image, and so o0). The Process and the medium of human sensory perception are not only conditioned by natural laws but also by history. In literary fiction, itis the picture of Dorian Gray which decays with age instead of Gray himself. According to Duchamp, paintings die after a lapse of time in the same way as their authors. Then they are placed 训 cemeteries, ie.,, in the history of art. These Virtual Self-portraits suggest a Shrewd game of open contradictions 一 anonymous/universal,unique/manifolt,ephemeralpersistent,immanentytranscendent, plagiarismyoriginality, artisyconsumer etc. 一 set in the concrete space of an 《np)usual figurative art which constantly escapes itself. If someone stares at 2 definite image for a couple of minutes, the retina w议 retain an imprint of its outline. Should those same EyeS then be turned to focus on a white surface, a clear mental Projection will appear. This installation uses after-images to provoke questions and anxieties about the Contemporary subjecL VITTORE BARONI the LUTHER BLISSETT project is open to allL Anyone can look 训 the mirror and see LUTHER BLISSETT. The passers-by are LUTHER BLISSETT, everyone is LUTHER BLISSETT: my father, the Pope, Liala, Pasolini, Eluard, Fortunato Depero, Bui, Frank Zappa, Guy Debord, Kurt Schwitters, Oscar Wilde,Ray Johnson,Marlene Districh, Kerouac, Einstein,Man Ray,Mayakovsky,Pinot Gallizio,Duchamp, Harry Kippen Keith Haring, Valentino, Fellini, Artaud, Che Guevara, Alberto Rizzi, Marilyn, Lennony, you don “t realise i YOU are part of the LUTHER Piermario Ciani, Moana … Even BLISSETT project. When you see LUTHER BLISSETT「s face you see yourseif. This is the only VIRTUAL SELF-PORTRAIT which has to interest youl ALLEANZA NEOISTA, Venice, June, 1995 5. PROEPILOGUE The performances by the Luther Blissett Situationautic Theatre (a Bologna-based formation founded by the transmaniac Riccardo Paccosi, which aims at amalgamating dgrive,street theatre and body art) were eventually stopped by the cops. Another action did not succeed as planned: Luther was t0 Pretend to be a fan of Lady Diana, make a foray into the hotel where she was lodging and give her attendants 2 bunch of flowers with a perfumed closed envelope. The cnvelope did not contain a greeting card,itcontained treasonous material by the London Psychogeographical Association. Unfortunately, it was impossible to get near the attendants. There were too many policemen, too many barriers and picket lines. However, the psychogeographical warfare Was successful. 廷it.s true that Venice is the “city of the spectacle“, then we must gear-up and short-circuit its reproduction. We must reflect back to the city its own awful image- The real wretchedness of everyday life in Venice forces radicals to be equal to this task. Other d6rives will foliow. Let「s flog the dead horse of moonlight! Translated by Luther Blissett from Italian. Enpleinair Gallery, Venice 一 Calle Longa di S. Maria Formosa, Castello 5177 一 June 9th-July 30th, 1995 The text alludes to virtual reality, but there is no explicit statement about what the show might consist of. When somebody asked me what the installation entailed, I described a sort of digital mirror controlled by a computen in which one can look at oneself and see one「s own face tumning into that of an artist chosen from those represented on the invitation card. The Enpleinair Gallery did not exist. The name means “in the open air“. In fact, it was a normal court-yard. The installation was faf better than a house of wax-works, better than television or holographics, better than any other Ieproduction of reality. Our doubles did move at our whim,and nothing could be so close to reality … In fact, the visitors were confronted with a mere mirror which reflected … virtual self-portraits of Luther Blissett, i.e. of anyone who looked i it. When one moved away, the portrait vanished. Go ahead, cretin, there is room for TRANSLATOR「S NOTES 火 , 1. The CNR is the National Council of Scientific Research, actually a lobby group Which plots lo bring back into use the atomic power plants dismantied after the 1986-87 anti-nuclear stra88les. of c Wi h the h exception ing. With 1 anything. editori office and decided not to Write 节 editorial 1 the evening they Phoned their 2. Later 训卫 Mamijesto, there would be no Press coverage of 山 Prark until the Hberal weekly magazine 一 Rapresso reported 兄巡 a piece on Luther Blissett and “cultural terrorism“(“G沾 la maschera,Lufher Blissety“, 心 Espresso, July 14th 1995).

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20 Transgressions No.2 The Transgressive Geographies of Daily Life 21 workers are now abandoning street provocations and artistic incursions in favour of the study and politicisation of evetyday creativity, Then Im going to Provide two The examples of routine spatial transgression. Finally I shall sketch outb with the help of some pertinent scholarship,& socialist interpretation Of “ordinary“ geographical Transgressive subyversion. e09rapnies of These are reasonably complex propositions, so maybe a more detailed summary Daily might prove useful. As I“ve just indicated there are three steps to my article: step one: ife: Soojajsf wAip Everyday UFpan 【 begin with the group that has traditionally monopolised discussion of creative interventions in the city: the avant-garde. [ argue that the avant-garde「s colonisation of everyday space displays an interesting Creatyffy tension: that if represents both a critique of the conventions of art Practice and an extension of its domain. I also note that Some contemporary artists, particularly those associated with“new genre py hlasfair Bonpe才 Public art“, are starting to turn their backs on the ideologies of avantgardism and beginning to see themselves as interpreters and Politicisers of everyday spatial imaginations. step iwo: Introduction This article 5 about the transgression of everyday Space. It started with me running 2aCI0SS an Inner-city motorway in Newcastie and nearly getting knocked down by a Nissan Bluebird. Not an uncommon thing of course, dashing between cars, squealing with fear. But, nonetheless, unsettling. , That tmifling but traumatic incident is connected in my mind with beginni ginning think about the way to everyday acts of geographical discbedience intersect with the City“5 spatial conventions. In other words, I began to take more notice of how Spatial transgresslons are woven into the prosaic culture of urban life. Previously, in some vague,unthought-out kind of way I had tended to asSsign Creattve Spatial behaviour to performance artists and other specialists in Provocatio n. I guess Ijust assumed that they, somehow, owned “the subyversive imaginatio n「. Yet, once you start looking, and categorising, it quickly becomes apparent that Ordinary urban behaviour fairily sizzles with errant activities: people tarrying; trespassin g; hiding; fiddling about; using their fingernails to etch odd runes on Public benches; dumbly skipping into traffic … “ All those manoeuvres. All those itchy, scratchy little initiatives. Yet this disparate energy has remained largely invisible to social theorists, most of whom appear mesmerised by the most spectacular aspects of modern urban dissidence,such as avant-garde adventures and riotous assemblies. These moments, so glittery, cinematic and exceptional,are certainly alluring but form only an unreliable and Perversely narrow reflection of the quotidian life of the city. , Im intending here to pace out a somewhat different terrain. “Here two instances of transgressive spatial routines are introduced. I go back to that damn motorway where I nearly lost my life and observe some loutish behaviour ftom similar road-runners.A second example is found around a supermarket till in Essex. Spatial transgression, it is$ contended, is woven with,and constituted by, notions of social identity. It is, as my two examples show, a site of contestation that is both gendered, and age-specific. As this implies, routinised transgression is enabled by conservative identities but contains within itself the possibility of other, more creative, kinds of Politics. step 孝ree: Here I begin to map out the contours of the socialist imagination in everyday space. The socialisf imaginafion 节 defined as Rat tendency fowards 〖bertariag,soliqarifistic,egalfiiarian and exploratory action ihat peryyzedtes everyday social conduct. Leaning on signposts and peering into blind alieys evident in other work I Propose a politicised and.politicising reading of, and engagement with, everyday trans政ession. To this end I discuss the notion of the AQnexr, de Certeau「s work on walking in the city and Colin Wards book The CRild记动e City. I then return to the two Case studies introduced i the previous section and draw out their constitution within and against socialist spatial creativity. Just Drifting?: The Avant-garde「s Colonisation of Everyday Space going to kick o with the avant-garde,and try to work out how and why the most Savvy Ccultural Avant-garde adventurers are frequently depicted as the city“s most creative force. In numerous sentimental testimonials, avant-gardists are portrayed as the“provocative“

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22 Transgressions No.2 and Tadical“undercurrent of,and antithesis to,alienated city environments (for example, Timms and Collier, 1988; Goldberg, 1988; Cohen, 1993). Thus the notion of “transgression“ is conceptualised as a 8ynonym for avant-garde intervention. Yet, as weshall 8ee, this elision is based on a misunderstanding of the social role of the avantgarde. J ife avani-garde Wanied fi0 colonise eyeryday spQce Myths of its own demise are central to the reproduction of the avant-garde (compare Bitrger, 1984). Mirroring the economic dynamics of capitalist society, the content of avant-garde production must be perpetually challenged, and superseded, in order to secure its structural survival. As this implies, announcements of the avant- garde「s imminent death are as old as the institution itself (a similar point is made by Poggioli, 1968). Consideration of this process also cxposes the ravenous, imperialistic nature of avant-garde production. For, again like the expansionist economic system that surrounds and enables it,avant-gardism demands and feeds upon dynamic growtb, upon the extension of its range and ambitions. f for one moment it grows weary and lays its head 训 some museum cabinet,then new mutant breeds w达 instantly appear to denounce the very idea of stasis and propose new explorations. It is, at least in part, this extraordinary momentum that explains the avant-garde“s attempts to colonise everyday Space. The street, the market, the bus, and many other sites of routine geography, have been appropriated by the avant-garde in order to extend their praxis and gesture a rebellion against the specialised artistic spaces of art galleries and concert halls. The history of this complex ideological manoeuvre may be traced over the past 100 years or so. However, we can chart roughly its development by mentioning just three seminal avant-garde moments: Dada, surrealism and postmodern art. Three moients记 d colonial Risfory: Dada surrealispt and post-ioderz A The Transgressive Geographies of Daily Life 23 staged “provocations「. However,they also devised creative work that abandoned venues altogether. Thus, the surrealists enjoyed randomly wandering the streets and markets of Paris as a way of opening themselves up to unpredictable emotions and events. A more orchestrated event of this type Was held i 1924 when Breton, along with three other surrealists (Aragon, Vitrac and Morise) picked out a town at Tandom from a map of France (it was Blois) and walked out from ib as「 Chenieux-Grendon (1990, p.87) records,“progressing haphazardly, on foot““. Since the 1960s various forms of artistic wandering have become a staple-diet of avant-garde activity. A post-modern example, characteristically indifferent to its Own pPolitical or social meaning, is offered by the French artist Sophie Calle (Calie and Baudrillard, 1988; see also Calle, 1989). For fourteen days in 1980 Calle, supposedly unobserved and in disguise, followed a man she called Henri B from Paris and to, and then around,Venice. Calle「s choice of victim,who she had briefly met only once before, was random. In the sequence of photographs that Calle took of him he is seen only from behind; an anonymous Person i the crowd, an ordinary person who the extraordinary artist has chanced upon and absorbed into her specialised realm of creative manufacture Throughout the twentieth century avant-garde artists have been making sporadic and unfocused attempts to highiight the geographical routines of everyday life. Within this history an important and serious attempt to chalienge the conventions of creative specialisation,and relocate creativity from the galleries onto the streets,Can be glimpsed. But only just. For every time the avant-garde has promised to transgress the institutionalisation of creativity it has immediately reneged; subverting its owa radical potential with the moribund clichks of artistic individualism, genius, eccentricity and spontaneity、 Twentieth century artistic production has become increasingly littered with such self-defeating incursions, they are strewn around wherever and whenever arts funding permits,Yet they lack both honesty and conviction.They dare not confront the fact that their subversion of the everyday is also an act of reactionary colonisation from a realm of specialised culmral production. The desire to break away from the ghettoisation of creative activity to specialised artistic spaces was signalled by the Dadaists through a preference for clubs and public halls as venues. The Dadaists also used these arenas to expose and break apart another convention,that between audience and performer,Their favourite means of eXpression,the anarchic cabaret Show,was expressly designed to subvert tbis traditional division (for discussion see Greenburg, 1985; 1988). Ttistan Tzara (1989, P.236) notes how on one“Dada Night,, on July 14th 1916,“In the presence of a Ccompact group … we demand the right to Piss i different colours“,leading to “shouting and fghting in hall“and a“police interruption“. However, another, 1less subversive, intent also guided and animated Tzara and his colleagues. For the Paris and Zurich Dadaists performed as agitators against convention but for art. Theirs was “a desperate appeal, on behalf of all forms of art“ (Janco quoted by Erickson, 1984, 520 罗吊 Arp put i “the ground from which all art springs“(quoted by Richter , p-37). The surrealists too voyaged into everyday life as missionaries for art. And they too Fyrom he sifuationisfs i0 eW genre pHDlic arf As I have implied, the most interesting forms of avant-garde spatial praxis are those that seriously and effectively call into“question the status of the creative specialist. Two examples may be offered, &ituationist psychogeography and what the American artist and writer Suzanne Lacy (1995a) has recently termed “new genre public arts“. Perhaps surprisingly, it is the latter that best exemplifies the potential within avantgardism for the critique of the tradition ofeliding“creative transgression「 with “avantbe explaining that proposition in a moment. Firstly, though, I garde intervention「. want to turn to the subject of Transgressions「〉 very own oedipal complex,the situationists. Readers of this journal will probably be familiar with the work of the situationists (and 让 not, see Home, 1996). And,hopefully, i will be equally clear that the drift (d&rive) and other techniques of psychogeography blur distinctions of artist, event and audience. However,when the situationists shoved aside bourgeois conventions of

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24 Transgressions No.2 creativity they tended to replace them with a ciosely related mythology of the bohemian political activist and extremist. It is pertinent to recall that over the last two centuries the two roles have grown up together. Indeed, the term“avant-garde“Was usedin the nineteenth century for both political and artistic radicals, the latter meaning only incompletely supplanting the former at the beginning of the present century (Cuddom, 1992). The social bases (middle class) and characteristic clich6s (original, angry, spontaneous) of both roles have long been interchangeable. Both are a product and reflection of the individualistic, restless, masculinist psyche of capitalist society「s managerial stratum. As this implies, the so-called “most dangerous subversion there ever was“ (Debord, 1989a,p:175),was organised around a set of very recognisable stereotypes: the individual genius; the glory of isolation; fierce ambition; the arrogance and pride of young men. These attributes may be seen to structure the Situationist International「s (SD psychogeography, of each and every blokish left-bank bar-crawl dignified with tbhe label dlrive. One suitably raffish drift from 1953, the International Lettrist phase of Debord「s career, and which is recalled in his essay“Two accounts of the d6rive「 (1989b), begins in an Algerian “dive““in which [we] had spent the entire previous night“(p.136). As the White anarchists barge their way through multicultural Paris, the colonial incursions of the avant-garde into everyday space are mapped onto a more familiar colonial experience of European fear of,and desire for,non-Europeans. Accompanied by & nameless“quite beautiful West Indian woman“ the evening spent“speaking incessantly and very loudly in front of a silent audience i such a mariner aS to further aggravate the general unease“(p.137). The next day Debord and his pals totter off to yet another exotic bar equally determined to display their quixotic temperaments and capacity for intimidation:“[Our] arrival in the bar renders instantly The Transgressive Geographies of Daily Life 25 Much of the new art focuses on social creativity rather than self-expression and contradicts the myth of the isolated genius … there 训 a distinct shift in the locus of creativity from autonomous,self-contained individual t a new kind of dialogical structure that frequently is not the product of a single individual but is the result of a colaborative and interdependent process. (Gablik, 1995, pp.76-77) I would suggest that this kind of work shows signs on making good on the avantgarde「s historic promise to abolish art; to do away with the role of creative specialist and begin the task of deciphering the already existing creative realms of daily Hife. One of the best known examples of new genre public art is Martha Rosler“s project f You Lived Here“(see Wallis, 1991). This project addressed the“production of homelessness「 in New York and progressed along a number of pathways, some of which are conventionally avant-garde in form and expression. However,“ff You Lived Here「 also enabled the development of what might be termed an agitational sociology of everyday creativity. In other words,some Participants sought t0 imaginatively engage, and otherwise involve themselves, with the existent transgressive Stuggles of example of this process is Lurie and New York「s homeless Wodiczko「s (1991)“Homeless Vehicle Project「、The vehicle,a wheelable ballet shaped living space for the homeless, is explained by Lurie and Wodiczko in the following terms: This vehicle is neither a temporary nor a permanent solution to the housing problem, nor 远 intended for mass production. Its point of departure isa strategy of survival for urban nomads 一 evicts 一训 the existing economy … The vehicle resembles a weapon. The movements of evictsresellers throughout the city are acts of resistance directed against (p.217) a tansformation of the city that excludes them and thousands of others. silent about ten Yiddish-speaking men seated at two or three tables and all wearing hats“(p.137). The International Lettrists and their situationist antecedents did not overturn the bourgeois myths of individual genius and spontaneity. They merely displaced their artistic expression to the realm of aristocratic bohemianism.、Of course,the situationists developed a wide range of political and geographical ideas, some of which have an enduring potency. I am not interested here in generating a general condemnation, but in something more local and precise: a criticism of the relationship Cof the SL「s spatial praxis to the institution of the avant-garde. On this specific issue Despite the potential of such work, there are plenty of problems with new genre Public art. Lacy et al still have the annoying and confusing habit of, eVery $0 often, defending art and its upHfting function 训 the community、This has,no doubt, something to do with the fact that all these “new genre“ people are eipDloyed as artists Or art critics. They「“ve got to hang om, 讪 only by their finger nails, to 8 TIecognisable institution in order to eat. EHowever, as I“ve already indicated, the promise offered by the new“artist-analyst“ and artist-activist“ (Lacy, 1995b, p-174), that she or he is prepared to effectively give relationship in mind that we can locate a more promising line of inquiry 一 one that up individual creative experimentatioh in favour of a politicising engagement with the everyday creative production of the“pubtic“, provides a fitting end of the century draws selectively and critically from situationist ideas 一 in new genre public arts. finale for the avant-garde. New genre public art is a term used by Suzanne Lacy to describe those forms of activist creative practice that attempt to engage 「commiunities「 on social issues that are Ttransgtessing Space, Reproducing Identities: Debord and his comrades were naive and unreflexive. And it is with this particular of importance to them. The“artist“「 Suzi Gablik, after describing various projects 一 “artists「“who video prisoners talking about themselves,“artists「“providing physical Spaces for older women to discuss change in their communities,“artists「who spend months compiling evidence on the working lives of sanitation workers - describes Such work as part Of a recent ““sea change“ amongst American cultural workers: Roadrunners and T训 Talkets Iam going to describe a couple of prosaic examples of spatial transgression. The first I call roadrunners“, the second “till talkers“. I shall introduce each through a thumbnail paragraph on their social and physical context.

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26 Transgressions No.2 The Transgressive Geographies of Daily Life 27 Roadruinners: Newcasile「s Swanz House roupzdapoxt Inner city Newcastle: one of the poorest and most provincial of Western Europe“s large cities. A motorway 一 the A167(M) 一 and several other muilti-laned roads thrust their fat tarmac tongues right inside the city. They squelch and curl around awhile before lolling off down south. These roads isolate the eastern part of Newcastle from the rest of town. They form a complex set of barriers that reinforce the already alienated and limited range of social interactions possible in the city. Of course, some People don“t see it this way. The minority of Newcastle residents who haye access to & Car find this welter of autoroutes essential for avoiding contact with the rundown and Sdqualid acreages that surround the metropolis「s relatively affiuent core. However, Im not concerned here with this group, or indeed any other“legitimate road user“. Im interested in those folk that need to get out from the centre and travel a short distance east. These are the people that are forced to duck and weave amongst the traffic. And these are the people that have etched a complex system of illegal short-cuts across and alongside the A167(M) and its tributaries. Thus, for example, to get to the city centre“s multiplex cinema on foot a short cut has been forged alongside the south-bound carriage-way of the motorway、This muddy track trespasses behind various corporate Properties. It passes by several abandoned wooden shacks before ending in a short sharp scramble to the cinema「s huge car park. Wire-fencing of various kinds, designed to make the track impassable, is periodically erected,but is soon tampled down. This trackway fornms a semiPermanent expression of everyday spatial transgression. However,there are many other forms of geographical refusal and play associated with Newcastle「s road network. I shall return to the incident with which I opened this essay im order to introduce my principal example. The Swan House roundabout 一 the place where I was so very nearly run down 一 is slap-bang in the centre of Newcastle. Swan House itself is a huge and largely empty I shall broach these topics by mentioning just one of the identities that apPears to be implicated in the roadrunning described above: masculinity. To get a feet for the way gender may Play arole Ipresent below some observations on a group of three late teenage lads trying to get homeOne of them begins the process. He just darts out into the traffic from the Mosley Street side of the roundabout. The other two haven“t joined him, but they watch and yell from the pavement. Their friend looks like he is going to pelt across the road, so the cars aren“t siowing. But then he very artfully slows down, does a sort of shimmy, moves suddenly onto his back leg and pirouettes, mockingly, in front of a red hatchback. A panicked driver swerves his can, grinds to a near halt. Other cars behind are being detained. Someone honks their horn. The two fclias on the pavement are having a rare treat, one bawls a gleeful compliment, something like“you fucking twatl“. At this point they run to join their friend whilst he scampers o线 to the cobbled slopes at the foot of Swan House. They are all yelling their heads.off now, taking huge arrive,almost simultaneously,at the leaping strides, ignoring the this incident was all over in 15 imagine I roundabout「s centre, panting and laughing. seconds. But you can have a lot of fun in heavy traftic 训 a quarter of a minute. The young men wander o,rolliing their shoulders,affecting a certain tough nonchalance. At the comer of City Road, they act out daft,“playful“slaps of each others faces, and then disappear from sight. Im rather pleased to see the back of themi. For,as well as being transgressive,and kind of funny,their performance Was a ritualised assertion of masculinity.、In Newcastlie,where men always seem to be yslting, pissing in the street and otherwise irritating me, these boys「 activitics must be judged as, at least i part, both normal and normalising-. Their spatial transgression enacts the spatial logic of masculinism. Overt acts of physical display and aggression are part of being, or becoming, a man in Newcastle. So are acts of an anti-social nature tbat ritualistically insult the alienated city. The latter is spat and urinated on, graffitied, vandalised and mocked. The city is cast in the role of woman, of the feminine, to be of-white 1970s office block, It is surounded on all sides by a busy multi-track roundabout. It「s a grim Place, made all the more unpleasant by the litter strewn mouths harassed and seduced (that appalling shimmy of the hips...)by a combination of of pedestrian underpasses. These come gulping out of the pavement 记 several Physical courage and grotesque sensuality. exceptionally windy spots, replete with ilegible maps of a subterranean pedestrian system and blue direction arrows to non-existent destinations (such as the mysterious “Australian Centre“). So people ignore these invitations, and fling themselves over the safety railings and onto the road, darting for the sanctuary of the sharply tilted“antiPedestrian「“,cobbles beneath Swan House. And from here they have to take their chances again, slipping o that unfriendly incline into the murderous road. I will be arguing in the next section that these manoeuvres are forms of transgression in and of alienated city space. They are forms of practical and creative cnitigque,physical strategies that contain an immanent imagination of resistance. However any desire to develop a politicised reading of everyday spatial usages cannot Progress without an appreciation of their contradictory nature. We need to ask who is involved in these transgressions and who is excliuded. We also need to question what social identities enable and structure these spatial activities. In Newcastle there is a somewhat desperate tone to such street Performances. Lt is as训 the men there feel that the city is slipping from their grasp, that traditional gender roles are loosing their potency and becoming merely Symbolic (see also LancasteI, 1992). Hence, an ugly tinge of violent bitterness, of macho-nihilism, regularly creeps into such displays: 医 | Iam suggesting, then, that the activities of the roadrunners are structured as both a masculine and a transgressive perfonmance,Moreover,these twO PIOCeSses are interlinked, the former enables and ideologically structures the latter. The avant-garde rarely hnderstood the connection between conservative identities and transgressive Praxis. But any socialist engagement cleariy demands that this relationship is not merely acknowiedged but integrated into the political interpretation of everyday Spatial manoeuVTes. Of course, other identities, apart from 8ender, are also at work in the activities of the boy「“s performance: for example, Iace, class, sexuality and physical ability. In my

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28 Transgressions No.2 next cxample, set at a shopping tll in Epping, Ishow how tansgressions that draw on gender categories may also be bound up with ideas and assumptions about age. TIauRing al he TEpping “The Transgressive Geographies of Daily Life 29 It「s no coincidence that in moving from an example of male to fematle routine spatial tansgression we have moved from street level to inside a building. Although far from being the preserve of men, street movement and performance appears permeated by an apparently confidant and swaggering masculinisnl. As Gwenda Linda Blair (quoted by Ward, 1978, p.156) observes: I was borm and raised in Epping, a dormitory town 15 miles east of London. It was where I first leamt to run over busy TIoads. So I know that every one in Epping sees the supermarket, Tescos, a5 one of the towr「s central institutions. So central that other Places in Epping are described as“near Tesco「s“, or“at the Tesco「s end of town“. Tesco「s, then, is an urban hub. But it「s an odd sort of centre. It has, after all,been, Purpose built as an entirely commercial space. It has been scientifically designed to create the psychological and physical conditions for maximising sales. As with nearly all modernm British supermarkets,one is channelled in at the left,and circulated clockwise through the building; past tempting bready wafts from the bakery, meaty smells from the delicatessen, past strangely appealing mounds of neat and reasonably Priced food, before being expelled, loaded down with far more purchases that you actually wanted, at one of the tills. The spatial experience of Tesco「s is obsessively controlled and narowly directed. There is, or so it seems, only one spatial ideology at work in this place, the geography of consnmerism. The efficient alienation of the modern supermarket can make it both a compelling and lonely destination. ftis an environment that encourages shoppers to take a certain bored pleasure in seeing themselves as Cconsumer drones; to cast themselves as perfect shoppers, busy, focused and willing. However this predictable performance isn“t the only show on offer in Epping Tescos- There are other things occurring. Things that haven“t been legislated for by Tesco「s spatial scientists. Over by two of the tills groups of older women are failing to circulate in the Prescribed fashion、They are standing and chatting、Other shoppers,especially younger ones, are looking “held up“. They stare at the floor, glancing up 0ccasionally. The blotchy, acned faces of single impeded teenagers express passive contempt: a virulent but immobile hatred. The objects of their derision make symbolic gestures of accommodation. The young shoppers are apologised to. The fact that they are“in a rush“ is hnderstood, allowances will soon be made;“go on, you go in ont love“ “don“t mind us dear“;“we“re just enjoying ourselvyes, you go ahead“. So it is that the conformists are separated from the subversives, the former「s eyes tightened to avoid facial contact, to avoid contamination with this unwelcome and discordant sociability. What particularly bothers and, it seems, disgusts, the two teenage boys queuing at tl 5 is thab not only is there a group of 4 older women (aged 65+) in front of them, The street in this and most other societies, belongs to men … women are allowed t0 0Se the street but only by permission 一 men retain domination and the Damocietian Sword fair oOfrepossession is always present. Being a Iman gives you a passkey; otherwise 8ame for eviction. One of the central ironies of routine transgression is that its agents tend to be the ones who feel they have power within 一 perhaps even dominate 一 their chosen geography of play and resistance. The lads running across the traffic and the elderly women 训 the supermarket are both disobeying on terrains 训 which they feel comtfortable. As this implies, the transgression of everyday space is only partially experimental in nature; 讨 draws on traditions and knowledges of“what has gone before“, of what“we are allowed to do“. The refusal of Tesco「s spatial discipline is carried out by these women both as something Spontaneous and challenging and a5 something that accepts and accommodates itself to the limitations placed on women「s spatial activities. Or it was. Perhaps, since I first witnessed these events some 5 years ag0, the store manager has changed. Anyway, Someone “in charge“seems to have disbanded these gatherings. Certainly, the last time I went to Epping Tescos all the people on the tills were of the young and blotchy variety. And there was no hanging around, no idle chat, no scone crumbs needing to be brushed from the glass screen of the bar-code reader. Perhaps that last image is a bit too touching. There“s a danger of whimsy creeping into depictions of ordinary forms of subversion,particularly those concerning unconventional agents (like older people and women). I feel justified in a certain nostalgia for these til parties, but I don“t want to diminish their radicality through sentimentality. After all resistance to consumerism is, in certain ways, a far more farreaching and provocative activity than the kinds of motorway chicken-runs depicted i Newcastle. ft involves the creation of a sustainable and solidaritistic inclined group of people; people who have come together to share conversation and food and engage themselves with the wider commuaity: Placing such an alternative institution at the heart of an enterprise like Tescos 一 a commercial operation designed to destroy nonmarket based values and ties 一 provides both a latent and actual creative challenge to consumer Capitalismi. including the till operaton talking to each other and failing to move om, but that two of these women are actually eating. Eating! In here! And not only are they eating, they have actually brought /bod 记个om oxtside ife store. To be more precise they have Signposts and Blind Alleys: Mabpping and Enabling the brought in what appears to be a selection of cakes in two Tupperware containers. Two Socialist Imagination within Everyday Space People have come into Tesco「s, and not circulated round the store clockwise. They have gone straight to their friend at till 5, and begun sharing out food. And the teens, whose sphere of ransgression is so different, so spatially and socially removed, are appalled and concerned. So far, I have talked about the structural inability of the avant-garde to engage with everyday creativity and introduced, through two examples, the contradictory nature of Prosaic,non-specialist,transgression,Now I wish to develop a Political,and politicising, analysis of these phenomena. To this end I will be drawing on a variety

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30 Transgressions No.2 The Transgressive Geographies of Daily Life 31 of writings that have attempted to say something about the way we can think about Peoples「 errant urban manoeuvres. More specifically, I shall engage with three texts: Keith Tester「“s The FIQ4nexr (1994) and, more generally, theories of the AQnexr and the impoverishment of urban movement; an essay on walking in Michel de Certeau「s The Practice af Everyday Lije (1984) and, finally, Colin Wards「“ (1978) The Child ip he Cib. The first two occupy a Tecognised position in the literature on everyday Space, but are treated here with some scepticism. The third and last, which has failed to find a place in the debate, offers, I believe, more politically adroit interpretations: I shall move through these expositions, drawing on each; before I finally arrtive at a socialist Everyday space, and people「“s movement within ib, seems to be a topic that a lot of People have recently become intrigued by. Indeed, the categories and inteliectual traditions through which the subject is currently being explored hayve a decidedly hasty and“of the shelf“feel to them. It「s as讨 people are anxious to talk about everyday space but don“t yet quite know how. The spate of writings on the RQnexy is, I would submit, an instance of this trend. Reading Tester「s edited collection TAhe KIQnexr I am stuck by how many times the inadequacy of its central Category is alluded or admitted to. The contributors appear to want to write about People“s changing physical incorporation into the modern and post-modern city. But they are constantly having to view this process through what is, as Tester“s introduction makes clear,an anachronism, The RQnexr was an urban idler who roamed early-to-midnineteenth century Paris. He was a dandy in search of the hidden Pleasures of a city that had not yet been subjected to the bureaucratisation and spatial authoritarianism of modern urban development.“Any such pinning down“, Tester notes (p.14),“makes XGnerie impossible since it establishes the meaning and order of things in advance“. Benjamin (1983, p.47) reminds us that the late nineteenth century poet Baudelaire, often considered the epitome of the decadent French fop,“roved about in the City which had long since ceased to be home for the RQnexr““. As this implies, the praxis of the Ranexur is not an appropriate model to explain, or judge,late twentieth century urban culture,The interpretative errors such a misapplication produces are particularly apparent in the essay by Zigmund Bauman in collection,For Bauman post-modern metropolitans are uncreative, automatonisedAdnexrs. The post-modern city encourages endless play 一 “Game has no end“ is Bauman「s pithy comment (p.153) 一 but 步 is mindless, uncreative and enforced: “the freedom of the REnexr to set, playfully, the aims and meanings of his adventures,the original attraction in an ever more passive relation to the environment“. Here we find yet another urban theorist insisting that creativity has fled the metropolis, the streets and roads of which are how flled with people whom Sennett at least seems to find less than fully human. And here again, this conclusion is in part derived from a conflation of the very idea of spatial creativity with the social and geographical praxis of pre-automotive,Preconsumerist (and i Sennett「s case, pre-Enlightenment) societies. To deal in anachronisms is to peddle sentimentality and blind oneself to the representation of everyday urban creation. nomadic A similar critique may be proposed in relation to Richard Sennett「s (1994, pp.374375) thesis that the contemporary city “has ended in passivity … suspending the body of his lonely places,has been appropriated“ (p-.154). This depressing vision of urban life is enabled by the nostalgic, and otherwise confused,imposition of an anachronisml as the measure of contemporary geographical play. It is no surprise that the forms of adventure and experimentation achieved within early nineteenth Paris are not available today,but that can not be taken to mean that real, as opposed to simulated, spatial Creativity is now dead. [This point is further exemplified by the resolutely and, I would SU88ESt, properly historical focus of studies that addresses the invisibility and/or impossibility of the female RGnexur; for example, Wolff, 1989; 1994] mutable and contingent nature of everyday geographical creativity:. It is at this point that de Certeau「s writings may be usefully introduced. De Certeau「s chapter“Walking in the city“ in his book The Practice of Everyday Lije, resolutely refuses romantic backward glances at lost urban utopias. Indeed, he takes a clear delight in depicting the inevitability of the“contradictory movements that counter-balance and combine themselves outside the reach of panoptic power“(p.95), Far from being vacant zombies, the users of urban Space are neceSsarily and constantly creative. De Certeau explains that, 过让 true that a spatial order organises an ensemble of possibilities (e.g8., by a place in which one can move) and interdictions (e.g.,by a wall 山at prevents one from going further), then the walker actualises some of these possibitities. … But he also moves them about and he invents others,since the crossing,drifting away,or improvisation of walking privilege, transform or abandon spatial elements … the walker transforms each spatial sighifier into something else. And if on the one hand he actualises only a few of 山e possibilities fixed by the constructed order (he goes only here and not there), on the other he increases the number of possibilities (for example, by creating shortcuts and detours) and prohibitions (for example,he forbids himset to take paths generally considered accessible or even obligatory). (p.98) Although it is, admittedly, not always clear how literal de Certeau「s references to “walkers「 are meant to be (one could, after all do all the above in a car), his analysis Provides a useful counter-point to the more historically attuned but ridiculously cloistered pronouncements of so many other urban theorists. As the passage cited above implies, de Certeau is proposing a linguistic model for the analysis of spatial movements..Thus, he talks of the“rhetoric of walking“of “composing a path“(p.100) ,and of how the“long poem of walking manipulates spatial organisations, no matter how panoptic they may be“(p-101). Indeed, almost everything he has to S8y about walking is rooted i structuralist theory. As Ive indicated this procedure may provide some helpful insights but it also contains a series of dangers and problems.More specifically,de Certeau「s analysis depoliticises everyday life, spatial actions are constued in a social vacuum; their ability to make sense confined to the terrain of locutionary principle. This problem in de Certeau「s work is closely related to a second, that his walker in the city is presented as a generic type. Indeed, de Certeau conveys little sense that a8e, Or class even exist, never mind that they might structure people“s urban manoeuvres. Revealingly, his book is dedicated “Io the ordinary marL To a common“

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The Transgressive Geographies of Daily Life 33 .32 Tranggressions No.2 and “anonymous hero“. Such a figure is a necessary fction for de Certeau“s apolitical structuralism. But it is ultimately incapable of providing us with a coherent, let alone socialist interpretation of how urban space is creatively transgressed. Two pointers have emerged so far from the literature tnder discussion. Firstly, that the historically informed studies of recent urban theorists have tended to erase Contemporary forms of creativity, and,by implication, that changing socio-spat ial conventions enable new forms of transgression. Secondily, that textual metaphors of urban Usage, Such as those employed by de Certeau,whilst exemplifying a certain inventiveness, by-pass the political constitution of daily life. Both these lessons need to be incorporated into a socialist theory of urban usage. To help us on ourway, T will call somewhat more sympathetically, on one last scholarly authority: the humanist anarchist Colin Ward. Colin Ward「s TRe ChRild i e Cityy (1978) is a deceptively simple book, full of Photographs of children playing in the city in a myriad of different Ways. m Particularly fond of a series of fve, which start with a toddier walking along the Pavement with a cardboard box on his head, then falling over sitting on and squashing his box and finally booting it into the gutter. This event is labelled 丨sing Found Objects「 (p.82). Through both images and text Ward presents a Portrait of the diverse ways children colonise hidden and “unused「 corners of the city. He looks at the Way children, as children, have specitfic experiences of city life but intercuts this analysis with depictions of the role and impact of other social identities: for exXample, the apparent invisibility of girls in street-play、As this implies Ward finds the city Populated neither by post-modern cretins (unlike Bauman and Sennet[ nor generic sign-manipulators (unlike de Certeau) but rather by specific groups with specific identities and with imaginative and politically fertile sets of Spatial practices. Indeed Ward stresses time and again that the city is full of child explorers: For the [child] explorer apart from the excitement of change and the new eXperience 训 brings, the personal satisfactions to be won from an environment include the extent to Which itcan be used and manipulated, and the extent to which itcontains usable rubbish, the detritus of packaging-cases,crates,bits of rope and old timber, off-cuts and old Wheels. (p.40) Ward provides numerous anecdotes of children「s ability to Ie-imagine everyday space, to ignite its possibilities and provocations. He also indicates that this Process has wider politicalramifications, that children“s play can be vandalistic and subyversive of the possibility of a socialist community or solidartistic and empathetic or, indeed, a complex mixture of both of these two tendencies. Ward implies that children「s spatial transgressions contain within them forms of practical political critique. He intimates that to create and enact“eerie encounters,forbidden games,and … destructive passions“ (p.41) is both to engage in, and say something about, the existing structure Cof urban life and its possible transformation. It is true that Ward fails to move any theoretical distance beyond the vaguest allusions to this process. Neverthele ss,he Provides us with a clear taste of the kind of analysis of everyday creativity that I have been advocating in this article. So where, then, does this get us7 What must we do7 We must begin to re-imagine everyday spatial manoeuvres. We must begin to see them a5 contradictory projects that contain immanent radical and conservative tendencies. Such a PTOCedure is 2 necessary strategy 讨 we are to conceptualise revolutionary desires, not as vanguardist impositions,but as already actively at work within daily life。Moreover,for this analysis to haye any coherence as a political project it cannot be constued 8S an academic pastime. We mxst seek fi0 aciiveDy Polificise cverydQy space, engaging and activating radical understandings of “ordinary“forms of transgression; enabling, i other words, the socialist imagination:. From two very prosaic examples, we have witmessed the dialectical movement of conservative identities and the socialist imagination. We may interpret the roadrunners and til talkers as creatively engaged in the stmuggle between 8 socialist Culture, andthe politics of authority and reaction. For those with an appreciation of the historical development of socialist consciousness, the fact that these groups Tadicalism is, t0 2 greater or lesser extent, structured and enabled by conservative social identities will come as no surprise. Nor will the suggestion that acts of everyday sPpatial transgression cannot be understood as politically equivalent. For although both the activities of the roadrunners and the til talkers share a contradictory character, this quality is exhibited i different ways and with different political implications,The Toadrunners fnd themselves in a dangerous and car dominated environment, an environment structured for the benefit of capital. Their resistance to this pTOCeSs TePTesents a Practical cnitique and refusal of the alienating rationality of contemporary planning- Their Physical movement across the roundabout articulates the need of people to have environments that are created with the needs of human sociality, rather than proftit and exclusivity, in mind. politicising these lads「 activities has already begun. At 2 weriesFof small posters advertises the monthl1y meeting of tbe 0 “People Not Cars「 rallies, events where people are encouraged to Walk, or bicycle, at Interestingly the process of a slow pace along Newcastle「s roads, thereby holding up the traffic and demonstrating against the dominance of the car in the city: The boys took no notice of tbe POsters. Yet, they represent an increasingly powerful 8rass-roots movement againstCapitalist and Sustained over car culture. And it is precisely through such edge-. In other Political 8, haye t0 come may ns transgressio time, that the boys「own es such as ons,activiti interpretati words, through the dissemination of politicised Toadrunning may start t0 have rieamings that drivers, Or ITOadrunners themselves, comprehend as a challenge and a refusal. And it is at precisely such a point that the socialist imaginary stops being an immanent tendency and starts becoming an explicit polkitics. Its also at this point that the conservative social identities that stimulated and structured the boys「transgression can be made Imore visible, and either be drawn on in more reflexive ways or abandoned. Obviously this chain of causation may or may not happen in the Case C these boys or roadrunners in general. I am not interested here in futurology but in explaining the possibility of the politicisation of everyday space. The samie thing needs to be stressed in relation to the tll talkers. This group inserted sociabitity into the anti-social sphere of the supermarket. They brought solidarity,pleasure and non-consumerist values

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The Transgressive Geographies of Daily Life 35 34 Transgressions No.2 right to the store「s centre of operations. Within these women「s activities we see a more complex and nuanced set of socialist tendencies than are apparent in my previous example. The boys showed a refusal of alienating planning,but the older women also Cohen and Taylon, 1992; Hall and Jefferson, 1976). The suffocating sociological 步i elegance of this formulation derives from its functionalism. Of course, Sometimes useful and legitimate to examine the“mereness8“of everyday Life; its barren and visible of their reliance On an acceptance of female spatial servitude 一 would pitiable echoing of wider socio-economic contradictions and confticts. Yet, whenset 训 isolation,this approach acts to obscure and pacify the creative and Political this constitution and potential of daily Hfe.Indeed, Im tempted to suggest that the“little of interpretation has itself become ritualised, the bog-standard “critique“ necessarily involve forms of activism concerned with the nature of contemporary rebellions「 or “escape attempts“of the street and supermarket. shopping. It is pertinent to note, in this regard, that questions such as“whose space is article has attempted to evoke the possibility of a different kind Cf interpretation of daily life. I have tried to write about daily life「s imaginative and be contradictory qualities, its thrashing motions and potential. I guess, thoughby, it W Interpret t0 attempts Own my within ns obvious to many that one of the contradictio this topic is that, although Iwish toenable the socialist imagination, my brain has been colonised by the language of academia. Again, Im sure that to a certain extent tbhe demonstrated both a rejection of the commercial principles at the heart of capitalism and a primitive practical exemplification of a different form of social and economic relationship. The politicisation of their activities 一 with its concomitant making this?「,““what psychological and social impact do these stores have on uS?“, and“are there alternative ways for people to acquire food and durable goods,other than commercially?“are increasingly being asked by a variety of different groups. For example, the non-money based exchange networks called, in the UK, LETS schemes, ask such questions. So do various community groups concemed with the “mallization「 of their towns. As with the Toadrunners, there are already forces in existence that may enable the politicisation of the activities of the till talkers:. I hope, of course, that these different politicising forces will grow, strengthen and begin to merge. The potential within the socialist imagination is for the politicisation, not merely of distinct bits of everyday space,but for its This former,conservative identities enablin8g radical praxis。That realisation should, of course, provoke me into making myself a little clearer. And it“s 训 that spirit that I end this essay,not with a load more ideas,but with five bullet latter enables the points, each one banging home an aspect of my argumentt. entirety,、,For the transformation, that is, of daily life into a terrain of socialist exploration. And itis here that we may reintroduce and find a role for the detritus of the avant- 羌 garde, particularly those who have followed though on the promises of that institution Politicisation of everyday spatial creativity. and abandoned art production i favour of 8 social engagement with everyday Creativity. These people may be 一 and no doubt many already are 一 involved in 养 resources, to chalienge the limitations of “issue politics“and see the wider potential 羌 for politicisation across all the different realms of everyday experience. If they want 冼 interpretations and activismis. “The socialist imagination exists as a tendency within everyday Spatial transgression. stmggle,to highlight areas that are being neglected and identities that are being marginalised、They should help ignite the realm of the everyday with socialist Spatial transgression is politically contradictory. Its Tadical potential may,for example,be seen to be structured and enabled by conservative social identities. to make themselves useful, they should make it their mission 一 their specialism even 一 to draw out and make visible the connections between different areas of spatial Look around you, the streets and shops are ative with creatively errant geographical manoeuVres。 Polkiticising specific aspects of everyday space. However their particular intellectual heritage and occupational location gives them an incentive, as well as other kinds of “The challenge that confronts cultural workers is to abandon the mythologies of avant-gardism and to become agents for the 养 “The socialistimagination becomes explicit through the politicisation of daily life. End For some People real politics takes place somewhere higher,somewhere above, everyday life,Real politics is conducted by politicians,organised around highly Acknowledgements traditional issues and has nothing to do with how and why people run across roads or Thanks to the following for their help with this piece: David Pinder and Peter Suchin (who refereed i and Rachel Holland and Neil Ward (who wrote comments on i0. Thanks also to those people in the International Cultural Change seminar group at hang around at shopping tlls. In social science, one of the more influential ways this Position is defended,and quotidian stuggle is denigrated, is by ecognising“the politics of everyday life as merely symbolic. It is claimed that the bigger, important, social system reproduces itself by allowing anger and resistance to be enacted through Petty and moronic rituals of deviance.“The supreme ruse of power“Georges Balandier (quoted by Stallybrass and White, 1986, p.14) confidently opines,“is to allow itself to be contested ritually in order to consolidate itself more effectively“ (see Newcastle University who chewed this article over with me one Wednesday afternoon,An early version was Presented to the Annual Conference of the Association of American Geographers in San Francisco in 1994-.

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36 Tfansgressions No.2 REFERENCES BAUMAN, Z. (1994) 「Desert spectacular in TESTER, K. (Ed) The FianeurLondon,Routledge BENJAMIN, W. (1983) Chares 8audelaire: A Lyric Poetip the Era of High Capliajism London, Verso BORGER, C. (1984) Theor of the Avantgarde Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press CALLE, S. (1989) Sophie Calle: 4 Survey Toronto, Fred Hofman Gallery CALLE, S AND BAUDRILLARD,J. (1988) Sutte VanitfennePlease Fojow Me Port Townsend, Bay Press CHENIEUX-GRENDRON, J (1990) Sureaism New York, Columbia University Press COHEN, M. (1993) Profane 州mination: Wajter Benjamin and he Pars of Surealist Revojution Berkeley, University of Califomia Press COHEN, S. AND TAYLOR, L. (1992) Escape httempts; The Jheory and Practice of Hesistance fo Everyday Life: Second Edition London, Routiedge CUDDON, 小 (1992) The Penguin Dictionay of Literay Jenns and Literary Theory: Thirj Edition Harmondsworth, Penguin Books DEBORD, G. (1989a) 「On wild architecture「 in SUSSMAN, E. (Ed) On the Passage of a Few Peopje Through Ah Rather Brief Moment of Time: The Situationist international 1957-1972 Cambridge, MIT Press DEBORD, G. (1989b) Two accounts of the dbrive in SUSSMAN, E. (Ed) On the Passage of a Few People Through A Hather Brief Moment of Time: The Sfluatiopist international 1957-1972 Cambridge, MIT Press DE CERTEAU, M. (1984) The Practice of Eyeyday Life Berkeley, University of Califomia Press ERIKSON, J (1984) Dada: Performance, Poety and ht Boston, Twayne HOME, S. (Ed) (1996) What js Situationism?: A Header Edinburgh, AK Press GABLIK, S. (1995) “Connective aesthetics: art after individualism「 in LACY S. (Ed) Mapping the Jaraipn: New Genys Pubyic At Seattle, Bay Press GOLDBERG, R. (1988) Performance ht From Futurism to ife Present London, Thames and Hudson GREENBURG, A. (1985) The Dadaists and the cabaret as form and forum「 in FOSTER, S. (Ed.) DadaDimensions Ann Abor, University Microfilms International GREENBURG, A. (1988) Reflections on the cabaret: art, transaction, event in FOSTER, S. (Ed.) Eventf「hrts and hrt Events Ann Arbor, University Microfiims International HALL, S. and JEFFERSON, T (Eds) (1976) Hesistance Through Hituajs: Youth Subcufiures 李 Post War Briain London, Hutchinson LACY, S. (Ed) (1995a) Mapping te Jerain: New Genre Public At Seattle Bay, Press LACY, S. (1995b) 「Debated territory: toward a critical language for public art in LACY S. (Ed) Mapping ipe Jeryrain: New Genye Public Art Seattle, Bay Press LANCASTER, B. (1992) 「Newcastle 一 capital of what?「 in COLLS, R. and LANCASTER, B. (Eds) Geordiss: Hoots of Regionalism Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press LURIE, D. and WODICZKO, K. (1991) 「The Homeiess Vehicle Project in WALLIS, B. (Ed) 8 You Lived Here: The Ciy闰 At Theo, and Social hctiyiem:A Project by Martha Rosier Seattle, Bay Press POGGIOL) R. (1968) The Theory of ihe hvantgarde Cambridge, The Belknap Press RICHTER, H. (1965) Dada: At and London, Thames and Hudson SENNETT R. (1994) Flesh and Stone: The Body and the Ciy jp Westem Civization London, Faber and Faber STALLYBRASS, P. and WHITE, A. (1986) The Poitics and Poetics of Jransgression lthaca, Cornell University Press TESTER,K. (Ed) (1994) The Fi&neur London, Routledge TIMMS, E, and COLLIER, P, (Eds) (1988) Vsions ang Blueprints: hvant-garde and Hadicay Pojtics来 Eary Twentieth-century Euope Manchester, Manchester University Press TZARA, 了 (1989) Zurich chronicle「 in MOTHERWELL, R. (Ed) The Dada Painters and Poets: hp Anthology Cambridge, Belknap Press WALLIS, B. (Ed) (1991) f You Lived Here: The Ciy 闯 At Theo, and Social Actiyism: A Project by Marha Hosier Seattle, Bay Press WARD, C. (1978) The Chilg in the Cfty London, The Architectural Press WOLFF J (1989) “The invisible women and the literature of modernity「 in BENJAMIN, A. The Transgressive Geographies of Daily Life 37 (Ed) The Problems of Moderniy: Adomo and Benjamin Andover, Routledge, Chapman and Hal WOLFF . (1994) “The artist and the ineur : Rodin, Rilke and Gwen John in Paris「 in TESTER,K. (Ed) The Fl&neur London, Routledge

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Shopping for Principles 39 38 Transgressions No.2 economic changes and asks two questions. Firstly, can these changes be described as an indicator of a move to post-modernity 一 a new time, a development away from Shopping for Principles: Wifing apouf FesHyal Park“ py Mayfl7 Payhker the modernist arrangements of capitalism or industrialism7 This is essentially an ontological question, one that asks whether a particular constellation of social facts is best described as this or that (Lash and Urry, 1987; Crook et al, 1992). The second question is how can we represent (new) forms of social space 一 with a modernist selftrighteous certainty or a post-modern irony that celebrates an unending Plurality of narratives? This is an epistemological question about the aims and claims of social science, whether it is possible to tell some kind of tmuth or admit tbhat everything is some kind of story (Lyotard, 1986; Kroker and Cooky 1988). Both questions are linked 一 an 0ntology presumes an epistemology 一 but analytically separable (Baumant, 1992; Smart, 1993; Calhoun, 1993). One of the more common permutations of answers to these questions is to argue that the post-modern is a move within the modern,an epistemological mood that is caxsed by a Particular set of Social conditions (Harvey, 1989; Giddens, 1990; Lash, 1990; Jameson, 1991). Whilst this is, in many ways, convincing, it is an ontology supported by modernist truth claims and A Context and Some Theoty One of the platimudes of contemporary cultural, spatial and social theory is that the kaleidoscopic collision of signs, the failure of grand narratives and the spiral of consumption augers the era of post-modernity and/or the end of certainty. Whether hence does little to address the deeper epistemological issues. [do not wish to address the“causes「“of post-modernism but to think about the consequences of using postmodern discourses. In this paper Im going t0 suggest that a post-modern this is a hibertarian release, or the final victory of consumer culture, seems to depend on the optimism or pessimism of the theorist concerned. This paper is intended to be epistemology is also ultimately unhelpful because it seemis only to lead to endless restatements of relativism or lapses into mass cultural elitism. After demonstrating the inadequacy of ontological and epistemological versions of post-modernism Iconclude that the ethicalypolitical interests of any account are the only basis for discrimination a reSpPOnse t0 Some of the issues raised in those writings. It has its origins in an or evaluation. exhibition,several pieces of serious journalism and unserious academic writing. It also has something do with the need to get things in print to further my academic Is that better? Career, It does not report the Tesults of a Tesearch project,though it s based on documentary analysis and a few interviews, but rather it evolyes out of personal and The Sociologist, The Photographer and Stoke academic interests which Ihave been“working“ on for some time. It is personal in two Some context is necessary for anyone who does not live in my city. Halt way betweent Manchester and Birmingham is the sprawt that makes up the potteries 一 the six townis of the city of Stoke-on-Trent plus the older borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme. The Senses,firstly because it is about the city that I live训 and, secondly, because it is about the way that I might legitimate my writing about that area. This is clearly a strategy that recognises that the plausibility of my analysis depends almost entirely upon whether other readers recognise my practices and feelings and/or are convinced by my rhetoric. I offer no apologies here because those apologies are a central theme of the paper itself. , In textual terms Irecount two stories. One is the story of how a government thought it might gain itself some votes by planting flowers in areas of Britain that no longer seemed needed. The other is the story of a Sociologist and a Photographer who wanted to get famous by saying something clever about the world. Both of these tales are told in order to offer some reflections on recent academic accounts of social change and representation. After a meandering and mannered “argument“ Iend up suggesting that the ethical or political intention of particular kinds of story telling seem to be the only grounds on which different descriptions of the world can be assessed. The, Previous paragraph was under-referenced and not nearly academic enough, I apologise- Let me Tephrase it. In contemporary theoretical terms this paper focuses on & Particular space which seems to signify massive social,spatial,cultaral and conurbation has a population of nearly half a million and grew from the industrial revolution 一 coal, steel and ceramics creating an urban landscape that gained it a reputation as the most polluted in Britain. t is said that the Germant Luftwaffe didn “t bomb Stoke because they thought someone else already had. In literary terms the potteries is best known as Arnold Bennett「s 怡ve towns「, an area he was born in, WTrote about constantly but rarely returned to. A typical high culture opinion was Pevsner7“s (1974, p.252), who termed Stoke-on-Trent“an urban tragedy“ 一 aline of small tDWns thatresist their big city status. But times have changed since those grim industrial days 一 slag heaps are now parks and the smog is only seen On sepia postcards. Perhaps the culmination of these efforts at reconstruction was the 1986 National Garden Festival, a government inspired attempt to provoke large scale redevelopment on the site of a derelict steelworks and Wedgwood「s original factory. After the tourists had gone, rising from the newly laid turf came“Festival Park“which was to be, i the speculative words of its developers:

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Shopping for Principles 41 40 Transgressions No.2 人 landmark for Stoke-on-Trent,offers a superb blend of business and leisure opportunities where companies can put down roots and grow. It integrates retail business and commercial, hotel and leisure facilities. Designed to make business a pleasure and leisure a business。 (SL Modwen Publicity, 1988) In 1988,just after those words were written, the Sociologist got ajob in Stoke. He had Previously lived in Oxford and Brighton and was not impressed with the Potteries: Like Amold Bennett he saw “hard solid people with little time for art or culture“, a city“mean and forbidding of aspect 一 sombre,hard featured, uncouth: and the vaporous poison of their ovens and chimneys has soiled and shrivelled the surrounding countryside“ (1970, p.19). His friend, the Photographer, visited him and they both wandered around the then derelict Garden Festival site. Some construction wWas beginning to occur around the fringes of the newly titled Festival Park but the rest of the site was almost as it had been two years before. Acres of landscaped and stightly Overgrown walks -with industrial views like Lowry paintings over the city 训 all directions. The area was dotted with sculptures, ice-cream kiosks, a station for the scenic railway, the tower that supported the cable can, lakes, exhibition stands, signis, bridges and a mock cemetery illustrating the work of local monumental masons:. Remarkably little vandalism had occured,mainly since the site was fenced and pPatrolled by security guards. Like children in a closed down funfair they dodged the guards, took photos and wondered at the point of spending all that time and money on something so transient. In an entrepreneurial way they decided to use the Festival park site to Say something meaningful about the multiple ironies of our post-something society. They made words and photographs and attempted to sell them and watched the buildings take shape.The frst incamation was an exhibition of dour black and white Photographs i a white gallery with ironic quotations attached to the photos. Abandoned sculptures with the industrial city as backdrop.Faceless consumers pushing trolleys around windswept carparks, Neither the Photographer nor the Sociologist knew exactly what they were saying but a sense of critique and irony was quite enough to be going on with (Grivell and Parker, 1989). The second incarnations were articies in a sensible left-wing magazine and a local monthly which were Savagely cut and read like a hack who had partially digested Baudrillard and a press release (Parker and Grivell 1990; Parker, 1990; 1992). Some time later they published a more Substantial article in a cultural studies magazine (Parker and Grivell, 1992). This Piece was far “cleverer“butb again, severe red-pencilling meant that it hinted at transgression rather than engaging in it. So,sixth time Iucky 一 this is what the Sociologist wants to say this time around. o everyhing here 芒 new EveR Wedgwoody old ouse记 neW. TRere 酊 70 厂r ojces are dereliction, no ferraced houses and chinmey stacks. Insfead ihere accoumiants, arcRilecis,Rnancial services, a housing association and a clients. Puriher dowr ihe road i a selectfion of new industrial units 一 C shopfiiting SOfyware Q Priniers, Q compaxy, QR adyvanced electromics focings Plastic Dri8压 compQRy. Around ihe cormer sits SGuQF 8rey relaif space wiliR Tnside, 加e Iooking EKe a series af aircraf hangars made fom CRilqQrers machinery ofihe puilding 艾 painfed grey and haj Ridden peRimnd sxspended T8Rting. Factiories have exposed machinery as well 一 take away ife CQrpeit ard ihe CORSIier durables and hese puilaings dont Ilook very diBerent. TRis 芬 design and DuilQ archilecture Hhat could pejbund i Belfastb Edinpurgh or Card没 (Los Angeles, TDyo) 一英 placeless. Becase so maxy af he pildings look ihe saze Iuminated 318755 andfapping Rass are at a premiitz记 order hat yo CQ fe1f e Qpart A r68ite [ sigmns,Q MItiplex cinema,Q powling aley,Waferworld,5友 S10pe, drfyve 动r McDonalds, Pizza Hut and vigeo arcade. Pick your pleasure fechnology. TRis 芋 mow Manchesier and BirmingRamz 一 ilions he most popuiar visifor affracfion judge? to ZOU are Who wrong. pe ofpeople cant Most of Hhose visils were made Dy car Decaxse ihe park 训 nof designed b Pedestrian. Ox busy migRts 招e cinemQ car Pa仁 ovelRows i0 ife reiaif car PQrK. There pefweert ihe wo and eager cinemia-8oers Were Jorced i 儿火 walking across ifhe dual carriageway and irampling ihroxgR 技e newDy Plantied DusRes Msed i0 pe no 讨 order io get i0 ifeir Rlm om rme. 4 Jootbridse Ras peen DMilf gow D PeopPLe seet i0 xse 训unless ihey are elderby disapled or have CRildren. TRe Pre-CRyisimQs always cases massive irajc jams. A Ilof aFpelrol gets Durmnt and IJofafcredit cards are waved aroxnd. Fictional Imoney/power/knowledge z0VEs Qlomg endless, 户actial spiralling circuits of comymodity excRan8e. TRe road 5ystiez OHe ile away has had i0 pe re-designed i0 cCOpe WilR Pofential 8ridiocTRere 订 O rOO1 力r shopping abstiimence here 一 ihis训 consWmplion red记 flooh and claw. By Deing Rere yOX Qye ilmplicated 一 here 匹 no hdrcRiyzedian poinb mo HegeliaR Symthesi5, 0 calegorical jperatiye 一yox siand sH yox W法 De ru dowr- WHO are yox i0 judge7 Even 0n e day afyest ife activigy continxes. Sunday MCLuncR 芬 eaieR Delweer Visits i0 E shops, jUst a shortf drive across ife CQr P仁 GWQy. O 01 邹e 5i-slope coloured jackets are concerirating hard 0 playing 8oing 0 and dowt. ACross 技 way siands he roling millatyremaims 户o 卯e original sfeelworks. Dauring 动e Weex he huge grey sheds occasionalD-.exhale a roar 0f melal CrishRing metal, TRe developers believe HRat诊 w河 Reve gone记ten years and抹e re/generafion w诊 Spread across 技e canaL. Rhizomes spread. In ihe pub nexrt i0 the marina Rat was made jr workers and caQls Q Plox8Rza5 JaCR. e Pestival ihe Sociologistf sits amongst An axthentic Englfish specialitby, as yper-real as the canal yealure「 ouiside Ife douDle The Garden of Earthly Delights 8lazin8- Lets Festival Park. No need JDr He (re)jproduction 0f aCadeic 7eferetces Rerese. Iox Kmow Wfere 训训 yox Rayve bpeen herse, Festival,carmipaL 厂 ihe superstore ifhe row aQf checkouts strelches away 讨ontf af a fopacco KRosk that 节 iniended lo loofk 友e something fom olde Englande 一 wood and COpperplate Wojnderland - apd yoX CQn Park your CQr Now, several years dfer ihe Sociologists Arst visip mary ofihe puilaings are xp.Notall pecause 助is place w泰 aIways change. wrifing:“Back i0 ife oldex days“ihe manager explained wher ihe interviewed hinz whilst prefending i0 pe a Journalist (prefending il0 pe Q TRere w法 aIways De yacant lots. The American Diner fas already Deet Mexican (and puichRers and pakers wifR Te Ransin8 Si8m5 and There are prelend fshrmongers simuiated hafpering. Food from everywhere 一 pesi0 SQHCe,CMrTIy讫 Q H e epD),Larry Lopsters (and iRen ep),、Yel,xmnlike Re rest of 招 ciy

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42 Transgressions No.2 Shopping for Principles 43 Dananas,croissants,stedk and dney pies,Siajordshire oatcakes,Roumoxs, icroWave rzeadyymade Durger讨 a purz wi lasby relisR. The ichen deparixent Ras dried Rowers and f8Rt woods. The CRildren「s area Ras Primary Colours, 加 Soxnads「 section Ras neon and ihe delicatessen has dark wood. I Ife cafe, nexfi0 IRe wrapped sQndtwicRes Q pIastic lopster adds Q surreal foucR. All IRe IRe IMzQK plays and Duisy yoMn8g e汛 suifs and clippoards stride past OJder wome 记 Here he built a new “model factory“, a small village of workers houses close by (to ensure that they tumned up for work on time), and a large mansion for himself and his family. The factory was organised on the principles of Reason-. Architecture,the division of labour,cost accounting,production technology and forms of moral discipline were deployed to maximise the utility of all operations. The surrounding area Was repackaged as“natural“parkiand with advice from Capability Brown. The Polyestersiting aQfcheckouts. O记扫 car pQ人 tfere are no errantf ShoPping Irolleys site was well placed in a valley between the developing industrial diaspora of the Decause yOX Rave ID xse 0 pourd depo8i ib release he 广o iheir ei8Rbours- Potteries and the mediaeval town of Newcastle-under-Lyme. Against “not in my back yard“opposition from the inhabitants of Newcastie he inyvested in and improved & Behind ihe scenes fe Iorries Dring ihe goods and ihe Secitricor yans iake away 招e one)y. The cily sirelches away heW cepalre. The Sociologist iPinks Ra 均5st De emergent posff-)moderniby. e feels芸 Re 5eses fe io0od. TRe pyilzary QRd secondary sector 8iping WQy i0 抚 seryice secior ihe decenirins ofihe cib. CeograpRic and cullural dierence are colapsed info casiy ConsiunaDle silnuiations a Joke next i0 4 tr0pical Water paradise SUMrromded Dy car parks. No rules onby choices. What more could a substantial number of roads and partially fnanced the Trent and Mersey Canal, which was to run directly past his factory. The canal allowed the products of Wedgwood (and Doulton, Minton, Spode and others) to be conveyed to prestigious showrooms in Greek Street, London or on to the furthest parts of the empire. For this place he coined the name Etruria, still the official name for the area of the city that Festival Park occupies. It is said that when his friend Erasmus Darwiny, father of Charles, told him Slage sefbrmass consiyrption 记ife midale ofa decaying industrial city. Mere OIogy that the Etruscans made great pots he decided that this would nicely reflect the then current vogue for antiquity. Flaxman「s engravings had just Popularised styles loosely (Euiogy) canzmot exhaxust ffe mearings of招is place, canpoftJolow ihe races, predict based on SO0pRisticafed, culfurally sensiive) SociologistwaxXf7 Pho花 QE i0 Judge7 4 JDperreal ihe paths ofe shopping rolleys, Pamic consuption mearms Ristory 区 peing reIandscaped. TRe masses are ilaploding and shopping Ca ever De/zeat 扬e SQJze agQiz. He 芸 pbathing 讯 iomy, Q stranger 训 0 strange Iand,a 0isider a amiRropologist. is siaccalo clevermess ps LKe acid, grows BKe Rungus Ke a the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum and the marketing opportunities were exploited by the entrepreneurial Josiah. The opening day of the factory in 1769 was marked by Wedgwood personally throwing six black basalt Vases, each inscribed Aries Efruriae Renascuntdr 一 the arts of Etruria are reborn. This was now somewhere, a somewhere celebrated in museums and on mantiepieces acr0Ss the Danana sand stcks i is peadKe advertising 亢mgles. TRe ajoriby are silenf and globe. he 芸fe infellectual lieryrorist. is la吴 i0 seyver 扬e SMfures ofiRe everyday, 10 refitse Classicism invoked, the modern began to take shape. The nineteenth and ea]y twentieth century brought much more industrial development of the once wooded he seductions oflolalisatiorz. Celeprating he dep顺 cf玟 si/face, Ixrming 助 inside o Disneyland 芒 Sfoke-onz-Trent nof Caljlormnia. here caz T go jfom Rere? encroached on Josiah「s kingdom. Just as this urbanisation joined the other small towmis of the Potteries so did Etruria become a name for the area between Basford and The Country and the City 【 will begin, like a good Hegelian, at the beginning. One of the characteristic features of post-modernity is supposed to be the“death of history“, the end of teleology. But Festival Park did not just spring into being for a Sociologist or a shopper. For a long time it has been somewhere and this particular incarnation was Produced by some People for particular Teasons. (Let me tell yox 4 story.) A dig into the archive references OW Etruria Vale. The British Gaslight Company set up across the road in 1824, and in the following decades several coal mines and the Earl of Granville“s iron foundries reveals that it sits on history,a history of capitalist enterprise that reaches back into the mists of the industrial revolution. In the early 1760s Josiah Wedgwood wanted to expand his existing production facilities and selected this site a5 a good location. A local historian speculates on the sight that would have met the young Josiah as he strode down the hill from his factory in Winter 一 some time … countless ages a80, Thick fog covers the area between that which, in 1760, was Hanley Green and Newcastie. What manner of land lies beneath this deecp grey mass? Through these dark and impenetrable mists of time, of which there can be no full dispersal, a tittle can be gtimpsed as occasionally the fog swirls, eddies and lifts. (Warrilow, 1952, p.12) Hanley in the new city of Stoke-on-Trent. Stoke was a typical industrial city with appalling living and working conditions for most of its working class. Its mortatity rate was the highest in Victorian England, with five year old children working in the potbanks and lung diseases from coal and clay dust maiming and claiming lives (Clouston,1986). In the 1930「“s the Wedgwood company quit the crowded and polluted site for the green fields pna「 the southerm edge of the city. A modern,and aesthetically modemist, factory and village were built in parkiand with more than an echo of a return to rural paternalism. Etruria was then largely left to a rambling steelworks, the Shelton Bar. This employed up to three thousand people and the gilow of the furnaces lit the city sky by night. Production continued until 1978 when, despite a prolonged battle to save the jobs of “the lads at the fire“(Cheeseman, 1977, p.1), most of the works Was closed 一 a closure which echoed on in British academic life as an introductory Open University case study,This “restructuring“and severe contractions in the potteries and pits led to the area having one of the highest unemployment rates in Britain. Etruria, and Stoke more generally, had a lot of history but did not seem to have much of a future.

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Shopping for Principles 45 44 Transgressions No.2 accountancy firms and ten pin bowiing were to take the place of pottery, Coal and stee1l The sound of steel bilets hitting the stop at the end of the rollers, and the screech of thc SaW Cutting through solid steel, no longer echo down Forge Lane and into the homes of people who lived within shouting distance of the works. Curtains are no longer soiled by at the heart of the city- the falout from the blast furnaces. Silver cutlery in sideboard drawers no longer tums blue,证 you were rich enough to have any! No more songs from Etruria Inn. All the pubs And so, that way, we arrived at the End Of History. We traced the paths of the archives until they brought us back to where this text started. But where can I go from and houses have been erased by Someone with the button of change at his fingertips. We, Who are the last Etruscans, look backward.., and forward. (Bryan and Fisher, 1986, p.1) here7 What message is hidden in this meticulous catalogue of facts? Is this more conwvincing than writing 训 italics? (4 despairing cry. The shout 0f a paranoig Who hinfks 招atsomething芸 TurRng pehind what he sees. TRe shout afa readerywyrifer Who In 1980 a Conservative government discussion paper proposed the Garden Festival Wants Q nEaier Ending.) scheme as a reSponse to problems of “under-investment「 in the industrial north. They were modelied on West Germany“s BundesgariensCcha, held every two years since the 1950「s and originally intended to aid post-war reconstruction and establish Ppermanent new city parks. In 1981 the govemment minister Michael Heseltine made & much publicised bus trip around Liverpool with private sector financiers i an Politics and the Possible Victorian anthropologists would find an “underdeveloped「“odd tribe and bring back evidence of their barbarity. Descriptions of cannibalism and mud huts illustrated with attempt to fnd a solution to the riots that had broken out in Toxteth and other inner Photos of the witch doctor Look at what the funny natives are doing, just as well cities in the early 1980s (Roberts, 1988). A radical solution needed to be proposed and wesre not like them. Fascinating because repulsive. Shortly after their black and white exhibition the Photographer and the Sociologist did a seminar with a group of students tbhe Garden Festival idea was promoted by the Department of the Environment with an abandoned storage depot on the Mersey hosting the first festival,known as “Heseltine「“s allotment「 (Cloustom, 1984). The brief said that it must be delivered by May 1984 一 the last date for the next General Election (Beaumont, 1992). Two years atter that, 25 million pounds of public money had been spent on Stoke. One hundred and eighty acres of industrial dereliction were (re)landscaped and for one summer Eturia became a tourist attraction. Capability Brown had retumned with a new vision of Britain. As the publicity put it,“More than a vast gardery more than & park, more than 8 landscape, more than entertainment. An unforgettable experience for all the family“ (Festival Guidebook, 1986). Two hundred and ffty thousand trees, one and a half thousand temporary jobs,miltions of plants,shrubs and flowers, Industrial heritage, morris dancers, pop groups and interior design exhibitions. Nature jostled with artitice and ice cream stands to woo the public. Chipboard and plastic moulding contrived to re-present region, nation and globe. Pagodas and mud huts sat snugly beside monumental sculptures celebrating coal steel and pottery. People bought a lot Of flowers. In fact, the festival was not a resounding success 一 bad weather being blamed for and were seen through in a flash. The students said,“Would you rather it was stll an abandoned steeiworks7“ “Don“t you like ten pin bowling2?“,“Do you think it would be better 讪 people were still unemployed7“. The Photographer and the Sociologist smiled in a knowing way and talked of preserving a space for critical reflection. The Sociologist can“t speak for the Photographer but tells me he has never been happy with the answers he gave. He does liike ten pin bowling and has spent a bob or two in the shops himself but he only gets self-conscious about it when he remembers that he is a Sociologist. We「ve tried an ironic celebration, we「ve tried writing a story from the archive, let「s try Policy. (The neuiral rafional macRine lechnology oFfPractice.) Irony and history are easy, policy and decision making are much more difficult. (This Rurts me more ar 芸trts yoX) Festival Park looks better than the wasteland that preceded it. That sad part of Stoke「s history has been covered in turf and a lot of new jobs have been produced.“Cashiers,Wages clerks,bar sta你 ,pizza COOks, waiters/waitresses,security officers,booking clerks,receptionists,ski-slope attendants,kitchen assistants,switchboard operators,maintenance fitters,pPlant technicians,lifeguards,ski instructors,2musements/cinema sta佐 ,supervisors 一 4 3.4m. whole new world of full and part-time employment right here“ (Rank Leisure Empioyment was generated for a short period but in December 1986 the site Was Personnel, 1989). That being said, store managers were a little shy about telling the Sociologist exactly how many 仁 the词 jobs were part-time or temporary 一 though one the fact that only 2.2m people tumed hp,compared with Liverpool「s fenced off. The councils long term development brief said no retail development (Stoke-on-Trent City Council 友 Staffordshire County Council, 1984). However,no doubt the spectre of Liverpool「s failure to capitalise on their garden festival site, store and another“over half「、There“「s not much unionisation either. New employees are not necessarily informed about unions when suggested two thirds in hlsS their hopes and in 1988 St.Modwen,a Birmingham based property company, they began work and part-time or temporary sta佐 are likely to be reluctant about getting involved with unions in the first place. It seems a long way from the shopfloor announced plans to build a gigantic retail and leisure complex. A hundred million on these particular shop floors. despite the best efforts of “Transword Leisure PLC「 spurred the city council to revise Pounds was to be invested in a multiscreen cinema,waterworld, dry ski slope and retail park. City Councillors who had campaigned against the closure of the stee1 works eifused about the bright new future. Wedgwood「s old house, and later the office of the Shelton Irom, Steel and Coal Company, was to be tumed into the four star 150 bed Etruria Hall Hotel High-tech industry was to fnd a home in units in“The Glades「 or “Lakeside“ and corporate office blocks were sketched on press releases. Toys R Us, Yet to hammer a point, there is money in these buildings. What did you want an increasingly powerless city council to do? Claim the moral high ground and refuse to sup with the devil St. Modwen? Instead of dirty jobs m coal mines, potteries and steelworks the population has been offered jobs in retail and leisure. Now this is certainly better than no jobs at all but the dislocation was well expressed by a retired

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Shopping for Principles 47 46 Transgressions No.2 miner who used to guide people around the fake workings at the“Chatterley-Whitfield Experience“, a mining museum north of the city. He was proud to have worked at Cases, te2 ties, watches, four kinds of key rings, teaspoons, brooches, umbrellas, Pencil Pendants, towels, model cars, teddy bears, desk tidys, mugs, oven gloves,badges, another colliery in the city for thirty something years and, as he guided tourists around in their “real“ helmets with lights on, told them of the danger and the flth.“You「d suck someone makes and sells them, and someone else makes a profit. All the pits are closed or privatised now and even their monument, the museumu, is in iiguidation“All me 88y3 一 rulers, erasers, pencil sharpeners, thimbles and car stickers. As the PrOgram be more couldn“t you gardens, about just “if you thought that Garden Festivals were t emergen the used also wrongl“. Combined with this spirit of enterprise, Ebbw Vale 8 ate demonstr language of green politics and the patronage of Prince Charjles to onmentally“positive commitment to the future of the Planet“by sponsoring“envir paper). recycled on Printed 1991, , al publicity “(Festiv ftiendly products and services will which gy technolo a 一 One example was Hoover「s vacuum cleaner pavition that is solid melts into air“ may be a po-mo catchphrase but Marx said it first. Provide a cleaner world. There is resistance of course. Boy racers and joy riders snarl around the Ccar Parks at dusk. People throw pizza boxes and beer cans into the withered shrubbery. Others some kind of All the Festivals were intended to stimulate development and signal m after queendo disunited transformation. Industrial Britain may have a future in the s policy al particularly since the southern boom ended some time a80. But slowly, a Piece of coal and spit to stop the dust getting on to your lungs...“. Yet within a year of the colliery chimneys coming down a new Asda superstore stood 0n the site. The Sociologist buys very good vegetarian pizzas there now,but irony is easy because don“t tum up for work, sneak into films underage, vandalise,buy things with stolent credit cards, shout at each other in public spaces, shoplift, dive in the shallow end, drive the wrong way around the one way, think about Planting bombs, join ade unions... . For others who don“t even go there Festival Park represents 8, Ccharacterless “mini-America“... I resent the majority of the development and I hope that when the novelty of this American style mubbish has worn off, there is enough of the old to renovate and go back to.Iam proud ofmy British heritage, and am fed up with having the United States perpetually fammed down my throat. (Letter to Evering Sentinel, 2nd November, 1989) Yet,for those 训 Wedgwood「s pottery industry,“lead glazing induced epileptic conyvulsions, blindness, paralysis, anaemia, vomiting, and, if they were ucky, death. Sixty percent of clayhands died of silicosis (potters (Cloustom, 1986, p.9). Surely there is no point in this nostalgia, in a sickness of memory for“the close-knit life … its danger, its dirt and its poisonous fumes“ (Bryan and Fisher, 1986, p.48). Surely, we but about possibility not utopia. There may be a huge growth in brown tourist Signs their of photos take to want People many Not Stoke s never going to be Venice. vision of the holiday companions in front of the half-demolished gas holders. The not solve may green and pleasant land (Roberts, 1989, 1990) that the Festival brought previous the city「s problems but it has left people with somewhere to go. Like of Sense a i8 here Britain,t of Festival the and n Festivals, the Great Exhibitio those Unlike 1964). Frayn, 1989; (Rojek, transformation in cultural and material terms regional events, the message is not about celebration of the industrial state but of want to we sponsorship, industrial partnership and the greening of capitalism, Unjess could go back to the steelworks, and who does? (TRe “ads af We 一re「 mig尻 how 讨 SH886515, Evidence rafion,红 conside yoX Know wi史 your palazce,due 一yor UP (TIMES … concIusion...) Festival Park has its good and bad points and Idon“t ansWwer Please. 厉yox were King For 4 Day WRQf woMidyOH do7).Idon“tknow. go from want to be King. I don“t want the responsibility for policy. Where do WE must look forward, to the new, to the possible. Outside the City Museum there is a statue of a steel worker commemorating the fght to prevent the closure of the here? steelworks. The inscription reads: Mattin Parker Cotmes Cleanh We believe in the dignity of labour, whether with head or hand, that the world owes no man 2 living, but that it owes everyman the opportunity of making a living. Festival Park is realising this demand but t is unlikely that the wages of consumption Wi be any the better than those of production 一 though both are better than unemployment. Moving from the primary and secondary sectors to the service sector does not guarantee a better job or more money. Particularly for everywoman. So,despite Thatcherite neo-liberal rhetoric,state intervention has worked and Stoke is beginning to change course towards the service cconomy. So too are other get to the point where the author,Martin Parker, makes choices. [Dm not dead,I“ve just been hiding. I“ve been pretending I was“the Sociologist「 who can tell stories about post-modernity, about the lessons of history, about policy and cities when Iam actually trying to write a closed text, One that knew In this text, we the end when it began, one witit an answer to the questions if asked at the beginning. The first question then. Is Festival Park post-modern2 No. The post-modern periodisation (ontology) is an invention that slices apart history to stitch together academic reputations. Why bother? It makes little historical sense to suggest that consumption did not happen then, that the service sector Was not and, in Ebbw Vale, a temporary McDonalds (Goodey, 1992; Beaumont, 1992). The important then, that leisure did not matter then, that things did not change then. Of course Festival Park looks different and new,but a Victorian office block in new a Wolverhampton, Eastbourne, Beltast, (New York, Paris) looked different and in resalted have te people,tas ldings, capital,bui century ago. The movements of s Liverpool「 Sheffietd, in l Festival Park (and the Newcastle Metro Centre, Meadowhal Gateshead event sold Festival 工shirts, pullovers, trousers, Sweatshirts, polo shirts, Albert Dock, West Edmunton Mall Disneyland and so on). From that it does not spaces. Further Festivals were held i 1988 in Glasgow 一 “now the UK「s most successful post-industrial city“(Scottish Development Agency Festival Publicity, 1986), Gateshead (1990) and the lastin Ebbw Vale, South Wales (1992). Each Festival moved further away from flowers and more towards fun rides, commercial pavitions

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48 Transgressions No.2 Shopping for Principles 49 folow that Festival Parks are the fulcrum upon which an account of social change must now rest (Chaney, 1989; Urry, 1990; Shields, 1992; Warren, 1993; de Cauter, 1993). For a long time people in Stoke have made cups, saucers, profits and ideas yet industrial societies, ecconomies, cultures, polities continually change (Calhoun, 1993). Continuity and discontinuity exist in tandem. Undemeath Festival Park are substantial quantities of industrial waste, capped pit shafts, tar lagoons, slurry ponds 一 all safe now of course (Lewis, 1985). On the surface it may look more like the vale that Wedgwood found but this does not mean that the 1990s can be understood by assuming that an industrial capitalist age is buried in the past. Even in the Bonaventure hotel you need to employ someone to clean the toilets, a point Jameson (1991) really shoulid have mentioned. Developers don“t spend millions unless they hope that they can make more millions back. This is the theme that runs through 1980s urban regeneration,the realise that he is already underwater. And so to the really big question. Who am I to judge? Who am I to say that capitalism is the right word7 Who says I (Oiogis0) have THBE method 一 the survinterviexperimentobservationairre that gives ME a hotline to the world? Who am Ito legislate that the world is like this? That this word will do but this one will not? That this world does not do but this one would? (do yox Want reasons?7 Things Rappe ihe worlQ doesytt speak. TRers 芊 no 8raQiL Just oat ejoy Play 一 doi make me 5Qy步Qil a8Qin.) MY answer, Martin Parker「s answer, is that I can“t do anything else. I agree with Post-modernists (substitute whatever relativist tenm you feel happier witb) that there are no foundations, no absolutes, no transcendental signifiers, no end, no beginning, no reliable map of time and space, no things that do not beg questions about other things, no Place from which to see everything, no Iulebook,no technologies that assumption that the pump priming of governments w训 enable private enterprise to guarantee truth, no text that could list everything. The shopping trolleys have no meaning, their paths are not mapped out 记 some hidden dialectical clockwork. THE generate wealth and that this wealth will “trickle down“to those dislocated by the collapse of the inner cities and the industrial base (Roberts, 1988). Hence “City Action WORLD DOES NOT SPEAK TO ME. Yes, yes, yes … AND NOW? Starting from there, why do I write (about Festival Park)? I can think of two reasons. The first is Teams「, “Urban development Programmes「 and so on stressed partnership, not state or local government patronage (Mulgan, 1989; Jacobs, 1992). This means that corporate simply instrumental,Twant to get lines on my CV to get status/money/power. (Parker: 17990, 1992: Parker and Grivell 1990, 1992; Grivell and Parker 1989,DJah Dlah Profitability was the key to the bulldozers moving in. The regional manager for St Modwen believed that they could hardly fail to be successful since Stoke, like some DlaThe more references the better, publish or perish, it doesn“t matter what you S$ay as long as you 8ay it loudly and people notice. This is a valid enough reason but one Small Third World nation, was underdeveloped“. To translate, that meant that other members of his band of hostile brothers had not realised the opportunities for profit. that can not support its own claims. Why should your words command any interest 让 they are merely attempts at self-promotion? The style is the sales pitch, the goal is The 2000 plus jobs that St. Modwen have created are hence, in part, a result of the entrepreneurial vision that built the city in the first place. The same company have maximising exchange-value but the substance is irrelevant. The second Teason is that Iwrite because I believe I have something to say. There are two kinds of things that T further developments planned and in progress, including one that further extends Festival Park itselft. As John Hall, the developer of the Gateshead Metrocentre (“Europe「s largest out of town shopping and leisure city“) said at its opening: We started the Industrial Revolution and now we start the It「s a proud day for me: revolution Gateshead. (Side Galiery, 1989) For mey post-modermnism, in the epochal sense, is no more analytically convincing than dividing time into seconds or distance into miles. In Stoke, a putative post-capitalist leisure society seems easier to understand as capitalism with coloured plastic signage. Even the weaker suggestion that post-modemnism is the culture or mood of late or high capitalism seems to simply confuse the issue. Occam 「s razor cuts oniy at the point where a cut is suggested and I see no gap, no divide, no moment into which the Ologists razor should plunge. But this is too easy. They say post-modern, I say modem 一 let“「s call the whole thing They say cut here, I say sew it back again. Both cutters and stitchers rely on a Imodernist epistemology. They say thatthe world was like that, and itis now like this. I say“that“and “this「“ aren“t really that different. I (we) claim to describe because I (we) understand. This is because post-modemism, in its ontological periodising sense, is modemist, is totalising, is precisely what Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard ef al warmn against. A binary is constructed in order that it can be played with. The high analytical ground fs built by King Canute in order to stop his feet getting wet but he doesn“t might say,. One 训 to continue chipping away at the foundations, relativising the absolutes,celebrating the fractal geometries of the shopping trolleys … I might continue saying this until everyone agreed that there was nothing to agree om, until the last certainty had been demolished, until there was no more sewing or cutting of the seamless web … AND THEN7? And so to the second kind of thing Imight say 一 that I think the world is like 文 and that f would be better f 文 did not happen and that Z would be a desirable state of affairs. (4nd so e alphapet节 completfe, kow fdy do yox Want 纳in8s I do know that some things make me think, some things make me happy, some things make me angry. That (existentialist?) descriptianof my human condition seems the only place I can start from-. (Cogito ergossoineihing. Reduciio ad defemsiyz, Another 异rsf PRilosopRy) There are lots of things to buy on Festival Park but I do not want to buy them all Tcould ski, swim, bowl, watch a flm, eat … but Iwill choose and will try to account formy choice.Living in my body means Ifeel thatIam making decisions and telting others why Imade them. IfIwant to write I will have my reasons and Ichoose to assert that good reasons should be concerned, engaged, ethical, political, debatable. Representation should have a point beyond the fetishism of it being done (how clever hat man 芸 ) or the fetishism of its impossibility (cleverf).Yet many People have written about Festival Parks as if they don“t want to buy (into) anything themselves but can explain why the poor anthropological dupes who use them find such mindless pleasure mubbing themselves against consumer durables. In cultural terms this oftent adds up to Frankfurt School morality or the latest version of the mass culture thesis.

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Shopping for Principles 51 50 Transgressions No.2 The language of hyper-reality and simulacra adds a contemporary resonance to this form of social distinction but it is distinction all the same 一 Leavis 讨 leathers or Adormno 讨 dragz,Of course this becomes a kind of epistemologically lapsed Postmodermism since talking about“the masses「“ solidifies the liquidity of language into a morality play with them as bad and me as good. Iknow and they don“t. The very existence of this latter form of post(-)modernism seems to underline my argument. There is always a Ieason for writing, for representing Others, for claiming 2 Position. Whether the epistemologically pure post-modernist likes it or not they live in & word i which they (f they are a human like me) feel that they often make choices 一 about what to buy,who to vote for,whether to write,when to say I (DONTD) LIKE THAT. Criticising the grounds on which the choices are made or noting that the choices are constrained simply shifts your answer to the question to a later date. Every day you have to choose. To go shopping or stay at home? To write Or remaint silent? There are no non-choices,there is no position from which this description of what human beings feel they do can be denied since denial is a choice to0- (Principled anger 一 how quainty) You cannot just shrug your theoretically Principled indifference back at me. To disagree with me is to affirm that I have said something that is worth disagreeing with. To call it serious play, just gaming, does not solve the problem. (Jesters dont tell the King what i0 do) Being alive, reading this journal, means you have to play rather than not play. We are, as existentialists insisted, condemned to freedom even 讨 it isn“t always apParent to us. Now, I know that Festival Park does not speak to me-. I also know that I have an opinion on what it does not say 一 whatI say to it Ilike Stoke, it is my home. Wiiting about Festival Park means expressing my understandings of my home. It meants saying what I like and what Idon“t like. What I think could happen and whatI think should happen.(Xour voice 芒 becoming increasingb shril and Drittle.) It means acknowledging that my shopping trolley is one of those that traces patterns acr0ss the car park. All the time I know that this is the view from here, from where I am. That much I have learnt from post-modern critique 一 it has formed a grinding stone against which to sharpen my imagination3. But post-modernism can only ever be a starting point because the choices do not go away when I refuse the language of certainty. As far as I can see, irony and detachment may make for memorable writing but are not going to make serving hot dogs in a multiplex any more fulflling. Of course there“s alWays a crisis of representation 讨 you can“t get your tongue out of your cheek. Gliding over surfaces is quicker and more spectacular than acknowledging that wWe all get stuck in our various depths. But the depths are always there, choices cannot be metaphorised away, none of us live on the surface of the world all the time. Life is sticky. Politics,ethics, morality become inherently unresolvable 讨 this is accepted because we have burnt all our tusty guidebooks 一 they were always wishful thinking anyWay 一 but we will and must continue doing them whether we like it or not. My use and characterisation of the terms “post-modern「 the bulk of this essay is largely polemical and certainly not precise. I have constructed straw post-modernists and now Im ,happily knocking the stuffing out of them,(4nd irrssponsible puzch of Row cod fhey QR be so silD7) Whilst I acknowledge that Lyotard, Baudrillard (and whoever else you choose to add) may have said or through how Isee some meant something else this was an es8ay that intended to think seemis to me tbat they It . of their ideas being used in contemporary cultural criticism dernism of reaction「 usually end up as 8 Iesource for Foster「s (1985) “post-mo are Warren, (compare Baudrillard, 1983) or“post-modernisml of resistance“(comp of these neither argued, have ators comment ve 1993). Howeven as certain percepti 1992, (Doel, logy epistemo dern uses are compatible with a thorough-going post-mo It is all. at anything on 1993, 1994). Simply put, post-modernism is not a perspective Park. a shrug at Festival the degree zero of writing, the vanishing point of Ology and I feel Imust refuse its Ology and Osophy such of Whilst I accept the persuasiveness I want to g80, and I where to trolley consequences. I will try and guide my shopping rtz「8 Phrase too,Gee there will ty to persuade others that they should go 28 8 apposite rly “epistemological hypochondria“ (1988,p.71)》 seems Particula problems to think about diagnosis for those who are too busy worrying about their a treatment but, perhaps, is there believe not Ido anyone else“s.Ioffer no cure because the same condition. from you will only understand this达 you have been suffering of this text have Indeed, many people who have commented on Previous drafts People were those of Some s. problem accused me of worrying too much about my ss“ and prissine g irrtitatin referees for two journals that rejected this piece for its “Tather points The ng himself“. the way that the author spends“considerable energy punishi ed by a lack of are both well made but perhaps neither referee was ever convinc be a typical this then readers those of one convictions in the first place. f you are ed with combin ce substan over style example of post-modern non-sense, a triamph of n mistake are you e I think a monumental egoism. I don“t enyvy your certainty (becaus d 讪 you aCCUSe i seeing something solid beneath your feeb0 but Im not at alL surprise there together stand can we ink des.Ith barrica the at me of being rather late in arriving there. got We anyWay, aS long as we don「t talk about how demonstrate tbhat, So,Ive tilted at some post-modern windmills i order t0 or nihilism. elitism produce ever only they however many times their sails go round, be clearer then might we least Tuming to ethics and poltics might do that too, but at seems This . about the problems we tilt at and how we believe they might be resolved (1989) and Bernstein to be the broad implication of the neo-pragmatism of Rorty detours above, that the all After what?“. of (1991) 一 always ask, “critique in the name is not SacTed, account My is how Ifeel able to justify whatIthink about Festival Park. but it is from here Imust never forget what made me make this text in the first place, and I insist that you Twould defend y sayings. Laceept the responsibility to disagree, who you Want t0 一 do to want you what have the same responsibility. It depends turn“is the most ical this“eth Persuade and for what Purpose. Smart Suggests that at Giddens calls important feature of much social theory now (1993,p.77),wh pp-154-155)and “utopian realism“,“a critical theory without guarantees“(1990, wWords,you other In agony. moral ble Bauman (1993) sees as a kind of inescapa using the enjoy you 讪 sness shouldm“t accuse shoppers of a version of false consciou be should s assistant shops yourself, and I do, but you can argue other things. That the d over what they paid higher wages, that people who live in Stoke should be consulte all employees that ation, centralis state Want, that local government should not mean ilties than to responsib wider should have effective trade unions, that developers have be available to peoptle their shareholders, that leisure and shopping facilities should

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Shopping for Principles 53 532 Transgressions No.2 without Cars and credit cards, that entrepreneurial consumer capitalism is not the end cf history, that academics should not assume that relativist theory protects them from Political and authorial responsibility. It seems to me that too much irony in writing about cultural,spatial and social change can Prevent any anger Or passion and encourage a kind of fatalism (Hlebdige, 1989, 1990; conira Travers, 1989; 1993). A postmodern epistemology can insulate us against trying to intervene because we assume that we are somehow outside the game. In practice it often also lapses into a disguised elitism. Festival Park is not simply a post-modern theme park of simulacra populated by obsessive consumers, Neither is it the beginning of a golden age of leisure for Stoke-on-Trent. Isuggest instead, rather dully, that i is a site that presents both the problems and the opportunities of service sector capitalism (Campbell 1989). ITsuggest rather more defensively, that anyone Who writes about Festival Parks 一 or anywhere else 一 has a responsibility to be clear about their ethical-political motivations. I also suggest y Dronze head iurmed i0 Joce ihe wind, a red jag uitering 记 oulstrefched hand and yyeetplantiedrmty on a glorious proleiarian that THE WORLD DOES NOT HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS, so why not imagine 2 different One7 The best should not lack all convictions whilst the worst are full of Passionate intensity4. So, Festival Park does represent change, but not as much as I would like. In 1951 UU aforementioned E.JD. Warrilow concluded 《 History of following musings on the future of his beloved landscape. with the BEventually one visualises a sports pavilion,and during the hot Saturday Summer afternoons and evenings the Etruscans w训 be able to recline on the new greensward Watching a typically British vilage cricket match, with the mighty forge at rest; a perfect industrial background complete with the hall This will be a scene of which Josiah Wedgwood himself might well have been proud. (1952, p.373) Josiah might not recognise Festival Park but any entrepreneurial capitalist would have been proud. (And you think I]l go away noW7) NOTES 1. Thanks to Panil GtivelL the Photographer referred lo above. This version of our Wo夕 Would not have been Possible without our earlier collaborations. Thanks also to Alan Sillitoe, David Bell participants in seminars at Staffordshire and Keele Universities for comments and Marcus Doel for giving me something to disagree with. 2.Barry Taylor provided this sugsestive coupleL.. 3.and Hngh Wilimott this metaphor. 4. Apologies to 分 Yeats: REFERENCRS BAUDRILLARD, 小 (1983) 杉 the Shadow of the Silent Majoriiss New York, Semictext(e) BAUMAN, Z. (1992) Intimations of Postmodemity London, Routledge BAUMAN, Z. (1993) Postmodern Ethics Blackwelh Oxford BEAUMONT R. (1992) “Focus on the festivals「 Landscape Design 212 pp.18-20 BENNETT A. (1970) Anna of tfe Ffve Tbwns Londont Methuen BERNSTEIN, R. (1991) The New Constellation Oxford, Polity Seit BRAYN, E. and FISHER, N. (1986) From Inferno to Flowers: The Festival Site Through 200 Years Published, Stoke on Trent CALHOUN, C. (1993) “Postmodernism as pseudohistoy「 Theory「 Cuture and Society 10(1) pp.75-96 CAMBELL, B. (1989) 「New times towns「 in S. HALL and M. JACQUES (Eds) New Times Londons Lawrence and Wishart Cufure and Society 7 pp.49-68 CHANEY D. (1989) 「Subtopia in Gateshead「“ Eyre Methuen London, Bar Shefion for Fight The (1977) P , CHEESEMAN CLOUSTON, E. (1984)Michael Heseltine「s allotment「 The Guardian July 28th CLOUSTON, E. (1986) “Flowerpottey「 The Guardian May 24th CROOK, S.,, PAKULSKI, J., and WATERS, M (1992) Postmodernisation London, Sage DE CAUTER, L. (1993) The panoramic ecstacy「 Theory Cutture and Socioty 10(4) pp.1-23 DOEL, M. (1992) “In stalling deconstruction: Striking out the postmodern“ Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 10 pp.163-179 of he DOEL, M. (1993) “Proverbs for paranoids: Witing geography on hollowed ground「 Transactions Js扰ute of Briish Geographers 18(3) pp.1-18 DOEL M. (1994) “Deconstruction on the move“ Environment and Planning A 26(7) pp.1041-1059 FOSTER, H. (1985) “Postmodernism: A preface「 in H Foster (Ed.) Postmodern Cufture London, Pluto th, FRAYN, ML (1964) Festivaf in M. SISSONS and P FRENCH (Eds) Age of Austeriy Harmondswor Penguin GEERTZ, C. (1988) Works and Lives Cambridge, Polity GIDDENS, A. (1990) The Conseguences of Modemity Cambridge, Polity GOODEY, B. (1992) 「How green the next valley?「 Landscape Hesearch Exira 11 p.9 at the GRIVELL, P, and PARKER, M. (1989) “City in Bloomy an exhibition of photographs and text Flaxman Gallery, Staffordshire Polytechnic HARVEY D. (1989} The Conditfon of Postmoderniy Oxford, Blackwell HEBDIGE, D. (1989) After the masses「 in S. HALL and M. JACQUES (Eds) New Times Lawrence and Wishart HEBDIGE, D. (1990) Hioing杉 te Light London, Routledge JACOBS, B. (1992) Fractured Ciies London Routledge. JAMESON, F (1991) Postmodemisny o the Cutural Logic of Late Capjialem London, Verso LASH, S. (1990) Socioflogy of Postmodernism London, Routledge KROKER, A, and COOK, D. (1988) The Postmodem Scene London, Macmillan LASH, S.,and URRY 小 (1987) The End of Oganised Caplialism Oxford, Polity LEWIS, 小 (1985) 「Flowers bloom as the smoke clears「 Jhe Guardian Nov 26th Postmoderr Condition Manchester, Manchester University Press LYOTARD,J-F (1986) MORRIS, M. (1993), Things to do with shopping centres「 in S. DURING (Ed) The Cuural Studiss Reader London, Routledge Jacques (Ed.) New Times MULGAN, G. (1989) 「The changing shape of the city「 in S. Hail and London, Lawrence and Wishart PARKER, M. (1990) The architecture of consumption「 Where Else 4 pp.7-8 PARKER, M (1992) 「How green was my valley「“ New Statesman and Society 1st May p.34 PARKER, M., and GRIVELL P. (1990) “Cities in bloom「 New Statesman and Society 10 May pp.43-44 PARKER, M., and GRIVELL, P, (1992) “Photos, words and shopping: Re-presenting the Stoke Garden Festival「 Magazine of Cultural Studiss 5 pp.22-26 PEVSNER, N. (1974) The Buildings of England: Statffordshire Harmondsworth, Penguin ROBERTS, J (1989) 「Green mantle「 The Guardian 17th June Reading Landscape Manchester ROBERTS, J (1990) 「The greening of capitatism in S. PUGH Manchester University Press

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54 Transgressions No.2 ROBERTS, Y (1988) 「Boys with the greenbacks「 New Statesman and Society 9th December RCOJEK, C. (1989) Leisure and “The Ruins of the Bourgeois World in C. RCJEK (Ed.) Lelsure for Lelsure London, Macmillan RORTY, R. (1989) Contingency /ony, Soigarfty Cambridge, Cambridge University Press SHIELDS, R. (Ed.) (1992) Lilesty「e Shopping London, Routledge Coke Exhibiton, Newcastle-upon-Tyne SIDE GALLERY (1989) Coke SMART, B, (1993) Postmoderniy London, Routledge STOKE-ON-TRENT CITY COUNCIL AND STAFFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL (1984) Nationay Garden Festival Site Long Term Development Brief TRAVERS, A. (1989) 「Shelf-life zero: A classic postmodernist paper“ Phiosophy of fe Social Sciences 19 pp.291-320 TRAVERS, A. (1993) 「An essay on self and camp“ Theoy, Cuiure and Society 10(1) pp.127-143 URRY, J (1990) The Jourist Gaze London, Sage WARREN, S. (1993) This heaven gives me migraines「 in J DUNCAN and D. LEY (Eds), Place/Cuture/Hepresentation London, Routledge WARRILOW, E. (1952) A Histoy of Elruria Stafforgshire, Engiand 1760-1951 Stoke-on-Trent, Etruscan Publications Old 6oltland, New Babylon Peop/es a04 places iD 加e worXKk of Jo/) 3074 C0]5加小 y Crahal Birfwfsje Introduction Some twentieth-century artists have created not only artefacts but theories, Projects n and movements. Asger Jorm and Constant (Nieuwenhuys) belong to that breed. Painteriy assessing their careers we have to take note of the way they have extended t0 concerns into the realm of architecture and planning and expanded the artist「s role places, Peoples, situations. and attitudes cultural and include the shaping of social sense environments 一 Teal or imagined,past,Present or future 一 are in that materials「 to which these two artists have turned. The names of Jorn and Constant frequently crop up together训 art historical (1948accounts. They co-operated closely in a series of movements from CoBrA And 1957. in 1951) to the Internationale Situationniste, which they helped to found their co-operation even survived the kind of domestic entanglement that Can Put an end to the best of friendships. But for all the links and similarities between Jorn and Constant there were also differences,particulardly with regard to the peoples and places that fired their respective imaginations. By the sixties a 8eographical contrast 训 their work had become quite striking:-But differences were discernible earlier, event at the time of CoBIA. 医胺心he forties: hational or international att “Probably a wartime phenomenon, an attempt on the part of intellectually imprisoned pPersons to seek beyond time and place““.! That remark was made i Denmark in 1945 the art journal published by Jorn and his circle at the closing down of through most of the years of German occupation of their land. Perhaps the Iemiark contained a grain of truth, but it did not tell the whole story. Helhesien had pointed beyond the immediate circumstances of the war, but 达 it had offered an imaginative escape it had also provided a programme of cultural resistance. It had advocated the

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56 Transgressions No.2 Old Gotland, New Babylon 57 kind of modern and “primitive“ art that the Nazis regarded as decadent, and by fusing world-wide ethnography with Scandinavian archaeology it had countered Nazi ideas of Nordic purity, Moreover,the language of HelRestiex was that of international socialism and its message was freedom 一 both for society and for art. For Jom those were not simply wartime issues which lost their relevance when the Nazis were defeated. / “Today, fortunately, we have liberated ourselves from Teutonism“, Jorn wrote in 1946.2 But he went on to add a warning:“let us therefore not fetter ourselves to a Romanism or classicistic mentality“. Writing as a Dane to Danes, Jorm urged the development of 8& neW artistic language,the result of “allowing our natural, environmentally determined character to liberate itself from the classical cultural dictatorship which has been a nightmare to us down the centuries““We shan“t see Danish art through Parisian eyes any more“, he asserted; “On the contrary, we shall See and study Paris, yes and the art of the whole world, through Danish eyes“. There was a curious mixture of international awareness and national feeling in Jorn「s words. His nationalism had to do,of course,with a post-war euphoria of Hberation. But it also bore the traces of a nineteenth-century movement that had sought to diminish classical influences in Danish education and accentuate instead the local traditions of Denmark and Scandinavia. What was evident Jorn「s words was an essentially Romantic sense of a divide between Scandinavia and a cultural world to the south that had followed the leadership of Greece and Rome 一 and Paris. But Jom was also wellaware that Denmark, as the southernmost of the northern lands, was in the frontline position in this meeting of cultures. His northern identity was therefore something complex and it did not amount to any simplistic notion of belonging to a pure Nordic race and culture. So, Jorn wrote in 1946, the “hey-day of Nordic art“ 训 the early medieval period was not to be explained in the dubious terms of a “mystical independent Aryan creativity“but rather as the product of cultural interaction:“As long as we were free with regard to Graeco-Roman art we could let ourselves be inspired by Here, clearly, Jorn was establishing an historical precedent for his current situation. With the ending of the war he looked southwards to Paris, where in the thirties he had already experienced a tension between the “classical“ and Tationalistic「 character of L6Eger and Le Corbusier and his own northern, less rational apProach to art. Now he needed the stimulus of that difference and that interaction again. Paris Was the“contemporary centre of world art“ and the place, moreover, Where a great artist like Picasso could affirm his national character in an international context.4 That interested Jorn. Paris, world art, Danish eyes: Jom「s words of 1946 tumed out to have Practical Consequence as well as a certain brayura. During the following two years he travelled as far north as Swedish Lapland and as far south as the Tunisian island ofDjerba, with many stops 一 including Paris 一 i between. It was in Paris in 1946 that Jorn met Constant, who was also looking for international contacts and stimuli. The meeting was strategic for the history of Cobra. A long lasting fiendship began and through further contacts 一 forexample with the Belgian writer Dotremont 一 plans for a new intemational art journal finally crystallised into the founding of a movement. CoBrA began in 1948 in Paris,but as its deliberately. geographical name (Copenhagen- Fig. 1 Comparison of the medieval town-plan of Mechelen (Mabnes) and a Cross-section of the human Sartorius-muscle. the Bmssels-Amsterdam)5 suggests, the intention was to Point 2way from Paris, to of year first north. The attraction of the“Co“ of Cobra was initially strong, and in the the movement Dutchmen, Belgians and even Parisians were making the journey northwards, enthused by Jorn to see art as it were through Danish eyes. However, the geography of Cobra tumed out to be a more complicated matter than its name suggested, and its leading trio 一 Jorm, Constant, Dotremont 一 brought three different responses to the question of what Cobra「s internationalism meant. Dotremont,as editor of the Cobra publications,Proclaimed the moyement「s internationalism 训 terms of a meeting of named nationalities and places, His formulations ranged from a kKind of surreal geography 一 “ est SCandaleuX que Bruxellies et Copenhague, par exemple, ne soient pas la banlieue Lune de Tautre“5 一 to a theory based on organic metaphor 一 “L「art doit avoir des Tacines nationales et une vie intemationale“.“ And though he had become enchanted by Scandinavian culture, by late 1949 he was looking beyond the “dane-belge-hollandaise“ Hnk and bombastically announcing the possibility of coming Swedish, Anglo-Americant and Czechoslovakian numbers of Copra, or even a Hindu onels What did come in 1950, remarkably enough, was a German number (Cobyra 5). Jorn「s position was more enigrmatic- Since 1946 he had been working on a theory of art and society,aspects 6f which he published in (mainly _ Scandinavian) architectural journals.,? On the face of it Jorn「s themes were those of international art Of surrealisml and and politics. He sought to improve on the“6criture in Painting. And life of find a more materialistic, free and unprogrammed expression he wanted to correct Bauhaus functionalism“and Le Corbusier“s inftuential theories by postulating an approach to the man-made environment that Was less Tationalistic, less repressive of the natural life of man: a“living form“of the kind he saw exemplified in folk-arts around the world and in medieval Westerm arts (fig.1). These artistic and architectural themes were embedded 讨 a militant, though unorthodox, Marxist critique of society and culture, in which rationalism, the classical tradition and class-society formed the great historical conjuncture which had tried to suppTess

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Old Gotland, New Babylon 57 56 Transgressions No.2 kindof modern and “primitive“ art that the Nazis Tegarded as decadent, and by fusing world-wide ethnography with Scandinavian archaeology it had countered Nazi ideas was that of international of Nordic purity,、Moreover,the language of socialism and its message was freedom 一 both for society and for art. For Jorn those were not simply wartime issues which lost the训 relevance when the Nazis were defeated. | “Today, fortunately, we have liberated ourselves from Teutonism“, Jorn wrote in 1946.2 But he went on to add a Warning:“let us therefore not fetter ourselves to a Romanism or classicistic mentality“. Writing as a Dane to Danes, Jorn urged the development of a new artistic language,the result of“allowing our natural, environmentally determined character to liberate itself from the classical cultural dictatorship which has been a nightmare to us down the centuries“.“We shan“t see Danish art through Parisian eyes any more“, he asserted;:“On the contrary, we shall see and study Paris, yes and the art of the whole world, through Danish eyes“. There was a curious mixture of international awareness and national feeling in Jorm「s words. His nationalism had to do,of course,with a Post-war euphoria of Fig. 1 Comparison of the medieval town-plan of Mechelen (Mabnes) and a cross-section of the human Sartorius-muscle. liberation. But it also bore the traces of a nineteenth-century movement that had sought to diminish classical influences in Danish education and accentuate instead the Brussels-Amsterdam)5 suggests, the intention was to point away from Paris, to the north. The attraction of the“Co“ of Cobra was initially strong, and in the first year of local traditions of Denmark and Scandinavia. What was evident in Jorn「s Words Was the movement Dutchmen,Belgians and even Parisians were making the journey northwards, enthused by Jorn to see art as it were through Danish eyes. an essentially Romantic sense of a divide between Scandinavia and a Cultural world to the south that had followed the leadership of Greece and Rome 一 and Paris. But Jorn was also well aware that Denmark, as the southernmostof the northern lands, Was 训 the frontline position in this meeting of cultures. His northern identity was therefore something complex and it did not amount to any simplistic notion of belonging to a Pure Nordic race and culture. So, Jorn wrote in 1946, the“hey-day of Nordic art“ in the early medieval period was not to be explained in the dubious terms of a“mystical independent Aryan creativity“but rather as the product of cultural interaction:“Ais long as we were free with regard to Graeco-Roman art We could let ourselves be Here, clearly, Jorm was establishing an historical precedent for his inspired by current situation. With the ending of the war he looked southwards to Paris, where in the thirties he had already experienced a tension between the“classical“ and “rationalistic“ character of LEger and Le Corbusier and his own northerm, less rational approach to art. Now he needed the stimulus of that difference and that interaction again. Paris Was the“contemporary centre of world art“and the place, moreove, Where a great artist like Picasso could affirm his national character in an international context.4 That interested Jorn. Paris, world artb, Danish eyes: Jorn「s words of 1946 tuned out to have practical consequence as well as a Certain brayura. During the following two years he travelled as far north as Swedish Lapland and as far south as the Tunisian island of Djerba, with many stops 一 including Paris 一 in between. It was in Paris in 1946 that Jorn met Constant, Who was also looking for international contacts and stimuli. The meeting wWas strategic for the history of Cobra. A long lasting friendship began and through further contacts 一 for example with the Belgian writer Dotremont 一 plans for a new international art journal finally crystallised into the founding of a movement. CoBrA began i 1948 in Paris,but as its deliberately geographical name (Copenhagen- However, the geography of Cobra tumed out to be a more complicated matter than its name suggested, and its leading trio 一 Jom, Constant, Dotremont 一 brought three different responses to the question of what Cobra「s internationalism meant. Dotremont,as editor of the internationalism Cobra publications,proclaimed the movement 「s terms of a meeting of named nationalities and places、His formulations ranged from a kind of surreal geography 一 “ est scandaleux que Bruxelles et Copenhague, par exemple, ne soient pas la banlieue l「une de 1「autre“「5 一 to a theory based on organic metaphor 一 “L“art doit avoir des racines nationales et une vie internationale“.7 And though he had become enchanted by Scandinavian culture, by late 1949 he was looking beyond the“dane-belge-hollandaise“ link and bombastically announcing the possibility of coming Swedish, Anglo-American and Czechoslovakian numbers of Copra, or even a Hindu onels What did come in 1950, remarkably enough, was a German number (Copra 5). Jorn「s position was more enigmatic. Since 1946 he had been working on a theory of art and society,aspects of which he published in (mainly Scandinavian) architectural journals.? On the face of it Jorn「s themes were those of international art and politics. He sought to improve on the“6criture automatique“of surrealism and find a more materialistic, free and unprogrammed expression of life in painting. And he wanted to correct Bauhaus “functionalism“and Le Corbusier“s influential theories by postulating an approach to the man-made environment that Was less rationalistic, less repressive of the natural life of man: a“living form“of the kind he saw exemplified in folk-arts around the world and in medieval Western arts (fig.1). These artistic and architectural themes were embedded in a militant, though unorthodox, Marxist critique of society and culture, in which rationalism, the classical tradition and class-society formed the great historical conjuncture which had tried to supPITeSs

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Old Gotland, New Babylon 59 58 Transgressions No.2 behind his call for artistic and political change he was feverishty delving into the In Paris in and Constant - had been drawn back to work in Paris, as f by a magnet. images of 1950-1951, Jom and Constant seemed to have left the exuberant, hopeful a time, i at threat and n aggressio war, of themes Cobra behind. Both of them painted wife had “s (Constant up fact, when their domestic lives had been thoroughly shaken t begun left him for Jorn in 1949). Cobra was collapsing, and the Cold War had archaeology Of his own Cultural roots. This lent a Certain ambivalence to Jorn「s dominate international politics:. attitude. In Copra 1 he could vehemently defend internationalism and condemnt an attack of Jorn「s situation in Paris was aggravated by extreme poverty and treated at the tuberculosis. In April 1951 he was invalided back to Denmark to be he detesied sanatorium in his home town of Silkeborg, where he painted Returr i0 had been a What n. frustratio his ed symbolis that n with its images of aggressio his forced through became, national-international ambivalence in Jorn「s attitude his long return, more of a love-hate relationship with the place he came from.s During a truly spontaneous folk-art. But Jormn「s view of these international issues remained affected by his sense of being geographically and historically a foreigner to classical tradition and an emancipator with regard to its“cultural dictatorship「. Behind his role in the“Internationale「 of Cobra he was firmly attached to regional concepts of art, and chauvinistic approaches to folk-art,while in his own country he had jnst been researching the origins of specifically Danish folk-art in the early Middle Ages 一 a period when, as Jom later wryly admitted, Denmark did not exist as a nation.l0 y 1950 he was telling Copra readers that international and national aspects of folk-art do not cancel each other out. In the shortest of short articles on “L「art sans frontibres「 his motto was: “Lart national est jamais valable, Lart valable est toujours national“ 一 an example of Jorn「s predilection for paradox.il The article was indeed Paradoxical. Jorn fused internationalism with nationalism and returned pointedly to Picasso“s demonstration that “un artiste peut bien vivre en exil sans Perdre son caracttre national“. That told a great deal about Jorn himself. There was a certain attraction of opposites: both the Spanish and the Nordic were geographically, in Jorn「s eyes, non-classical. And like Picasso, Jorn used an international sounding-board to let his national character resonate. In fact, Jorn was a restless Dane at home but a committed Dane in exile. His travels and international orientation helped him affinm is roots. Constant, as the younger man, was initially influenced by Jorn. His“Manifesto「 of 1948 and the other theoretical articles he wrote for Reflex and Copra agreed closely with Jorn「s ideas in rejecting a bourgeois classical tradition and proposing the expeiiment of a free and spontaneous new alrt.12 But Constant did not share Jorn 「s Scandinavian awareness, nor did he replace it with any discemible nationalism of his own. Just as he and other Dutch artists,tke Appel and Corneille,had responded positively to the vitality of Danish painting, but not to its Scandinavian mystidque, Constant responded selectively to the theories of Jorn. It was the intemational socialist ideal for art that Constant embraced. If he referred to Mondrian, for example, or to the exhibition of child art in the Stedelijjk Museum of Amsterdam, if was not because he wWanted to draw attention to speciftically Dutch developments. And 讪 he drew up a statement on behalf of the Dutch Experimental Group for Cobra, it was not i order to air national issues: Dotremont, not Constant, Was the one Who pointed to the“sens holiandais「 of notions he expressed.t3 Of the leading theorists of Cobra, Constant Was the odd man out. His own nationality was completely absorbed in his identity as an international artist and a critical member of Western society. The distinctions that mattered to Constant were not those of nationality but those of artistic attitude and ideology. What counted to him was not where the individual came from,but where society Was going to. Not roots, but change. ically, recovery process Jorn responded to his misfortune in several ways- Philosoph a neW, art and tHfe in ty spontanei of theory his gave his experience of near-fatal iliness 1952, 讨 um sanatori the at while wrote existential edge: Risk and Chance, the book he y, he Practicall “.5 dealt with aesthetics as“the reaction of the known to the hnknown“ le turned to a new medium, ceramics, and in his painting he worked on some large-sca life-andpersonal his to related (which life「 of wheel “The cycles, treating themes like myth「 (in death awareness as well as his researches into medieval arb) and “The silent nt,not was“sile which,as Jom put it,the painterly relation with Nordic myth a great illustrative“)u6 And geographically, when he was fit enough to do so Jorn put lived briefly deal of distance between himself and his native country. In 1953-1954 he by 1955 and Albisola, of towan Italian i Switzerland, in 1954 he moved to the North new made he exile, an he also had a studio in Paris again. Resuming the iife of Le s: contacts i Italy and France and was instrumental in organising new movement in 1954, Mouvement International pour un Bauhaus Imasginiste (MTBD) was founded onale Internati the form to Lettriste onale Internati and i 1957 it combined with the but new, were fifties the of ances Situationniste (IS). The movements and circumst Jorn once again involved his old colleague, Constant. Constant, too, had been tuning negative factors and experiences into basis for a new orientation.His memorable war-paintings of 1950-1951 had dealt with the and destruction of people and the places and 一 through his“scorched earth“ theme gradually destruction of theme The itself. life of animal-metaphors 一 the destruction tumed into that of construction. By 1952 Constant「s war-images were more abstract with and by 1953 he was painting geometriGal colour-shapes and presenting, together the architect Aldo van Ryck, a new concept of“spatial colourism“that recalled the of De integration of painting and architecture projected i the 1920s in the circles S町L Not only theory, but experience played its part in Constant「s new orientation. In his uprooted circumstances he had lived mostiy i Paris from 1950 to 1952, and he spent the winter of 1952-1953 in London. To judge from his letters at the time, he was very The ffties: (dis)orientations taken up with analysing the cities in which he found himself. His comments could reflect an awareness of structure and planning, but most of all they relayed Constant“s The morthern「orientation of Cobra was shortlived. It is salutary to remember that before the movement ended in 1951 most of its founder-members 一 including Jorn subjective experience of the places and peoples he encountered. London, for exarmple, he hated. This, the largest city of the world, actually consisted of a small metropolitan

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Old Gotland, New Babylon 61 60 Transgressions No.2 Fig. 2 Constant, Design Jor a 1956, wood, Plexiglass, stainless stee1 130 x 130 cm centre with a“sickening great village“around itb Piccadilly Circus was not half as exciting as the Rembrandt Plein, there was no life after eleven o「clock in the evening, and Constant had just experienced the worst London fog in two years, which had deprived him of daylight for three days. Moreover, he had grown so irritated by the “real “British「 characteristics“ of phlegmatism and politeness that he listened to Radio Paris with nostalgia and “even felt sentimental about Holland“.ls The selft-mocking tone of that last remark showed that national feeling was not Constant「s main Preoccupation. But what did concern him increasingly in the mid-fifties was the Cconcept of the city and the subjective experience of the man-made environment. In that respect, the anti-functionalist congress organised by MIBI (chiefly Jom and Pinot Gallizio) at Alba in 1956 constituted a tumning-point for Constant、There Constant was introduced to Parisian Lettrists as well as artists from MIBI, and found himself among congenial spirits. While Constant had been shifting his emphasis froml painting to the creation of spaces and environments, the Lettrists had been developing a Dada-like disorientation of literature and the printed page into a Tevolutionary approach to urban life. As a new subjective impulse within Marxism, Lettrism looked for a practical fulfilment of Marx“s non-alienated man by disorientating the structured Fig. 3 Asger Jorn, Conte du nord, oil on existing painting; 81 X 34 cm environment of capitalism and tradition. Unprogrammed poetry gave rise to a liberated sense of geography, and already by 1953 there was a Lettrist concept of a neW kind of living「 city that could respond flexibly to human needs and whims.19 After Alba, Constant quickiy developed intensive contacts with the leading Lettrist theorist, Guy-Ernest Debord, and it was Constant and Debord, more than Jorm, Who shaped the And it was after theoretical basis for the new Internationale Situationniste in Constant made that gypsies, with contact into him brought Alba, where Gallizio had an imagined as (1956) his pioneering construction Design br d g)PSy 3 《 Constant embraced the policy of integrated arts and the“unitary urbanism“and “psychogeography“of the IS,officially leaving painting behind to concentrate increasingly on a project that consisted of the designs, plans and models for an imagined, liberated society of the future and its technological infrastructure. By 1960 environment for people who were living examples of the international and the Constant was calling his project “New Babylon“, a name Suggested by Debord and Probably derived from a Russian film of that name in the twenties.21 It was to Preoccupy him throughout the sixties. Jorn, on the other hand, continued to paint. geographically unattached (fig. 2). Though contributing to Situationist“detournement「“by his modifications of old paintings (fg. 3), and though co-operating with Debord in making books like Fin de

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62 Transgressions No.2 Oid Gotland, New Babylon 63 Copenhagxe and Mkmoires 一 examples of geographical disorientation on the printed page 一 Jom represented a dissident element in the IS since he refused to concede that the taditional, individual arts had had their day. It was Constant who called Jorn to task in the pages of Iniernationale Situationniste: Jorn「s ideas and his continued activity as a painter did not rhyme with unitary urbanism, Constant wrote, and Jorn “s attitude to industrialisation was naive. And Jom had too high an estimation of the Romantics (like Paul Klee) in the early Bauhaus.“2 By the late fifties the divergence between Jorn and Constant was becoming more marked. The sixties and seventies: old Gotland, New Babylon Curiously, in view of their respective attitudes, Constant left the IS before Jorm did. Constant quit suddenly i 1960, disappointed that a“dynamic labyrinth「“project intended for Amsterdam“s Stedelijk Museum had been replaced by an exhibition of Gallizio「s work. Individualism, it seemed to him, had won and the IS had left the increasingly political movement训 1961, never having been a believer in unitary urbanism but never having lost his good relations with Debord. And Jom did continue to keep in close contact with Situationist splinter groups Hike those of his brother, Jorgen Nash in Sweden and Jacqueline de Jong in Holland.x What surfaced again in Jom“s career in the sixties was his old interest in regional cultural difference and, especially, the unidgueness of Scandinayian art and thought. His researches showed remarkable eudition and considerable eccentricity. Fascinated by the principle of complementarity in physics, he looked to Bohr「s“Copenhagen Interpretation「 as a challenge to Einstein and even went on to offer his own“Silkeborg Interpretation「.% He attempted a characterisation of Nordic philosophy in distinction to Greek and modern European philosophies, finally concluding that Nordic thought was not “philosophy“ in the classical sense but more akin to the gnostic tradition of India.“ And in the history of art Jorm「s interests were mainly typological: he discerned three main traditions 一 Latin, Byzantine and Nordic 一 and concentrated as he had done in the forties on a contrast between the Nordic and the Latin (classical and Hig.4 Asger Jorn, Garden with ceramic Sculpture at Albisola medieval Scandinavian art with the promised 10,000 Iears ofNordic Fo仁 4r.2 The series was to be Jorn“s“dignified and kindly answer“ to French cultural powera0 一 “fantastic demonry“ and running the risk of madness, while the Latin approach sought “The Euromaniacs shall have Scandinavia as a counterbalance“, he said in 1964 3! 一 but the project founded after disagreements between Jorn and the scholars and the rational safety of anchoring images i words and concepts.“ In spite of the diversity of his interests and themes one gains the distinct impression that Jorm was sponsors he had engaged. But he did continue to publish on Nordic art and his last major project, centred on the Swedish island of Gotland, did come to fmuition, albeit basically providing a geographical location and a historical background for the posthumously.32 In the late sixties and early seventies Jorn visited Gotland several times. It was a place where he,confessed to being enchanted 一 with the islands itself French). Nordic art and the Nordic mind put the image before the word, releasing a anarchic,psychic sense of form and meaning which marked his paintings,his stress that Nordic art 一 his art 一 Was at root shamanistic rather than designed to and with the enigmatic reliefs i the Grbtlingbo Church,which offered him an opportunity to study how “an image oriented mentality transforms factual history into a world of fantasy“.% The factual history was that of Theoderic the Goth and the Please the senses. Danish eyes saw differently than French eyes. If there was talk of Denmark joining the European Common Market then Jorn opposed such artificial fantasy-world concerned the Nordic legend of Didrek, and it was a postulated link between the two that stimulated Jorn「s imagination (fig. 5). unity, much as he had opposed Nazi-occupation during the wan, by means of a kind of Jorn died in 1973 and his ashes were taken to Gotland. A year later a major exhibition opened in The Hague presenting the plans, texts, drawings and madquettes writings, and the“wild architecture「 he created at his house and gardens in Albisolazs (fig.4). In a Europe increasingly tending towards unification he found it important to cultural resistance in which art and its history was one of his chief weapons. He founded the ironic-serious Scandinayian Institute for Comparative Vandalism in 1961 一 “vandalism“Was the provocative term he used to denote the anruly Ccharacter of Scandinavian art down the ages 一 and financed the photography of a great deal of of New Babylon, the project on which Constant had worked for some fifteen years.% Old Gotland, New Babylon: the contrast, it seems, could hardly have been greater. Gotland represented Jom「s fascination with the past,New Babylon represented

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Old Gotland, New Babylon 63 62 Transgressions No.2 Copenhague and MEmoires 一 examples of geographical disorientation on the printed page 一 Jorn represented a dissident element in the IS since he refused to concede that the traditional, individual arts had had their day. It was Constant who called Jorn to task i the pages of Jntiernationale Situationmiste: Jorn「s ideas and his continued activity as a painter did not rhyme with unitary urbanism, Constant wrote, and Jorn 「s attitude to industrialisation was naive. And Jom had too high an estimation of the Romantics (like Paul Klee) in the early Bauhaus.2 By the late fifties the divergence between Jorn and Constant was becoming more marked. The sixties and seventies: old Gotland, New Babylon Curiously, in view of their respective attitudes, Constant left the IS before Jorm did. Constant quit suddenly in 1960,disappointed that a“dynamic labyrinth“project intended for Amsterdam“s Stedelijk Museum had been replaced by an exhibition of Gallizio「s work. Individualism, it seemed to him, had won and the IS had failed.3Jorn left the increasingly political movement in 1961, never having been a believer in unitary urbanism but never having lost his good relations with Debord. And Jorn did continue to keep in close contact with Situationist splinter groups like those of his brother, Jorgen Nash in Sweden and Jacqueline de Jong in Holland.>4 What surfaced again in Jorn「s career in the sixties was his old interest in regional cultural difference and, especially, the uniqueness of Scandinavian art and thought. His researches showed remarkable erudition and considerable eccentricity. Fascinated Fig. 4 Asger Jorn, Garden With Cerammic Sculpture at Albisola by the principle of complementarity in physics, he looked to Bohr「s“Copenhagen Interpretation「 as a challenge to Einstein and even went on to offer his own “Silkeborg Interpretation「.5 He attempted a characterisation of Nordic philosophy in distinction to Greek and modern European philosophies, finally concluding that Nordic thought was not “philosophy「 in the classical sense but more akin to the gnostic tradition of India.2“ And in the history of art Jom「s interests were mainly typological: he discerned three main traditions 一 Latin, Byzantine and Nordic 一 and concentrated as he had done in the forties on a contrast between the Nordic and the Latin (classical and French). Nordic art and the Nordic mind put the image before the word, releasing a “fantastic demonry“and running the risk of madness, while the Latin approach sought the rational safety of anchoring images in words and concepts.“ In spite of the diversity of his interests and themes one gains the distinct impression that Jorn Was basically providing a geographical location and a historical background for the anarchic,psychic sense of form and meaning which marked his paintings,his writings, and the“wild architecture“ he created at his house and gardens in Albisola2zs (fig.4). In a Europe increasingly tending towards unification he found it important to medieval Scandinavian art with the promised 10,000 Xears ofNordic Fo爪 4rt.2 The series was to be Jorn「s“dignified and kindly answer“ to French cultural powerao 一 “The Euromaniacs shall have Scandinavia as a counterbalance“, he said in 1964 3! 一 but the project founded after disagreements between Jorn and the Scholars and sponsors he had engaged. But he did continue to publish on Nordic art and his last major project, centred on the Swedish island of Gotland, did come to fruition, albeit Posthumously.32 In the late sixties and early seventies Jorn visited Gotland several times. It was a place Where he confessed to being enchanted 一 with the islands itself and with the enigmatic reliefs in the Church,which offered him an stress that Nordic art 一 his art 一 Was at TIoot shamanistic rather than designed to opportunity to study how “an image oriented mentality transforms factual history into a World of fantasy“.33 The factual history was that of Theoderic the Goth and the please the senses. Danish eyes saw differently than French eyes. If there was talk of Denmark joining the European Common Market then Jorn opposed such artificial fantasy-world concerned the Nordic legend of Didrek, and it was a postulated link between the two that stimulated Jorn“s imagination (fig. 5). unity, much as he had opposed Nazi-occupation during the wan, by means of a kind of cultural resistance in which art and its history was one of his chief weapons. He founded the ironic-serious Scandinavian Institute for Comparative Vandalism in 1961 Jorn died in 1973 and his ashes were taken to Gotland. A year later a major exhibition opened in The Hague presenting the plans, texts, drawings and maquettes - 一 “vandalism“was the provocative term he used to denote the unruly character of Scandinavian art down the ages 一 and financed the photography of a great deal of of New Babylon, the project on which Constant had worked for some fifteen years.34 Old Gotland, New Babylon: the contrast, it seems, Could hardly haye been greater. Gotland represented Jorm「s fascination with the past,New Babylon represented

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Old Gotland, New Babylon 65 New Babylonian as a nomadic, free, creative fgure, in part the New Man of Marxism and i part modelled on the gypsy. Gotland concemed Jom“「s sense of roots, New Babylon demonstrated Constant「s call for a revolution that leaves the old world and its ties behind. In Gotland Jorn searched for old traces of the interaction of reality and fantasy, in New Babylon Constant sought to use fantasy to trigger a reality that Was yet to COme. It would be easy, of course, to sSuggest that the contrast between Jorn and Constant has to do with well-known national characteristics: the Northern Romantic versus the Dutch creator of his own environment. Perhaps there is something in that, but what is more to the point, it seems to me, is that Constant「s New Babylon was essentially a modernist project, envisaging the triumph of Enlightenment and progress over old situations and old identities. Destruction and construction went hand in hand in New Babylon. Jorn did not seek to obliterate history and roots. For much of his career he wWas an outspoken critic of conyentional concepts of modernism and complexities in Jorn「s attitude have, in fact, aroused comparisons with what in more recent years has been termed post-modernism.35 It was only after New Babylon closed, in the midseventies, that Constant embarked on his own “post-modern“「voyage into art history 绍清 Fig. 5 Medieval relief, Gr6tlingbo Church, Gotland, 训ustrated in CGotiands Didrek (see texX0) Constant「s concern with the future. Gotland was somewhere, New Babylon stood in the utopian tradition of the nowhere. The place and the relics of Gotland drew out the archaeologist in Jorm, the imagined structures of New Babylon were raised above the face of the earth, breaking with history and sprawling across the map in contradiction to familiar geography. Jom“s interest was in a real people, the Goths, who many centuries ago had immigrated and interacted with others. Constant conceived of the Fig.6 Constant New Babylon project bird「s eye view 8rOup Sectors I, 1964, ink, 39x 53cm and New Babylon/Holland, 1963, ink on a Carmap, 49 x 63 Cm, oil on existing painting 81 x 54cm

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Old Gotland, New Babylon 67 66 Transgressions No.2 og Guiiar Siliceborg private printing, 1952, 18. My ranslation from the Danish. as & distinct phase in the dialectical shifts of his career. But then,such labels as 15 A.Jom, eld og Hasard. modernism and post-modemism can distact us from factors which are ultimately 1968, 89 16 G. Attins (with T Andersen), Jorn 汤 Scandinavia 1930-1953, Londom, Lund Humpries, others, Niet 17 Constant en A. vwan Eyck“Voor een gpatiaal colorigme“, Amsterdam, 1953. Cf. A. van Eyck and om het even… wel evermyaardig,Amsterdam, (19870), 38-41 quite Personal. In that respect,Jorm and Constant present us with a paradox. Jorm, despite his strong sense of nationality and origins, travelled incessantly between the various homes and ambiences he created across Europe, while for much of the sixties Constant stayed put in his daily routine in his native Amsterdam. It was Jorm, more than Constant, who lived the life of the New Babylonian. Wonders never Cease. he 18 Unpublished leter Constant to Martin and Mia Visser, from Londom, 10 November 1952. Collection of Positive, always not was Parisiane the and Paris to reaction Constant「s Dutch. the from ranslation My author. 40 either; see passage from a letter to Aldo van Eyck 记 A. van Eyck and others, op. cit (note 17), 19 Gilles Ivan“Formulaire pour un Mrbanisme nouVeat, Jniernationale Written as early a5 1953. This text was first published in jaargang 11, 1990, No. 4,published by Kunstgeschiedenis en Archeologie, Vrije Universitiet, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam. Dr Graham Birtwistle teaches modern art history at Free University of Amsterdam and has published studies on Jorn「s art theory, Cobra, post-war art and thought including Living hrt: hsger (1958) 1,15-20,was 1he 20 For the history of the Situationist International and its constituent 8rOUPS 8ee- E, Suosman (edj), On 1957-1972, Jnternational The Time: 汤 BrigfMomeni Raiher a Through People Poassage ofa Faw Cambridge, Mass. and London, England. MTT Press/The Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, 1989, and: 叉. Ohrt Phantom hyantsarde, Eine Geschichte der Siuetionistischer Jnternationale und der Odenniert Hamburg, Edition Nautitus Galeeie van de Loo, 1990. Ohrt「s book s written from a distinctly geographical CompyreRensive Theory of 4rX Befween angle. Hague, 21 R. Ohrt op. cit (note 20), 118. See further: Exh. cat New Babylom, Gemeenternuseuny The September 1974. (1958) 2 23 22 Constant “Sur nos moyens et nos perspectives“, Jnternationalg Helhesten and Copra (1946-1949) Reflex, Utrecht, 1986. June- 23 JTL. Locher, nleiding「, in exhi. cat New Babylom op. cit. (note 21), 12 24 In the sixties Nash published the magazine Drakajyssef (Ihe Dragon「s Lair) and De Jong published Siuationist Times, both of which printed Jorn「s srticles. NOTES 1 “Quoted (in English) in: R. Dahimann Oisen, Danish hbstract hrt A Danish Contribuiion to Jniernational Development记 krf Since 1933, Smithsonian Institution, Washingtonyprinted ip Denmark, 1964, unpaginated. Dahimann Olsen「s source is the Danish periodical Aratiderne (1945) 2 2 A Jorm “En ny biliedafiaesning og dens konselvenser“, Nyt fidsstr沐for Kirutindustri 19 (1946) 3, 48-56 en 68, 68. My translation fom the Danish. 3 Ibidem, 68- 4 “A. Jorn Nya tenenser i Pariskonsten「, Ny Tid, Goiebors 8 August 1947. 5 “Cf. letter C. Doremont to G. Jespersen,April 1966, published (in Danish) 训 Cras (1989) 55,69-71: 气 invented thename COBRA in Bmussels in mid-November 1948 just after it was founded. In part I was inspired by LE SERPENT DE MER and by Breton「s masterpiece NADJA, but the most important thing is that I locked for and found a name 山at Was geographical“. My translation fom the Danish. The 25 A. Jom Nafurens Orden. De Divisione Naturae, Copenhagen, Borgens Forlag, 1962 26 A Jomn, Nordens Teoretioke hestet沛 Copenhagen, Borgens Forlag, 1967,208 The 27 A Jom,“Mind and sense. on the principle of ambivalence 讨 nordic luedrapa and mind singing, Situarionist Times (1964) 5, 5, 28.“Wild architecture“was Debord「s termi see his esssy “De Iarchitecture Turin, Bdizione d「Arte Fratelli Pozzo, 1974, umpaginated. Sauyage“ in: Jorm, Le Jardin 29 See P. Hofman Hansen, op. ci (note 10), 32 30 A. Jom,“Art and orders. on teason, Times (1964) 5, 9 mass action of reproduction, and the great artistic ma55 effect「, The 31 As qnoted by P, Hofman Hansen, op. cit (note 10) 32 6 C. Dotremont“Qur「est-ce que c「est7“ Le Petit Cobra (1949) 1, (3) 32 The project led to tyo yolumes; A Tuulse, 了 Somme, N. Lukman, A. Jorm, Goflands Didrefs A Jor Didrek Copenhagem, Permild & Rosengreen, 1978. 7 “C. Dotremont “Rapide explication de deux mots「, Le Pett Copra (1949) 2 (2) 33 A. Jom Goriands Didrek op. cit (note 32), 174 34 See exh. cat, New Babyion, op. cit. note 21), Cf. G.M. Birtwiste, Living hrt: hsger Jorx「s Comyprehensive Theory af Art Befween Helhesten and Cobra Utrecht Reflex, 1986 10 (edj),“Asger Jom: Le rkalisme dans Lart populaire suedois「, Cobra (1949) 1, 14. In 1948, together with the archaeologist P V. Glcb, Jorn had been working on an (unrealised) book Olddansk Konst (Early Danish Ar; cf. P Hofman Hansen, h Bibliograpy ofAhsger Jorm「s M7iings, Silkeborg Kunstmuseunu 1988, 73 11 A. Jorn,丨 art sans frontigres「, Copra (1950)6, 6. The motto was a quotation from FHarald Giersing. 12 Constant“Manifest「, Rejlex (1948)1,(unpaginated), Constant“Culmuur en contra-cultuur“ (unpaginated), Constant.“C「est notre dksir qui fait la Copra (1949) 4 3-4 (1949) 2, 13 Constantb “Les neuts points au groupe expkrimental holiandais“, Le peti Cobra (1949) 1 (7), with mote de C. D. 14 Cf. G. Atiins (with 了 Andersen), hsger Jorn:The Crucial Jears 1954-1064, London, Lund Humphries, 1977, 17 35 Shield “On reading Jorm 训 Hofman Hansen: op. cit. (nole 10), 37 国

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Response from Race Traifor 69 68 Transgressions No.2 Debatle Roxbury, a black district. The cab driven, a white woman, refused, and when the man insisted she take him or call someone who would, as the law provided, she calied her boyfriend, also a cabdriver, who showed up, dragged the man out of the cab and called 1 him a nigger“. The black man turmned out to be a city councilman. The case was unusual only in that it made the papers. Either America is a very democratic country, where cabdrivers beat upcity councilmen with impunity,or the privileges of whiteness reach far down into the Tanks of the labouring Class. A Response From Race The white-skin privilege system does not require that all whites be treated the same; everyone knows that ethnic groups vary in wealth and status. It demands only that TRe 有Jowing was wrillen 记 response 50玖 i0 招e review of enough people identify their interests with those of the“white race“to Prevent effective proletarian class solidarity. t thus polarises the country into two Taces“: those who enjoy the privileges of whiteness, and those who do not. Just as a mixed「 Transgressioxs and i0 4 letierfom Naoko SRipusawa neighbourhood has traditionally meant the interval between the first black person mowving in and the last white moving out, so the intermediate position of various 0 Race Trailor i0 adopf 4“less Dinary“yiew 0f amnti-racist groups reflects a moment when their racial status is being determined. strxggle. 正 reprinted om issue 6 ofRace Traifor In the history of this country, racial status has proven quite flexible: before the Civil Wan the“white“population consisted largely of those of Protestant English descent; with the arrival of large numbers of Scandinavians, Germans, and Catholic Lish, the Race Trailor magazine published 记 HRe Iast issxe of From the first number of Race Traitor in which we wrote that the only alternative to the white race is the human race, critics have said we oversimplify the race Problem:. The U.S., they have pointed out, is not constructed on a bipolar model but is multifacial. “*white race“ was broadened to include all those of northern European stock; later On, immigrants from southern and eastern Europe were incorporated into it, making “white「 roughly synonymous with European. For most of U.S. history, people from In spite of the critics, we hold to our original view. We are aware that there are Asia, Africa, the islands of the sea, and countries in the western hemisphere south of the Rio Grande were the victims of what looked very much like racial oppression, pPeople in America who partake of some of the privileges of the white skin while treated as inferiors in a caste system that gave meaning to the terml “people of color“. experiencing some of the social restrictions imposed on black people. But we think that those who argue that these people constitute intermediate races「“misunderstand how Tace Operates。 A lot of this has changed. Children of Chinese, Ethiopian, and Haitian immigrants now grow up in America with the same advice Irish, Polish, and Italian parents gave their children in past generations: the way to succeed i the neW country is to keepP occupy tbe same analytic space and do not exist on a continuum., Ethnicity deals, at away from the black Americans. (The children don“t always listen, but that is another story.) The “white race“ is being recomposed, just as in the nineteenth century, and just least symbolically, with culture; race is an assigned status. The distinction can perhaps a5 at that time boundaries are not always clear and there are regional variations. From the start if is necessary to distinguish between race and ethnicity. They do not be best ilustrated by pointing out that black people and traditional southermn“whites“ share a common Speech, religion, music, cuisine,and even ancestry,and probably resemble each other culturally more than any other two groups in the country; ethnically they are one, yet they are divided along Trace“ lines. At the same time two of the most distinctive ethnic groups in the country are the Hasidic Jews of New York and the Amish of Lancaster County,Pennsylvania; yet i neither Case has their insistence on maintaining their unique cultures prevented them from enjoying all the rights and immunities of “whites“. The U.S. is a capitalist society. As in any Capitalist society the population consists largely of two classes, the masters and the slaves. In this country, unfortunately, many of the slaves think they are masters because they enjoy the privileges of the white skin. Various programs facilitate the recomposition. E.S.L. programs, one of the chief vehicles for allowing immigrants to leap over black Americans, are not restricted to Europeans. Other mechanisms function through the“private“「sector. The New Jo人 Times of March 11, 1996 carries an op-6d piece by Roger Waldinger detailing some of the ways immigrants win ott over black Americans in the job search. It identifies personal reference networks, which bypass the open market, as the key. The result, for example, is that less than three percent of all workers in New York City「s garment . industry are black Americans. In this country, existing social relations are compatible with democratic forms only so long as the privileges of race embrace most of the population. Without majority support, the regime would rest predominantly on naked force 一 tike South Africa enjoy a status highep, im certain respects,than that of the most exalted persons under apartheid or the South before the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the mid1960「s 一 a precarious situation for those who govern. The periodic transformation of excliuded from it. Not long ago there was an incident in Boston in which a welL- People from racially oppressed to ethnics is vital to the recomposition of a“white「 The privileges of whiteness extend to the lowest members of the white race, who dressed black man hailed a taxi and directed the driver to take him to his home in

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70 Transgressions No.2 Response from Race I7raitor 71 Debate 1: Race Traitor 70 majority.! For years people have been predicting, some with glee, others with alarm, that by such-and-such year Califomia (or some other state) will have a“non-white「 majority、Both the proponents and opponents of this future can relax: the day Califormia has a non-white majority is the day the present basis of rule collapses, because the Los Angeles Rebellion of 1992 will become general and sustained. A great deal of the quarrel about “intermediate“or“other“ races has to do with determining who wil be socially white in the twenty-first century. Of course there are Problems with the term“white“: many of the new immigrants; while demanding the NOTES the result of a ruling-clsss conspiracy. The recomposition 认 happening for a 1. We are not suggesting that if murmber of reasons, having to do With labour needs and global 8eopolitical considerations- 2. We have said nothing sbout the red「 indigenous people of America. They are, of course not immigrants- They also, along8 With people from Africa, served as the 卵st point of reference against which the“White Tace“ Was defined; but thei situation, loo, is changin8. Our aim js not to demonstrate our expertise on the system of racial oppression, but to overturn 训 3.Thelarge number of Salvadorans Who took part 巡 the Los Angeles Rebellion of 1992 were not acting 2s Whites。 Neither were the lar8e number of European Americans. Tights traditionally reserved for whites, do not want the term applied to them; they are 一atin「 or“Asian“, and proud of it> So the language of racial oppression needs to be modiftied i order to preserve its content.Confusion on this point leads some to describe our project as abolishing the concept of whiteness. Perhaps they think they Race are helping us by“clarifying“ what we mean, but their description is wrong: we want to abolish the white race, whatever name it goes under. For similar reasons, we are not He My of 加e interested in the“deconstruction“ of whiteness; outside of the academy, the opposite of “construct「 is not“deconstruct“but destroy. The situation is still in flux, and it is not yet clear which groups will be admitted to T7affoy a14 WuaHo- 二6SD0Ose Dy FaDjJal TO2p56五 When I first heard of Race Traitor, I wanted to know more because its very name declared a reversal of populist racism. However, having seen an issue and now having the privileges of the favoured race and which will be excluded; the greatest actual read beneficiaries of the new ethnic upsurge may be those who have traditionally enjoyed (Transgressions 1) I have come to feel that this reversal fails to move beyond the Iogic of populist racism, RT「“s declaration that their aim“is not to demonstrate Our the privileges of whiteness. Italian-Americans are a protected group for purposes of affinmative action at the City University of New York, and we have had exchanges with Irish-Americans who reject the“white「 label while claiming that Irish are underrepresented in universities and calling for minimum Lish admissions quotas. They seek to change the name to play the game.(How w议 they determine who is Irish? Will they count Shaquille O“Neal2) As Jimmy Durante used to say,“Everybody wants to get into the act「. Part of the outcome depends.on the attitude adopted by members of each group: 训 their response to Naoko Shibusawa and Alastair Bonnett「s reviews expertise on the system of racial oppression,but to overturn ir“ smacks of Knownothingism,a populist movement which flourished in the nineteenth century. This ignorance is strategic, however. Their silence about Amerindians is necessary 讪 they bi-polar, Black-White, depiction of race relations. are to maintain RT「s response stresses the transitory position of intermediate“groups「, as 让 this transitory nature made them non-existent.In effect they recycle the my of the they do not learm to act as whites, they w训 not be treated as whites.3 And no one “*Mulatto“. The introduction of the term “mulatto“reflected popular and scientific Prejudices about people of mixed African and European parentage. The word is should forget that the process is reversible: if Tom Metzger or someone like him came to powen 讨 likely that the new immigrants would find themselves the victims of derived from “mule“, which, as the offspring of a horse and donkey, is sterile. Thus the term “mulatto“ leant credence to the idea that the European and African were separate Classical American racial oppression, Or worse. species. Bat, further to this, it was supPosed that the“mulatto“ too is sterile, and that the enforcement of strict regulations on inter-racial sex would be necessary to prevent Nothing we have said should suggest that the new immigrants are all “middle class「“ (whatever that means). There are plenty of Chinese proletarians in garment factories. the birth of such an oddity, half “human“and half “sub-human“. The sterile“mulatto「 We cannot make the point too often: race privilege is for those who have nothing else: would then die Out. its function is not to exempt people from exploitation but to reconcile them to it. At the beginning of the twentieth century, during the height of anti-Chinese hysteria, one of the finest of all revolutionary organisations in U.S. history, the Industrial Workers of the World, stood at the dock in San Francisco greeting incoming Chinese workers with a huge banner, The banner read, in English and Chinese,“Chinese workers, welcome. Join the One Big Union of the Working Class“. We stand in that tradition, and call upon all proletarians who pass through these doors to reject the RT talk about the 国 of the“White race「“, but one of the features of racism is that, however much it draws ohn traditionalist roots, race is always a goal to be achieved,a continuous project of social breeding. Race is always a Pr0CesSs of becoming, a process of recomposition. In a bi-polar racial organisation there will always be intermediate groups- To the extent that Black and White constitute stable entities, their stability relies precisely on the instability of intermediate groups. To refuse the reality of these groups, to portray them as politically sterile, is to fail to Poison bait of race privilege held out by the master class that despises them. As they understand their strategic importance within the racial order. say im Harian County, there are no neutrals there: you“ll either be a union man Or a RT dismiss the“quarrel about“intermediate“or“other“Taces“a5 being centred around “who will be socially White in the twenty-first century“. Their participation i thug for J].H. Blair.

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72 Transgressions No.2 Debate 1: Race Traitor 72 Response from Race Traitor 73 the stuggle for “civilrights「 is reduced to“demanding the rights traditionally reserved from the threat of violence to violence itself, through minor violence to maiming and attempted murder. Then, beyond this, there is the list of Black people who have died for whites“. When used in conjunction with phrases about programmes which allow “immigrants to leap over black Americans“,RT reveals how little it has moved beyond its roots in American nativism. Thus their“critique“of ESL programmes abandons all pretence of radicality,and prepares the ground for an“anti-racist「 apologetics for anti-immigrationisnt. in police custody or the catalogue ofracist murders. The system has shown itself ready to cover up how people die i police custody and, indeed,has shown consistent slackness in the investigation of racist murders. But with lynching this process sheds all pretence, declares itseilf publicly, proudly. Remnants of the body are taken from the In dealing with ethnicity, RT also seem to be on very shaky ground. I would challenge their claim that“black people and traditional southern“whites“share a common speech, religion, music, cuisine, and even ancestry, and probably resemble each other culturally more than any other two groups the country“. Undoubtedly, ashes to be displayed in shop windows. Each ung on this ladder of terror carries with it the threat of escalation. Each slight is designed to reinforce the subordinate position of the Black person. Resistance Provokes the possibility of escalation,and escalation culminates in that apex of there is a body of shared heritage between these two groups, but there has also been & western civilisation, the lynching. The image of a buming human body is evoked long tadition linking the Black cultures of the West Indics with those of American every step of the way. Why,Ieven knew one Black woman who had just such a picture Blacks. They too share a common heritage. Behind the phrase “black people“ there is stuck on her bedroom door. I guess it helped her to sleep more easily at night. first an assumption of native American nationality. Black people are reduced to a stereotype which is then compared to the stereotype I presume that one of the“advantages「 of being White is that When one seeks to of“traditional communities around New Orleans? Do they share the same religion7 How many satisfy one「“s curiosity about one“8“own race「, one is not confronted by such an image. Or, to be more precise, Such an image is not located at the shmmit of a ladder of terror Black people dress up in sheets and burmn crosses? Is the Nation of Islam the same as which is rooted in one「s Own day-to-day experience. the Baptist church? Do all Black people eat pork? In the 1970s in South Africa, the state endeavoured to shore up social stabitity by In James Weldon Johnson「s The Axutiopiograpy ofan Ex-Colored Mar (1912),it s Precisely the experience of a lynching which provokes the hero, a Hght-skinned Promoting ethnicity,by separating different“African「 groups by language,and African-Americar, to abandon his history and pass through the race barrier to become isolating “Cape Coloureds「, “Asians「 etc.. This fuelled the revolt by school students in White: they share the language? What about the French speaking 1976 when offered education in Afrikaans and a “native「 language. Scarman also used I argued that to forsake one「s race to0 better one「s condition was no less worthy than to forsake one“s country for the same purpose. I finally made up my mind that I would neither disclaim the black race nor claim the white race; but 山at I would change Imy ethnicity as a major tool in the divide and rule tactics he promoted following the Brixton Uprising of 1981. It then became enshrined in the British race relations industry, with minor opposition. By championing identities based on being Bengali, name, raise a mustache,and let 山e worid take me for what it would; that it was not necessary for me to go about with a label of inferiority pasted across my forehead. All the while I understood that it was not discouragement or fear or search for a larger feld Atrican-Caribbean,Indian, Irish etc.,, the state organised the most taditional and Teactionary element within each cultural grouping to create a network of subsidised “community groups「 competing for diminishing resourCes. of action and opportunity that was driving me out of the Negro race. I knew that i was shame, the unbearable shame. Shame at being identified with a people that could with impunity be treated worse than animals, for certainly the law would restrain and punish And it is at this point that we confront the central weakness of all campaigns for CiviLrights, for they represent a stuggle to enter civil society, that “battlefield where tbe malicious buming alive of animals. everyone“s individual private interest wars against everyone else「8“1. Quite naturally when faced with proletarian intransigence amongst the Black community the state secretes a segment dedicated to offering civil rights,or even human rights.This segment manifests itself both as a bureaucracy within the state (the race relations industry) and a network of social and political networks within civil society. This SOCial machinery functions to reinforce the state by seeking to find solutions through the state,for example,passing legislation running 训 tandem with psychologised forms of struggle. When a Black person takes it upon themself to understand the history of their race“, they must inevitably confront the phenomenon of lynching. Such study may involve, not merely reading about how lynching functioned as a regulatory factor in Trace relations, but also gazing at a photograph of a burning body. Such a gaze Can instl a parade of memories, each slight and humiliation endured, a ladder of terror which escalates from the racist joke to the racist jibe, from there to open racist abuse, NOTES 1 See G.WF Hegel HUesels PAilosaphy Cf Rig应 (iransleated by TM.Knox), Oxford 1952, p70. But Irve used the slightly different English tanslation that appears 记 Marx「s Criligue of Hegefs Doctrine of ihe State, 训 Marx Earby Wrifings (translated by Rodney Livingstone and Gregor Benton) London 1975.

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City Primeval 75 It was ip this context that the socio-political radicalism of the F讲h Esiate evolved, DEBATE City Primeval: 2 redy from the late 1970s onward, into the praxis that has come to be called primitivism. But before examining primitivism in detail, i s worth noting the social context within which it developed and which it reacted against. Critiquing the U.S. Greens“1992 “Detroit Summer“ project for urban renewal, Fifh Estiore participant E.B. Maple wrote of Detroit: a14 Pejroff y Jo 1MM00ye Introductiot Popular representations of Detroit tend to focus on the twin poles of business and crime. On the one hand,itis Motor City, home of automobile production, or Motown, home of soul music. On the other hand, it is the pollsters「choice for most dangerous city on Earth, the location of urbar corruption in Elmore Leonard「s crime fiction and the site of techno-fascist law enforcement in the Ropocop movie series. But there is another, radical side to Detroit that situates itself in opposition to the dominant culture of business and criminal enterprise. This alternative Detroit includes a history oflabour militancy; the 1967 black inner-city riots; a record of Biack Panther activity; John Sinclain, the White Panthers and the revolutionary politics of the rock band MCS; and a vibrant anti-authoritarian/countercultural scene. As a result, Detroit can be regarded as an exemplary site of contestation between the hegemonic social order and oppositional culture,of complex intersections between popular and counterculture and,hence,aS a laboratory for the generation of alternative socioCultural pTaXe3. The once prosperous city has changed dramatically. Large parcels of land formerly occupied by homes have reverted t0 a pre-industrial “non-developed「“setting lcaving miles of open fields, and many of the city“s residents have entered a post-capitalist existence,living without wage work or commodity consumption、This process of “deurbanization“and“depopulation“, instead of being seen as negative couid signal a direction for a project based on a radical critique of urban industrial capitalism rather than Detroit Summer「s current Peace-Corps mentality.However, a vision of radical deconstruction and green renewal would necessitate an expticitly anti-capitalist Perspective prepared t build autonomous,self-sustaining communities and resist 28saults on the environment such as the Detroit incinerator and other urban poliuters. (Maple, 1992, p.6) This passage retrospectively encapsulates the origin of primitivism,locating it Precisely i the lived experience of Detroit「s inner-city dwellers. Industrial capitalist withdrawal and coliapse opens a“post-capitalist「space in the urban terrain where “autonomous,self-sustaining communities“could develop. With all other genuine communities and communal ties destroyed by capitalist social relations,tbe reconstituted communities can only be communities of resisters, who develop lifeways that emphasise new forms of potitics,activism,and resistance,As Fredy Perlman (1983, p.258), pre-eminent primitivist theorist and F伍 Esiatie participant, writes:“The resistance is not primarily a clash of arms … The resistance is in the drums, not in the spears; itis in the music, in the rhythms lived by communities whose myths and wWays continue to nurture and sustain them““. Thus primitivism - also known as radical primitivism or anarcho-primitivism - The Fifth Estate and the Development of Pritmitivism During the last thirty years one of the major sources of radical praxis in Detroit - and worldwide - has been the Fifh Esiafe newspaper. Founded in 1965, this “underground「 Publication has acted as a focus for the anti-authoritarian/countercultural Detroit scene and in particular the bohemian/studentyworking class area of Cass Corridor. Lorraine Perlman, a participant in the F没 Esiale project, recalls moving to this area in 1969: developed as a response to living in and resisting the archetypal late capitalist city of Detroit, But if also emerged as a response to the perceived failure of existing oppositional ideologies to develop a comprehensive account of the complex control Stmmctures 山at order life in such an urban environment. The intention to go beyond4the Timited analyses of Marxism,feminism and classical anarchism is signaledin a text by an anonymous contributor to the June 1979 issue of F沐 Esiate, who states: The innercity Cass Corridor area where most of the dissidents tived was the center of this part of Detroit「s bohemian community … A permissive atmosphere prevailed midtown DetroiL Restrictive conditions were associated with the distant suburbs, while People committed to counter-cultural activities found mutual support among the residents of this area - students, drop-outs, artists, dissidents. The claim to “community“ may have been exaggerated, but 达山is racialiy integrated neighborhood, there was tolerance for misfits, espect for those who preferred poverty to jobs, the recognition of a common bond that linked peopie who met, whether they wexre there by choice or necessity. (Perlman, 1989, pp.86-87) The appearance on the planet of the political state as well as Social classes, private Property, the patriarchy and the like are the apparatxses of domination,but the larger famewotk 达 which they all appear, the reigning code of Civilization itself, is usually taken for granted and only recentily has come under critical scrutiny. (Anon, 1976,p.6) The major paradigm shift achieved by the Fifh Esiate circle comprised a broadening of perspectives that brought into focus“the reigning code of Civilization itself“. By refusing pieccemeal explanations of control by refusing to take the notion of progress

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76 Transgressions No.2 City Primeval 77 Debate 2: City Primeval 76 command necessary and independent, individual decision-malking impossible. 「 (Fulano, 1981, pp.5-6) for granted, participants in the Fifh Esiate were able to develop a critique that is comprehensive because it challenges the entire project of civilization. In a 1986 position paper entited“Renew the earthly paradise“, the REstate circle outline their subsequent ideational trajectory: The evolution of the FB has been characterized by a wilingness to re-examine all 乙e assumptions of radical criticism,which has led it away from its earlier libertarian communist perspective toward a more critical analysis of the technological structure of Western civilization [] combined with a reappraisal of the indigenous world and the character of primitive and original communities, In this sense we are primitivists. ˇ (Anon, 1986, p.10) The complement to a critique of civilization as a project of control remains a reappraisal of the primitive as a source of renewal and anti-authoritarian inspiration. But the primitivism that emerges from this process is$ not a naive atavism.The reappraisal of the primitive takes place from an anarchist perspPective, a perspective alert to issues of power. Pointing to“an emerging synthesis of post-modern anarchy and the primitive (in the sense of original)y,Earth-based ecstatic vision“,the F沐R Esiate circle indicate: We are not anarchists per se,but pro-ararcjy,which 训 for us a living,integral experience, incommensurate with Power and refusing all ideology … Our work on the FE 2S 8 project explores possibilities for our own participation 训 this movement, but also works t0 rediscover the primitive roots of anarchy as Welt as t doctment its present expression. Simultaneously, we examine the evolution of Power in our midst 训 order lo Suggest new terrains for contestations and critique 加 order to undermine 山6 present tyranny of the modern totatitarian discourse-that hyper-reality that destroys human meaning, and hence solidarity, by simulating it with technology. Underlying all struggles for freedom is this central necessity: to regain 2 truly human discourse grounded in autonomous, intersubjective mutuality and closely associated with the natural world. (Anon, 1986, p.10) Aside from environmental concerns, the scale of technology - with the interlocking industries needed to produce, operate and maintain it - demands authoritarian control structures that are inimical to anarchy. Furthermore, the technological society propels individuals into lives of alienation, simulation and spectacularization. Dividing people from one another and alienating them from themselves, it also alienates them from the natural world. Rather than tving in harmony and equitibrium with nature, it promotes an ideology of domination, domestication and ultimately eradication of the natural. But a reappraisal of the primitive, with its limited use of technics, does not entail a sentimental return to nature. As an anonymous R拓h Esiafe contributor indicates i 1979: Let us anticipate the critics who would accuse us of wanting I g80 “back to the caves「 or of mere posturing on our part - ie, enjoying the comforts of civilization all the while being its hardiest critics. We are not posing the Stone Age as a model for our Utopia nor are We Suggesting 2 return to gathering and hunting as a means for our livelihood. Rather, our investigation into pre-civilized modes combats the notion that humans have alWays Hved with alarm clocks and factories. It assails the prevalent amnesia which the species exhibits as to its origins and the varieties of social association which existed for tens of thousands of years before the rise of the state. ILannounces that work has not always been the touchstone of htman existence and that cities and factories did not always blight the terrain. It asserts 止at there was a time when people lived in harmony with cach other and With their natural surroundings, both of which they knew intimately … Reduced to its most basic elements, discussions about the future sensibly should be predicated on what we desire socially and from 山at detenmine what technology is possible. All of ns desire central heating, flush toilets,and electric lighting, but not at the expense of our humanity. (Anon, 1981,p.6) Maybe they are all possible together, but maybe not. Fredy A synthesis of primitive and contemporary anarchy,mutually enlightening each One of the main catalysts in the development of primitivist ideas was Fredy Perlman. other「s blind spots,becomes the aim,a Synthesis that defines and engages“new Although refusing to ideologically label himself in any way, Perlman - in conjunction with other RifR Rsiate staff - laid the groundwork for primitivism in a number of terrains for contestations“. Of all the terrains opened by primitivism the most contentious has proven to be that theoretical and fictional texts before his untimely death in 1985. of technology. Indeed, a somewhat reductive shorthand term for primitivism is the A starting point was Theodore Rbszak「s Where he Wasteland Ends: Politics and anti-tech movement. Critics hostile to primitivism have consistently misrepresented it Transcendence讨 Postindusirial Society (1972). Referring to“The flight from the (p.6) characterizes progress as“the manifest destiny of as5 afflicted by an unthinking technophobia, despite the fact that the F没f Rsiafe“s Primitive「,Roszak Position on technology has been spelled out as clearly as the paper「“s participants think humankind“, the ideology that underpins the development of an oppressive artificial necessary and advisable in pre-revolutionary conditions. environment by“the industrial Leviathan“or“urban-industrial society“ (p.67). But he Differentiating between“small-scale technics and a global network of technology“, 工 Fulano points out in the November 1981 issue of Fifh Estiate that: also discerns the contemporary development of “a strange, new radicalism“which he 2Ssociates with the “communitarian politics“ of anarchism. Recommending a simultaneous withdrawal from and confrontation with powen, he suggests; “The tribes Technology is not a simple tool which can be used in any way we Hike. It is a form of and the bands, the clans and the free communes are forming again, even in the belly Social organization, a Set of social relations. It has its own laws. 玖 we are to engage in its uSe,We must accept its authority. The enormous sizc,complex interconnections and of the monster“ (p.430):. stratitication of tasks which make up modern technological systems make authoritarian

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78 Transgressions No.2 Debats 2: City Primeval 78 These,and other Roszakian emphases,were to become familiar strands in Primitivist thought, But Perlman,a great ideational synthesiser,looked beyond Roszak to assemble a primitivist world-view from diverse sources, including anarchist anti-authoritarianism, situationism,feminism,ecological thought,zero-work advocates, technological critics such as Lewis Mumford and Jacques Ellul, and rogue anthropologists and cultural historians such as Pierre Clastres, Stanley Diamond, and Frederick Tumer. Perlman「s most important work is probably hgainsft His-sfory Against Leviathany City Primeval 79 creation ofnew modes of action. And for this to be effective, there has t be a refusal of the old terrain of stuggls - both 达 the workplace and 巡 the strects,As long as revolutionary struggle is conducted not on its own ground but on the terrain of capital, there can be no significant breakthrongh, no qualitative revolutionary leap… If we are to Successfully abandon the old centres ofstggle,it will require a simultancous movement towards the creation of new modes of life … The bourgeoisie riumphed because it staged the battle on its own terrain, which s the cities … Today humanity can launch its battle against capital not in the city, nor in the countryside, but outside of both. (Camatte, 1981, pp.15-16) (1983), Written as poetic rather than historical discourse,the text constitutes a (1983, p.7), primitives live in“the state of nature“, which he defines as“a community Camatte「s emphases on the creation of new modes of life and action, on defining the terrain of resistance and situating struggle upon it and on deconstructing urban-rural of freedoms“or“a community of self-determined human beings“ (p.26). In harmony binary oppositions as a basis for interventions, are all crucial to the FR Esiate with nature, primitives inhabit a mythic cyclical time. But at a certain time,and in endeavour. chronicle of human life on Earth, but resolutely acts as an anti-history. For Perlmanl response to specific ecological conditions of scarcity, impersonal institutions and their attendant social relations begin to emerge.As these institutions solidify,an unprecedented order comes into existence, characterized by the imposition of abstraction, the artifticial the synthetic, the machine, the automaton. Gradualty this abstract set of institutional relations acquires its own dynamic, its own momentum ant 404: Pritmitivist Action in the City Primitivists remain aware that there are no easy ansWwers, but are involved in a number of projects to encourage resistance among the dispossessed and marginalized. Apart from Hobbes「s from writing and producing the paper and running its bookstore and mail-order service, the fh Esiate circle have actively engaged i local projects (such as the designation for the State.But the State,capital,the uling class,patriarchy,and campaign to prevent the building of a massive incinerator in Detroit) as well as technology are only attributes of Leviathan, Abstract power relations constitute its national campaigns (for example, anti-mititarist actions at the time of the Gulf Wanm COTe. But, perhaps, most significantly, F没R Esiate participants have been involved in artiticial life powered by the human beings trapped inside it. This monster of power and domination Perlman terms Leviathan、The term derives Leviathans have a specific effect on free communities of individuals: the latter are converted into forced labourers,slaves to the machine. In other words,they are wrenched out of mythic or cyclical time into the linearity of history, or His (i.e., Leviathan「8) story. But this process is not accepted passively. The human side of Hisstory remains a tale of endless revolt, of repeated attempts to destroy Or abandon Leviathan in order to reconstitute or return to primal anarchy. Such attempts have only been temporarily successful, however, and the imperial Leviathan has continued its Projects such as 404, described in a paper by Sunfrog 训 1992 as“a collectively-run community center and autonomous zone in Detroit「s Cass Coridor「“ (p.3)、Housing regular poetry readings, musical events, 8 Women“s coliective,sessions On anarchy, and alternative publications, throughout its three year existence from 1991-1994 the centre also maintained an outreach programme in which free coffee, ciothes and vegan food were distributed to the poor every Sunday. Funded by“a bootstrap fusion of itinerant fund-raising - from bake sales, donations from concerts and readings, and out-of-pocket sponsorship by dedicated collective members and our closest friends“ search for global domination. Now, though, an historical terminus has been reached. (Sunfrog, 1994,p.4),this project was clearly an attempt to put primitivist - and Tnstead of competing Leviathans, the world is currently spanned by a single dominant Camattian - principles into action. As Sunfrog commented in 1992: behemoth, the mega-machine of Western civilization. Hence the intense necessity of contemporary resistance: the struggle has become a straight fight between Leviathan and the Biosphere. One or the other must die. Perlman provides a primitivist theoretical agenda,but issues of appropriate and adequate forms of resistance remain problematic. The FEsiate circle, including Perdman,draw upon the work of French post-Marxist,anti-civilization theorist 404 is a place where we transiate ctitigue into action and explore prospects for real freedom through non-alienated daily 讶teraction . At 404 we reject the ideology which Places its emphasis on waiting until“after the revolution“t0 create non-authoritarian community and relationships. We want free everything and we want if noW,. We are moving from the site of our Own Oppression to create the situation,the untethered (p.3,p.6) Playscape, the precursor to any uprising and social upheaval- Jacques Camatte, who recommends“a simultaneous refusal of all obsolete forms of struggle“: It is now becoming generally accepted that demonstrations,Imarches,spectacles and lead anywhere,. Waving banners, putting up Posters, handing out leaflets, shows attacking the police are all activities which perpetuate a certain ritual - a ritual wherein the police are always cast 训 the role of invincible subjugators. The methods of struggle therefore must be put through a thorough analysis because they present an obstacle t 乙e At the time of writing, 404 has recently closed. The project foundered through 2 combination of adverse factors, both internal - for example, inconsistent participation and consequent bum-out of individuals, gender conflicb the emergence of informal hierarchies - and external:

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80 Transgressions No.2 Debate 2: City Primeval 80 The 404「“8 location 训 an ethnically diverse and economically depressed neighborhood emphasized both the need for such a space and the difficulty of keeping it While we Passionately avoided the patronizing stigma of garden-variety social service organizations训 our distribution of free goods,we hardly achieved a genuinely altemative economy of the gift We hoped the do-it-yourself ethic of the 404 would inspire our neighborhood friends to empower themselves to claim the commtnity center 25 their but the disabling distinctions ofrace,class and social standing which upheld 8 providerfrecipient dichotomy were not easily Overcome. (Sunfrog, 1994, p.16) City Primeval 81 PERLMAN,F (1983) hgainst His-stoy, Against Leviathan/ An Essay Detroit, Black & Red PERLMAN, L (1989) Having Litle, Being Much: A Chronicle of Fredy Periman「s Fifty Years Detrott, Black & Red ROSZAK, T (1973) Where the Wasteland Ends: Poltics and Jfanscendence 功 Postindustrial Socioty London, Faber and Faber SUNFROG. (1994) “404 is DEADI Long LIVE 404[ Fith Estate 344 p.4, p.16 SUNFROG. (1992) 「Anarchy in action: 404 Wilis: Detroifs Autonomous Zone“ Fifh Esiate 339 p.3, p.6 Dominant social relations in the capitalist urban space constitute a genuine obstacle to the instigation of the primitivist project, But as Sunfrog (1994,p.16) comments, Ffrom Socfa/isye 0/ Barbayfe 10 although “social factors beyond the sway of our insurrectionary intent always seemed to creep back into the fold“ and “none of us expected the collective「s self-conscious ranting and social defiance to usher Communism or Civilisation the revolution of a new social Teality,we 口 /62po1)se by LUHHer Bljsse才 actually felt the potential of anarchy infect the fabric of our lives“. Such interventions may not be an adequate response to the profound social, cultural and ecological crisis In response to John Moore, Imust admit that I have an advantage in that two relevant currently experienced globally, but they contain a potential for anarchy and in present texts have been published since he submitted his article. The first is“The History of circumstances may remain all that is possible. the Fifth Estate, Part 1“by Peter Werbe in the latest issue of Fifh Estiate (No. 347). Certainly, participants 404 are discouraged,but undeterred, and a new, more ambitious Project has taken the place of the defunct centre. The focus has now shifted to the Trumbull Theater, located in the Woodbridge neighbourhood adjacent to Cass Atfter describing the paper“s frst ten years as“a forum for the new and rebellious ideas that characterized the era“he moves on to the crisis of 1975 when the Eat the Rich Gang「effectively staged a coup: Cortidor. This site is regarded as more viable in the long-term due to the fact that the Soon numerous internal contradictions began to crash in on the paper, and by 1975 it was Project「s primary function is a tenant-owned living space for collective members. almost devoid of staff following almost terminal, deeply in debt to printers and several Serious personality ciashes,and dependent upon commercial advertising including X-rated movies and cigarette ads for revenue and salaries. The remnant of the sta printed a notice in the paper that they would soon close up shop unless they received an influx of new participants. Although open to non-residents for use as a project space, decisions lie in the hands of those who share in daily collective life. This is regarded as providing a more stable and committed focus to the endeavour. As Sunfrog recently remarked in F抓h Esiate: The “community center“movement is a viable seed for a long-lasting revolutionary Social network. Projects such as the distribution of frce vegetarian food, child-care and free-schools,info-centers and reading Tooms,anti-racist action,feminisnl and queer liberation, continue to set the tone for transforming the terrain of our lives. (1994, p.16) Through the creation of such socio-cultural networks,the syncretic ideology of Primitivism aims to become a powerful altemmative for disempowered social groups surviving in the declining capitalist city. By fostering such communities of resistance, Primitivists hope to form the affinities and life-ways that will finally destroy Leviathan and create a world of freedom, harmony and diversity. Anumberof us, including several other former staffers and friends, who were inflaenced by the writings of Fredy Perlman, Jacques Camatte, Jean Baudrillard council and left communists,and 山e Situationists,answered 山e callEleven of us had constituted Ourselves as the Eat the Rich Gang and undertook a number of projects 训 1974-75, including publishing 吴Idcatll and The rratfional i Politics at the Detroit Print Co-op, Producing a number of Fifth Estate inserts, setting up study groups, as wWell as sSome sabotage activity and radical pranks. When our group anived at the K沐 Estare office, the three remaining staffers Were les8 than enthusiastic about us rejoining the paper. But by an 11-3 vote, we (the new StafD) decided to become a monthly, to no longer accept ads (they were the voice of capital, we said), and to stop paying salaries. The three holdovers were horrified and left after a few issues(pp.69) REFERENCES I am going t0 argue that it was the presence of an industrial working class centred ANON. (1979) 「Searching for the culprit: Introduction to “The Original Affluent Society“Fifth Estate 298 p.6 ANON. (1986) 「Renew the earthly paradise「Fifth Estate 322 pp.10-11 CAMATTE,小 (1981) Against Domestication Ontario, Black Thumb FULANO, T. (1981) “Uncovering a corpse: A reply to the defenders of technology「 Fifp Estate 307 Pp.5-8, 21 MAPLE,E.B. (1992) 「Detroit summer: A new city or paint-up, fx up?「 FEstate 339 p.6 around Detroit「s motor industry which nurtured this radical group, and the eclipse of that industry, with the ensuing de-industrialisation, which fostered their critique of technology,. Moore makes a passing remark about“Black Panther activity“yet this was minimal i Detroit. The Black community was much more influenced by workplace militancy than the Panther“s street-based appeal to the lumpenproletariat. In the forties, two radical Detroit auto-workers, Charles Denby and James Boggs

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From Socilalseme ox Barparie to Communism or Civilisation 83 82 Transgressions No.2 developed links with a current emerging from Trotskyism centred around C. L R. James, Grace C. Lee, Pierre Chaulieu (aka Paul Cardan, aka Castoriardis) and Raya Dunayevskaya (formerly Trotsky「s secretary). Chaulieu went on to Provide the between freedom and necessity, between individual and species. ft is the solution to the riddle of history and knows itself to be the solution. (Manu 1975, p:348)2 impetus for Socialisye ox Barparie in France, whilst Dunayevskaya worked with suggests that Camatte「s8 emphases On such matters a5“deconstructing urban-rural binary oppositions . . . are crucial to the Fifth Estate endeavour“. Yet he Moore Denby on News and Letters in Detroit. Writing in 1965, Boggs made the city the centre of his strategy for revolutionary struggle with his call for“self-government of the major cities by the black majority, mobilised behind leaders and organizations of its own creation and prepared to Teorganise the structure of city government and city life from top to bottom.“! He was writing i the wake of the Watts uprising,and developed this outiook through his involvement i the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM). This was a 8rass roots workers「 organisation formed inside the auto plants following a series of fails to mention that these were concerns Camatte derived from Marx,Moore carefully excludes communism from his list of “diverse sources“ which Perlman used in his development of “primitivism“. This is simply distortion- Perlman“s most widely read work is still The Reproduction af Daizy Lijes, a concise exposition of Marx“5 analysis of commodity fetishism.4 Perlman「s subsequent concern with re-establishing a“community of self-determined human beings“ is rooted precisely in the theoretical wildcat strikes, but which aimed to develop alliances in the local community rather developments of Marx“「s Economic and PhilosopRical Manuscripts. It is not that I but I do wish to resist Moore「s subordination want to“claim Perlman for than Organised labour: of Perlman and F诀 Estate「s theoretical work to“anarchism「. The Eat the Rich Gang「s production of WiJdcaty was rooted i experience within these same auto-factories, and was linked up with the old Facing Reality/Socialise o Barbarie network, e.8. Sofidarity Molor based in London「s East End, as Moore suggests that hgainst His-SfoD, hgaimst LeviatRany is Perlman“s most important work. I must admit I found it a disappointment (probably for the very wellas new curents emerging from Socialisme ox Barbarie. The Irrational in Politics reasons Moore likes i0. For me Leltters of TInsurgerts (1976) had a much stronger effect. Describing a fictionalised episode of the class stuggle where a group of was by Maurice Brintonm, a London member of Solidarity. And here I must mention workers confronted a boss who promptly fled, Perlman wrote: the second new text, Iniernationalists 记 France During ife Second Worid Har by Pierre Lanneret. The introduction offers key footnotes which illustrate the diversity of Socialisme ox Barbarie, which is too often reduced to being a creature of Chaulieu, with Guy Debord「s membership thrown in for good measure. Here it is revealed to be a meeting place of various extreme left and ultra-left currents (with all the factionalism that implies). The Eat the Rich Gang were part of an international network which had grown out of the desire“to assist and inform informal vanguard groups spontaneously created by workers at the workplace,to facilitate contacts between them“、This network was fundamentally communist,and provided a framework which extended from the anti-party German council communists to the “organic centralism“of the Italian left communists. The critique of civilisation emerged internationally within this famework, a key Protagonist being Jacques Camatte and his comrades in the review TInvariance. They developed out of the left communists insistence on the centrality of the realisation of or the human community, as the goal of communism. It was 8 matter of establishing a society Where people treated each other as humans rather 乙an s things,Far from being“post-Marxist“Camatte is developing themes already addressed by Marx: Comiumis is 山e positive supersession ofpriyate PrOperty as Ram Se付cstrageteRt and hence the true aPpropriation of the Jiuran essence through and for mani; it is the complete restoration of man to himself as a social ie. human, being, arestormtion which has become conscious and which takes place within the entire wealth of previous periods of development. This communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and 28 fully developed hamanism equals naturalism; it 训 the genuine resclution of the conflict between man and nature, and between man and man, 乙e true resolution of the conflict between existence and being,between objectitication and self-affirmation, On the way t0 Zagad「s ofice, Jan and I had walked or rather “danced“, behind Clande, with Sabina between us, her arms around our waists, Our arms around her waist“This W让 make everything possiblel“she「“d kept saying, 吕ling my head with images of 2 world where everything would be possible everywhere and at any time. Jan and I had Lfted Sabina and “flown“her up the stairs to Zagad「s office. Suddenly Zagad was gone and So Were my images. Sabina「s arm left my waist and I was alone. How I cnvied Jan that moment. Sabina「s enthusiasm didn“t diminish after Zagad「s departure; it increased. And she showered Jan with all of iL Cladde walked out behind Zagad. Sabina shouted “Werve done itl“ and wrapped herself around Jan. How I wish Luisa had wrapped herself around me shouting,“We“ve done itl“. How Iwished Sabina had tumed to mel Icrawled out of the office, lonely, disoriented. [...] Jan and Sabina left together though the o线ce building entrance.I shuffled from the ofiice back to the workshop but stopped before anyone saw me. I saw Luisa and Marc Glayni leaving by way of the workshop entrance, arn in arnt, gesticulating and laughing. Titus and Jasna were still in the shop. I backed away from my post and rushed back through the office building to the street. I walked aimlessly and wanted to die,I had pfbved myself for nothing, t0 no on6. All my explanations had been wrong:Luisa hadrt dropped me because of my backwardness nor because she wanted to be detached but because she had found another lover. Titus hadnt scolded me because I「d taken Luisa ftom him. Oniy then did it dawn on me that jnst before Titus「 outburst, during our meeting, [ had laughed and nodded vigorously when Jan had proposed throwing all the machinery into the street as our first revolutionary act How stupid I「d been to attribute Titus“outburst t0 jealousy! My sympathy for Jan“s “scheme「 defined me as an outright “counter-revolutionary“ in Titus「 eyes, since for Titus (p.434) the machinery was the revolutionthe two were Synonymous. ifh Esiate have played a part in the renewed critique of civilisation, but far from being the“major paradigm shift“paraded by Moore, this critque has taken Place Wwihip the communist movement at a time when a new wave of technology has

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84 Transgressions No.2 From Socilaisme ou Barbarie to Communism or Civilisation 85 and ihe Class Strugsic: Further Pagesjrom a Black Worker「s completely transformed the workplace. The motor industry has been particularly affected by this. Whereas in the past major investment in industry led to more jobs, 2 This i simply one quote from Marx. Compared t Such anarchist writers a5 Proudhon and Balunin,Marx attempted to develop a famework within which civitisation could be analysed,For a critique of Green Anarchist「s anti-Marxism see Green hpocalypse by Luther Blissett and Stewart Home 3 .See L. Perlman, Having Liltle being much:A Chronicie of FPredy Perlman「s P泰 Tears, Black & Red, 1989. This remains the bcst overvisw of the Black 反 RedyFifth Estate activities up to 1985, when Fredy Pertmarn died. Peter Werbe ended his first instaliment of “History of the F沐 Estate“with the rematk that“our story from 1975 to the present 证 Imuch more difficult to relate quickiy and simply since it involves the development of complex ideas as well as events“. the robotisation of the motor plants has meant that today such investment can lead to job losses. Far fom offering a shorter working day, the new technology has lead to longer hours and increased on the job surveillance,Industry after industry has succumbed to information technology.This has been recognised by workers 一 Printers at The Guardiam, for instance, who refused to new equipment for seven years, before their power was broken during the Wapping Dispute. . Baut Moore looses trace of all this in his promotion of“primitivism“and extols Precisely that which is weakest in F沐 Estiafe「s trajectory. His accolade for Sun Frog「s account of the 404 project as an attempt at putting“primitivist 一 and Camattian (sic) principles into action“ looses sight of the desire“for a living, integral experience, incommensurate with power and refusing all ideology“. It「s not a matter of criticising the project, which is in many ways a healthy response to City Hife, but of fetishising it around primitivist ideology. Similar projects have been inaugurated on the basis of religion,racial redemption,as well as anarchist,communist and Primitivist ideas. The fact that “Dominant social relations in capitalist urban space constitute a genuine obstacie to the instigation“ of such projects was noted in 1641 by the Diggers when their project was suppressed by the state. Finally, the promotion of “a tenant-owned living space“is simply urban self-management as criticised in Negation「s LIP “and ihe Se仪Managed Courier Revolxtiion, Here “primitivism “ becomes completely devoid of its revolutionary roots in the communist movement and functions instead as an ideology which undermines communities of resistance with free floating idealism and which ignores the reality of the social relations within Which it is immersed. It「s not that such projects are“wrong「 in some abstract “pure“, revolutionary Way, but that they revolve around managing a piece of capital, and so remain wrapped up within the logic of capital. This leads precisely to the problems experienced in the 404 and countless other projects. Such projects may work as a Way of getting a Toof Over some of our heads, but they do not constitute a challenge to capital. In order to defend “primitivism“as 8“Syncretic ideology“Moore parasitically undermines the work of Camatte, Perlman and F讲R Estiate, separating their criticisms of civilisation tom their understanding of the workings of capital. Ever since the Bible came out, civilisation has produced a hundred and one literary visions of the simplicities of primitive life. Countless elegies have offered Arcadian imagery of a return to 8 State of grace. Yet it was his Summer Solstice sermon of 1371 that John Ball preached“When Adam delved and Eve who was then the gentleman“before an insurrectionary mass of Peasants about to storm London. Within John Wycliffe「s theology we can find a critique of alienation which poses the question of the aboition of classes and private property, of communism. The overthrow of Ccivilisation is the task of communism. NOTES 1 丁 Boggs, “Thecity is the Black man「s land「 first published 训 Morghiy Review, April 1966, reprinted in Racism REFERENCES BLISSETT, L. and HOME, S. (1995) Green Apocalypse Unpopular Books, London BOGGS,J (1966) “The city is the Black man「s land first published in Monthy Heview, reprinted (1970) in Hacism and ihe Class Struggle: Further Pages from a Black Wojkers Notebook Monthlyy Review, New York DENBY, C. (1978) Indignant Heart: h Black Worker「s Journal South End Press, Boston LANNERET P, (1996) Intemationalists in France During fe Second Worfd War Phoenix Press, London MARX,K. (1975) “The economic and philosophical manuscripts「 in Eary Wrtings translated by Rodney Lvingstone and Gregor Benton, Penguin Books, London NEGATION (1975) LIP and the Sefmanaged Counter Hevolution Black & Red, Detroit PERLMAN,F (1969) The Reproduction of Dajy L希 Black & Red, Detroit PERLMAN, F (1976) Letters of fnswgents Black & Red, Detroit (published under the names NACHALA,S.and VOCHEK,Y PERLMAN,F (1992) Anything Capn Happen Phoenix Press, London PERLMAN, L (1989) Having Litte, Being Much: A Chronicle of Fredy Perlman「s Fifty Years Black & Red, Detroit WERBE, P, (1996) “History of the Fifth Estate, part 1: the early years「 in Fifh Estate 347 Fifh Esiote can be cbtained from 4632 Second Avenue, detroit, Michigan 48201 USA (Please send them at least $2) Black & Red can be contacted at PO.Box 02374, Detroit Michigan, 48202, USA Phoenix Books can be contaced at PO.Box 824,London N1 9DL Unpopular Books can be contacted at Box 15, 138 Kingsland High Street, London E8 2NS

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Notes from a Post-Colonial State 87 smiling at the guards, and politely thank them for letting them in and out as needed. The defence is trying to keep the judge「“s attention from wandering away from the Notes From issue at hand,“that this trial is about a land claim““. The judge adamantly refuses to consider the land claim question, stating“T won“t hear that argument,so 讨 you expect t0 Taise it you w训 be going outside the A Post-colonial jurisdiction of this court「“. I guess that was exactly the point Wolverine attempted to make himself in one of his impromptu speeches interupting the judge:“I don“t recognise the jurisdiction of this court. This ought to be heard in the Privy Council …“ The proceedings continue as 讪 this, most basic question, had never been raised. Just as JojJo「s injuries are not to be openly discussed. The judge objects to Wolverine “s Statle “ramblings“. But, the charges when read, over a dozen, all relate to issues of property. Private property. And, this court won“t hear a land claim7 No, this court “hears「 land claims, it just depends on who is making them. Today, Justice is deaf, we must use by Amazda OCc7a17 Sign language. When the clerk says“ailrise“, for the judge to leave, [remain sitting until the judge has left the room. One of the guards sees me and twitches. But Im too far back in the Iow for him to really do anything. Everyone standing in the back row Taises their fsts in the clench made famous by the Black Panthers during the civil rights movement. Itis February 9th, 1996 and Iam moving through a metal detector to get into Security Courtroom 1-2, at the Provincial Courthouse in New Westminster, British Columbia, The one that people talk about now as history“Be strong, be strong“, they say. The guards hustle Wolverine and Jojo out. The courtroom empties out slowly. In the main Canada-. The courtroom seats about 40 people. At least 15 of the people entering are hallway every bench is covered with peopie, mostly women and children, gome are journalists. Once all are seated,William Ignace,also known as Wolverine,a Sunt elders. I decide that I won“t go back in next time since there are not enough seats for Dancer and elder of the Gustafsen Lake Band, and his son Joseph, called JoJo, are led all the friends and family to get into the courtroom:. It took a day“s travel for all these in, arms handcuffed behind their backs, to the prisoner「s box, a plexi-glass cage open People to come down to New Westminster from up around 100 Mile House, in the on the side that faces the judge. Visitors are seated in rows behind the cage. I realise interior The judge refused to allow the trial to be held at 100 Mile House. Instead, the Im holding my breath as the prisoners walk into the box. JoJo「s face is swollen and trial was going to be moved to Surrey, the heartland of the far-right Reform Party and mottled. He cannot close his mouth well enough to hide his bloody gums. He walks home of the Aryan Nation. stiftly as though he has trouble moving. His mother groans and calls out from behind the glass cage:“did they beat you again?“. JoJo awkwardly tumns his whole body to I walk out of there into brilliant sunshine. What does “post-colonial“mearly, here, It isn“t stored safely in the archive, the museumm, ansWer and wWithout raising his head, says slowly and tonelessly“yeh they did, yeh now? And what about they did“. A man sitting behind me stands up and $ays loudly“why do you guys the library, the text, waiting for eager excavation. Here, among the living, it has its always have to do that7“. A guard motions him back into his seat. captives. Is this a“poetic predicament“? How is it that the post-colonial mode of thinking allows a safe retreat back to the (colonial) legal boundary between place and Ifeel ashamed to sit and watch while the court duly proceeds for a full hour before the defence lawyer is able to ask the judge for medical attention for JoJo injuries. No identity7 Listen to post-colonial anthropologist James CHfford「s version of the Mashpee Identity Trial: one“official“alludes to how he might have received his injuries while in police custody and isolated from other prisoners including his father,Jojo has been continuoustiy 训 police custody since the Gustafsen Lake armed stand-o佐 ended Peacefully with the surrender of the camp inhabitants. The judge, appearing annoyed that Jojo「s physical condition was raised at all, waves his hand dismissively, stating, uhmm, yeh, Iinstruct that that other matter gets attention““. 医 The testimony I heard convinced me that organized Indian bfe had been going on in Mashpee for the past 350 years.I conctuded that since the ability to act collectively as Indians s currently bound up with tribal status, the Indians living 训 Mashpee and those who retum regularly should be recognized as 2“tibe“.… Whether land improperly alienated after 1869 should be tansferred to them, how much, and by what means was 2 (Clifford, 1988, p.336) Separate issue. I was, and still am, less clear on this matter. I try to absorb everything that is happening: the oily lack of interest of the judge, the smirking faces of the guards lined up against one wall (they really are smirking, The Mashpee identity was on trial,not because of the representational dilemmas one actually chucked when the defence asked for medical attention for JoJo). The framed by CHifford, but because of a land claim sought by the Band. The hermeneutic Prosecution talks at length with the judge, as though they have just come from lunch logic of the Law that ensnares Clifford demands that identity and place are framed as together and were udely interrupted by the court proceedings. The journalists keep separate issues,This spatial apartheid operates throughout colonial and legal

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88 Transgressions No.2 discourses,the“Euro-American system of dualistic reasoning“demanding that “oppression [and history] only comes in separate monolithic forms“(Trinh, 1989, P.104). I have to ask,why might a“post-colonial“representation retreat from a colonially inscribed boundary between constructions of space and identity? It must be WHERE S WALLY- noted, that trespassing that boundary, that field of power, is a crime. A hundred years of bloodied silence were framed in New Westminster today by swollen lips protruding around seeping gums, and the judge speaking in colonial tongues. a personal aCCounf of 3 What can “post-colonial“mean to Wolverine,to his son JoJo7 How can we entertain post-colonial“ notions i this Court of Law7 Remember“that other matter“7 multiple-use-~-name JoJo, sitting in a glass cage, bruised, on display, waiting to be Judged for “trespassing“. On February 9th, 1996, in British Columbia, Canada: a “post-colonial“state. entanglemenf REFERENCES CLIFFORD, J (1988) The Predicament of Culture Harvard University Press, Cambridge TRINH, MINH-HA T. (1989) Woman, Native, Other Indiana University Press, Bloomington py MCEL 4hYFKS walty 1 adj: Scot archaic 1. fine, pleasing or splendid 2. robust or strong. (C16: of Obscure origin) wally 2 adj: central Scot dialect 1. made of china: a wally dog; a wally vase 2. lined with ceramic tiles; a wall close 一 (from obscure dialect Wallow faded, adjectival use of wallow to fde, from Old English wealwan). Wally n.pl一-lies siang.a stupid person. (C20: shortened form of the given name Walten). Wallies p1.n. Central Scot dialect. fajse teeth; dentures. Colins Dictionary of the English Langxage, 1986 No-one really knows why the vast Stonehenge complex of megaliths and earth mounds Was erected on Salisbury Plain. However, in this century, the idea that the Sarsen stone circle was aligned with the Midsummer solstice (whether it is tue or not) has become more or less common knowledge. Following the Second World War, thousands of people gathered every summer at Stonehenge to celebrate and to watch the solstice sunrise. As well as a large body of revellers, a party from a druidical organisation also carried out its rather more pious, ceremonies. In the 1950s the informal gatherings were joined by skiffle groups. In 1974, a Small Free Festival was also organised alongside Stonehenge, where an obscure electronic noise band named Zorchi gave a performance through a dodgy PA system. A group of around thirty People stayed on after the festival and pitched camp in a ficld next to the stone circle. They liived communally in tents, a rickety polythene-covered geodesic dome and a stmall fluorescent painted tipi. ft was an open camp, inspired by a diversity of wild ideas,but with the common purpose of discovering the relevance of this ancient mysterious place by the physical experience of spending a lot of tme there. The Department of the Environment and the National Trust landowners set out to evict them. Such was the law in those days, the eviction process involved seeking a High

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Where「s Wally? 91 90 Transgressions No.2 Court injunction on named individuals. Aware of this potential legal loophole the occupants decided to exploit it and so they all adopted the one name of“Wally“. The case made the front pages of national press and TV when the Wallies tumed up at the London court in fancy dress and fed the journalists with some wacky material to In the autumn of 1974, an articie by the Wallies appeared in the“underground「 magazine MayQ. their EVERYONE「S WALLY Ilook to the revolution to rename every citizen with one sound and 山e composite name column inches:. A strange hippie cult calling themselves“Wallies“claim God told them to camp at Stonehenge. The Wallies of Wiltshire tumed up 训 force at the High Court today. There was Kris Wally, Alan Wally, Fritz Wally, Sir Walter Wally, Wally Egypt and a few other wandering Wallys. The sober calm of the High Court was shattered as Wallies of Stonehenge sought justice. A lady Wally called Egypt with bare feet and bells on ber ankdies blew soap bubbles in the rarefied legal air and knelt to meditate. Sir Walter Waliy wore a theatrical Elizabethan doublet with blue jeans and spoke of peace and equality and hot dogs. Kevin Wally chain-smoked through a grotesque mask and gave the victory sign t0 embarrasscd Pin-striped lawyers. And tartan-blanketed Kris Wally 一“My mates built Stonehenge“ 一 climbed a lamp-post in the Strand outside the Law Courts and stopped bemused tourists 训 their tracks. The Walties (motto“Everyone「s a Wally: Everyday「s a Sun Day) 一 made the pilgrimage to the High Court to defend what was iheir squatter right to camp on Stonehenge . . . the Department of the Environment s bringing an action in the High Court to evict the Wallies from the meadow, 2 quarter of a mile from the sarsen circle of standing stones, which is held by the National Trust on behalf of the nation. The document, delivered by 山e Department to the camp is a masterpiece of pofaced humour, addressed to“one known as Arthur Wally, another knowan as Philip Wally, another known as Ron Wally and four others each known as Wally“. For instance, Paragraph seven begins resoundingly:“There were four male adults in the tent and I asked each one in turn his name, Each replied Tm Wally““. There are a soft core of about two dozem, peace-loving,sun worshipping Wallies 一 including Wally Woof the mongrel dog,Hitch-hikers thumbing 山eir way through Wiltshire from Israel, North America, France, Germany and Scotland have swollen their ntmbers。 Egypt Wally wouldn「t say exactly where she was from - only that she Was bort 12,870 years ago in the cosmic sun and had a certain affinity with white negative. Last night they were squatting on the grass and meditating on the news. The Times, August 13th, 1974 of all citizens to be the analog of the deepest terestrial vibration so that When We are a called we w all hear: Since Midsummer「s day of this yean the year of the Tigen, 30 people have been living on and around Stonehenge,all answering t0 the name of Wally,Dancing, frolicking, acting out the Gospel of Free using Stonehenge as a cosmic wristwatch with domes and dogs, and horses,and music and troubadour costumes,and giant shirts embroidered with the Eye of Horus. At the beginning of the French revolution there was a movement known as the JACQUERIE in which everyone called themselves Jacques。 Your name s your mantra. Eskimoes believing in the Seven Ages Of Man, that one Changes s is known, totally, every 7 years, have a different name every 7 years, The Canadian Government, who, as all Governments, try t0 undenmine the recording angel, by keeping tabs on people for no reason, are confused. How can a baby mean Priscilla, or Sebastian, or Donald., maybe one only hits the mantra by which one 5 known for a few seconds. One can only be known by God. How can one own land? The Indians roared with laughter when the first white mant arrived in the North Indies and offered the Indians gold in exchange for their land. The Indians wandered ail over if,and thought 训 as an earthly sky. How much is a cloud worth? Bat when they saw what whitey Was up t0 they became embittered. Shambala, the founder of the Dreamer Religion said:“The white man drives stakes into My mother「s heart, he cuts her hair, he slashes open her womb, before she is ready to0 give him her fruit“. Sons of the Sun, the Waliys, are letting the mysteries of Stonehenge work through them, despite the barbed wire that surrounds it, despite the army bases, and despite the stale nets of secular legalisms. Freedom is a Career. Wally was thus a name anyone could use. Multiple names are a playful and idealistic attempt to create havoc with officialdom, both within and beyond the margins of “art「. The multiple-use name Emmett Grogan3 was used by San Francisco diggers in the 1960s.The book Ringolevio is an biography of several members of the diggers merged together as the autobiography of one “person“, Bmmett Grogan. The name Karen Eliot refers to no one and is potentially everyone. In the 1990s, the multi-use name Luther The Court found in favour of the Department of the Environment, so the Wallies Blissett was invented and spread by artists, writers, musicians, footballers and avant- moved their camp approximately six feet away to a stretch of common land. It was bardists. The multi-using of the WVally name was abandoned by 1975 when, on the tbhere I joined them. I left the wind-swept Salisbury Plain a few weeks later with head other side of the galaxy, the Mail-Artists Stefan Kukowski and Andrew Czaranowski lice and a bad cough. The camp, known as Fort Wally, Temained in place until after initiated a project “...to change.everyone「s name to Klaus Oldenberg“. the Winter Solstice. The name“Wally「 lost its efficacy by becoming over identified with one man, Phil The name“Wally“ had come from an early seventies festival in-joke, when the call Russell Russell (aka Wally Hope) was from a wealthy background4 and cut a rather and“Where「s Wally?「“would go round at nightfall. ft may have been the more healthy and clean-cut image than the other scruffs at Fort Wally. He had written name of a lost sound engineer at the first Giastonbury festival, or a lost dog at the 1969 and published much of the promotional material for the Stonehenge festival, which is Isle of Wight festival. There have been other suggestions for its origins, but it was a said to have been his idea. Although the Wally camp wWas un as an 0pen and regular shout at almost any festival event. 2 undisciplined commune, Russell saw himself as the leader and was not afraid to march round issuing orders, not that anyone paid much attention to him. He would talk and talk to anyone who would iisten. His favourite topics were the importance of sun

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Where「s Wally? 93 92 Transgressions No.2 saw Russell, seeming rather subdusd, in 1975, at the Watchfield Free Festival. A few Back to the Rimbaud-inspired death cult. In 1987, the Crass album was Teissued on CD. The Wally Hope story was dusted off in 1995 to provide a dead hero for a new Weeks later I saw a Teport 讨 the local paper that he had died in mysterious generation of road-protesting crusties in a report训 SGxall magazine. Neil Goodwin circumstances. The next year at the Stonehenge festival, a whisper went round that writes: worship and his belief that he had met the reincarnated Jesus Christ in Cyprus. I last , Someones had turned up with the ashes from Wally“s cremation. At midday, within the Perched on a stone beside a bronze statue of the Indian goddess Shivas, a gsmall Oak box carries the epitaph: WALLY HOPB DIBD 1975 AGED 28,A VICTIM OF IGNORANCB. For twenty years the box that once contained the ashes of the man who Sarsen circle, Sid Rawle said a few mystical words over a Small wooden box and a bunch of us scattered Wally「s mortalremains over the stones.Itook a handful of ashes out to sprinkile on the Heel stone, and as I did so, a breeze blew up and I got a bit of founded the Stonehenge Free Festival has made regular appearances at Stonehenge gatherings. Each year friends and former acquaintances, druids and festival-goers, preserve his memory by becoming official keepers of the box. It 训 the closest the modern Wally in my eye. I heard no more about the Wally story until 1982 when the political punk band Crass brought out“Christ the Album「. This was their best-selling LP, it spent two PagayHippy movement has to an icon; a lasting testament to torture and death at the hands of an intolerant regimePenny Rimbaud, author of the book “The lastof the Hippics“ first met Phil RusseLL, alias Wally Hope, in 1974. She? describes him as“A Smitng, bronzed, hippy warrior“... weeks at number 26 in the UK album chart. This was a concept album based on the story of Wally Hope. The record, like their others, came out with page upon page of sleeve notes anQd Posters. ft contained a bookiet written by Penny Rimbaud that did much to establish the personality cult around Wally Hope, as well as create a conspiracy theory around the circumstances of his death. In the bookietb, Rimbaud compares Russell with Sid This year, 1996, the Rimbaud/Wally Hope death cult story0o was used as the central theme of a book on the continuing hippie DIY counter-culture,Fierce Dancing. Vicious and Charles Manson. Rimbaud「s story was that while working towards a second Stonehenge festival, Russell was arrested for possession of a small quantity of However, the author,CJ Stone, managed to make one interview with one of tbhe original Wallies who now lives in the only house in Tepee Valley, Wales. Chris Wally LSD. for which he was placed on remand, where he refused to wear a prison uniform. He chose to defend his LSD use on religious grounds and was “sectioned「 to a mental thought f was no wonder Phil Russell had been certified insane, and pointed out that institution. There he was pumped full of huge doses of anti-psychotic dmugs which that-be.“His death was brought on just as much by his own intransigence 一 and by reduced him to a state of idiocy, Upon his release he suffered from an incurable condition of chronic dyskinesia as a result of his treatment, and so killed himself with ther failure to understand what he was trying to 8ay 一 as by any dark machinations.“ an Overdose of sleeping tablets. Rimbaud investigated the Ccase further, uncovered 2 number of cover-ups, and received death threats as a result. Rimbaud「s is an odd and very muddled story,in which many details do not concur with other known facts about the Case. The Stonehenge Free Festival became a regular event around the time of the Summer Solstice and attracted many more people until 1985, when as part of a general offensive against Working class self-organisation police roadblocks were set up to Prevent the festival happening anywhere near Stonehenget. To this day there is a general ban on gatherings taking place anywhere near Stonehenge around the Summer But the next time the name Wally moved into media focus was in 1983 when the book How to Be a Wally「s death was an accidental side-effects of the profit-motivation of the powers- Solstice, and police roadblocks are set up throughout Wiltshire every June. was published. By now, the meaning of the word “Wally“ had changed in popular usage and now meant“a stupid So we have seen how the meaning of the name Wally has changed since 1969, as different factions have attempted to use the name and the death of at least one person Then a series of children「s books were published 一 and a syndicated TV animated who used i to their own ideological ends. From mysterious beginnings at some dimly series Was based upon the old cry“Where「s Wally7“. Martin Handford「s densely remembered festival, Wally has since become a hippie martyD, a conspiracy theory, a illustrated puzzle books, selling over 25 million copies in twenty countries, featured the character Wally5 wearing a red and white striped bobble hat, round, black framed name for a stupid person, and a commercial cartoon series for children. We look forward to equally bizarre developments for Luther Blissett. Spectacles, a Ted and white sweatshirt, blue jeans, brown shoes. The character gppears a8 male, a Caucasian with pale complexion, he is thin, has brown wWavy hair, has a long chin,wears a constant smile and has three fingers and a thumb on each hand. He Carries a brown walking stick. In short, he looks like the archetypal tourist7. What is interesting this series of books, is the cunning way the text encourages the Teader to look at each picture very, very carefully - in order to find the Wally character. The NOTES 1 “Zorch - A band named atfter the sound made by the molten plastic dripping fom a burning Plastic milk crate hanging fom a tree. 2 “Wally alternatively stands for Wessex Anarchist Libertarian League of Youth. In old English,wally meant “foreigner「“stranger“ or “Celt「 ie, the term “Comwall meaning “land of the Cornish foreigners“ and “Wales「 (meaning foreigners). 3 “The word “Emmett「 means “tourist「达 20th century Cormislh “Grogan“ means “hairy「讨 Gaelic. So Emmett Grogan means “hairy tourist, character is often just one small person who happens to be in a huge, finely detailed crowd. So really the books could be said to be about the problem of recognising individual identity i a mass social context.

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94 Transgressions No.2 4 “Russell was set to inherit his family「s fortune at the a8e of 30. His guardian was the former BBC broadcaster, John Snagge- 5 巩 tmums out that 训 was Penny Rimbaud who brought Russclls ashes to Stonchenge, Rimbaud knew PhilRussell because he had grown Up near the long established Cfass commune ip Eppin8. There was no other contact between Crass and the Wally camp. 6 The Wally characters「 dog is calied “Woof“ this would indicate the influence of the Wessex Wally dog kmown 25 Wally 了 A particular type of tourist though; the 3 fingers indicates he i a member of the Triads and the cane would indicate the Joseph Beuys brand of Fluxus-Shamanism. 8 “Shiva is 训 fact beter Imown as & maie deity, with a female partner knowm a5 Shalcti. 9 Penny Rimbaud is, in fact male, TechNEJ y Howard Sajfer and Skecf 10 Stone also mentions the dead body of another fonmer Wally found tied to a tee with a joint in his mouth, 11 A peaceable advance party of tavellers had the shit Jicked out of them and vehicles rashed 训 the famous Battle of the Beanfisld、 Meanwhile there were other roadblocks p and dowWn the coumtry to Prevent the movement of sbpporters of 山e great Miners“Strike,The 1985 Stonehenge Festival happened 巡 a h overloocking a ancient White Horse Hill chalk fgure some miles aWay. The Horse「s Eye was temporarily decorated with a Huge Smiley and some of the earliest reported “crop circles“ appeared 记 a nearby feld. REFERENCES ANON. (1974) Everyone「s Waltyy「 Maya 1, September CHIPPENDALE, C (1983) Stonehenge Complele Thames and Hudson, London GOODWIN, N.(1995 Wally Hope 一 a victim of ignorance「 Squal Autumn GROGAN, E. (1972)Hingolevio 一 A Life Played for Keeps Panther「 St.Aibans HANDFORD, M. (1990)Wheres Waly? The Uitimate Fun Book Walker Books, London HOME, S (1995) Neoism, Plagiarism and Praxis AK Press, Edinburgh HOWARD, P (1974) JThe Times, August 13th, 1974 MANNING, P (1983) How to be a Waly Futura Publications, London MICHELL, 小 (1985) Stonehenge 一 is Druyids, Custogians, Festival and Future Radical Traditionalist Papers, London RICHTER, H. (1965) Dada At and Ant-Art Thames and Hudson, London RIMBAUD, P. (1982) “The last of the hippies「 in A Series of Shock Sjogans and Mindless TPken ]Jantrums Exitstencit Press, London STONE, CJJ. (1996) The Martyr of Stonehenge「 in The 8g jssue 176 April 8th-13th STONE, CJ. (1996) Fierce Dancing Faber and Faber, London STRATTON-KENT E. (1988) Wally Hope: a morality play in six acts「 Occuture 1(1) also information available from: STONEHENGE CAMPAIGN, 99 Toriano Avenue, London, NW5 2RX TechVETis an affirmation ofelectronic dance music that seeks to elaborate and prope1l the continual outbursts of psycho-social tumult that this music is creating. Never numbered or dated, each issue of TecRNET could be the first or the last. Always at a beginning and always incomplete, 7ecMVET is a“glorified flyer「“ that is given away at pParties, deposited in record shops and sent out along the Third Rail into varying COnteXt$. Not being dependent on circulation numbers, not having specific goals, not being a “producty, aliows TecRVET to wander into a“space-between“ … so far sometimes, that i cannot be formatted and, at tmes, so ephemerally that it is defused rather than diffuse,Continually re-mixed and cross-phased,TechVET“emerges after being inspired by the multiple personalties of both texts and tracks. Wuhilst TecRVET samples theoretical writing, it is used in a non-didactic way. It is a wider turned into a means of expressing the experiential; of situating the music social-field. TecRVET rides outwards, a collaboration that also connects with the experience of listening, organising hnderground parties, making tracks and releasing records. The two texts that follow 一 “The Intensifier“ and “Listener as Operator「一 like the music, have taken us out along routes we didn「“t even know where there... contact: BM Jed, London WCIN 3KX e-mail: jed@phreak.intermedia.co.uk Nigel Ayers edits Network News available from: Earthly Delights, PO Box 2, Lostwithiel, PL22 OYY, Comwal UK. The Intensiftier He can also be contacted by electronic mai: ealthly@draughtdemon.co.uk fe use ofspeed 1988 the intensifier started going to illegal parties and raves.Mostly happening in lost empty factories on the edges of wastelands. People danced on burntup cars, fucked suspensions moving in four-four time. The intensifier climbs over Around scatfolding. Metal dumming against metal and fires shifting edges. Parties could go anywhere, The intensifier loses itb,then Tealises there is nothing to lose. Lucid

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Sleeve Notes 97 96 Transgressions No.2 confusion. In night-empty cities, 8 generation compose with speed, thinking/feeling:; uncertainty,immensity,motion,forgetfulness,radiance,waste。Transformed by moving fast, taking it all at high velocity. The intensifier dancing, hooded,8grey, enwrapped in white smoke and light. The intensiftier moves, uses speed. Each party wWas the end of an era. Something to take and use. Compose yourseif. Move. he space War The intensifier uses sound as a Cultural weapon, inspiring thousands of simultaneous explosions on the borders between memory and loss. Immersing bodies in unpredictable ways,sound enters several directions at once, producing internal connections and motions, anticipating a desire to interact with others. Through this body/mind motion a building is converted into a space of social-inspiration, a Space that can be changed, reversed,stretched, wasted, lost or destroyed. The intensifier, fused to this psycho-social energy, moves through a space-between. he art ofdeception The intensifier has no identity, no ideology, has no Cause or desire to persuade. The intens近er senses the boundaries between things, iike when sound is loaded into a ftre 0fmxsic computer to be recoded as a graphic and manipulated, combined, played with touch. Devious and impossible to anticipate, subtle and insubstantial, the intensifier leaves The intensifier moves on0,keeps moving. There are no rules. Genres cross fertilise no tace. Mysterious and inaudible, no-one knows where it is going. Pretending to constantly,mapping the mutant subjectivities of dancers. Now half-way through stand still and accommodate itselfto the subliminal designs of corporate machines, the another decade, the intensitier isn“t waiting for the hext new style to be re-discovered, intensifter knows speed and deception secretly free it from imposed values. only to be Temembered again as inherited identity. The intensifier is not concerned with reaching an abstract audience,but chooses to operate at an immediate level, making parties and following desires. The intensifier,cut through by collective 抹e endless ix activity,which is the basis of any culture, moves against cults of the individual, The intensifier reads/writes about … the activity of listening to music is a silent attracting new vocabularies that talk about the make-shift creativity of crowds. The Production … a drift across the sounds … a metamorphosis of the music created by intensitier represents movements tbat anyone Can USe-. wWandering ears … the listener insinuates into the masic the ruses of pleasure, manipulation, combination, steals it is transported into it, multiplies in it … like the reverberations of stories stiring in a memory or the internal rumblings of sounds moving through a body, this silent production is an invention of memory...music is the outlet or product of invisible histories … we tisten to the landscape of our memories … music is a movement of strata, a play of spaces, the listener slips their own world Listener as Obetrator Ido not write experimental music… my experimenting s done before I make my music. Afterwards i s the listener who must experiment. , Edgar Varese into the music … tike language the forms of music are stolen by tansients flling them with forests of desires, metaphors of their own quests … the intensifier tunderstands In any discussions on the reception of music there are two common and interrelated unforeseen Ways … 2aSSumptions: music s seen as an art form that is responded to physically and, 诊 it is that the tistener is the operator, using the endless mix of sound granted any “intelligence「“,it is as a spiritual or mystical consciousness. The difficulty of talking about music leads to the kind of apprehension of the listening experience 劳e D yersXs 技e elody The intensifiep, grey against a dark sky, dancing, every bone and bacteria in its body mowving. Some things are taken and used i devious,invisible,silent ways,uses neither determined nor captured by the military-entertainment-surveillance industries 训 which these things are designed,manufactured and marketed,The intensifier dances, moves and transforms itself, insinuates itself in the memories of users. The manifested by the media「s promotion of music makers as personalities. This advances & Cultural mechanism whereby the Producers of,say,a Tecord,are held i higher esteem than its COnsWers. But beyond the production/consumption dichotomy and the cultural inaction this creates “there lies a social arena that enables the interpenetration of this appatent division. The listener as operator, The dancer as engineer. individual is a crowd, the movement of incoherent and contradictory masses of social Meaning is generated socially. Without dialogue there can be no meaning. Without relations,Swarms of possibilities,endless immersions in space,The intensifier interaction there can be no communication. The productiony/consumption dichotomy dancing,grey and faceless. Wandering uses create an incoherent and contradictory implies that listening to a record is an activity devoid of creative interaction yet, anti-discipline manifest 训 the intensifier,grey against a dark sky,dancing、The leaving aside notions of consciousness itself being formed in a process of social intensitier insinuates itself everywhere, moving, transforming, inspiring celebrations. interaction, and concentrating on the record maker, we see not the work of individual The intensifier combines rhythms and melodies, rhythm becomes melody and melody genius but someone in creative interaction with music technology (a process of fusion, becomes development and adaptation),with the whole history of a given genre,with an assumed audience and context.Factors Such as experiencing a record,through

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98 Transgressions No.2 anticipation and expectation,and hence of gathering meaning from the record,let alone dancing to ib, can hardly even be talked about within the producer/consumer dichotomy. fransportf of Delight, Look at another form of audible communication, language. Rather than perceiving language as a stable edifice that speakers inhabit as a ready-made system, language is more accurately understood as a continuous generative process implemented in the social-verbal interaction of speakers.Language operates between speaker anQd addressee, with both parties informed by the other: the speaker can only speak with an mind, the addressee, can Tespond and be the speaker. addressee Moltorways of Bloodt: Some New Proposals THe RAhC When we interpret communication as dialogue it becomes possible to speak of the generation of a “space between「. Being intangible this“space between“gives little concrete evidence of its existence. Thus theories of communication tend to fall back on one oftwo poles: the individual communicating (psyche) or the system of language (signs),The first yields“stars「“and “personalities「,the second,musical notation. However, with music it is possible for this“space between「 to be materialised as the record. So the record becomes a conceptual space, a machine that the listener operatesThe record is not simply a communication that must be interpreted and fixed down but a place of interaction Where meaning is generated by both the music maker and the listener. The listener is involved in a silent production that never cnds. The listener becomes a creativity that flourishes at the very point where practice ceases to have Tyansgressioms receiyed ihe JDllowing fext. He are 1ed i0 believe 江 as peer contribufed Dy Some yOMn8sfers「 Wworkimng wifhin助 Brifisg soveryynenfs Department 0f Iransport. The Roads Advisory Committee has been formed in response to growing public interest i the future of road transit in the UK. We are a privately funded research initiative dedicated to exploring and disseminating new solutions to the current Crises its own language (a know-how without discourse). This practice of the tistener, this facing Britain「s transportation system, The essentially policy related points raised below have emanated from the Committee“s current principal project:“New Routes operating the record,can relate to the latter「s manifold uses: mixing,scratching, sampling, slowing up, speeding down, burning, smashing, lock-grooving; using it to Department of Transport. engaged for Britain「s Motorway Network「, which is being prepared for final submission to the dance to,as & psycho-physical energiser, Whatever its use the record cannot exist without the response of its audience,without the active Perception and inner responsiveness of the listener,. The record does not say 让 all; its sounds generate a different conceptual operation in the listener than the producer. This is a wider sensorium than the delineation of producer and consumer Shggests. For listening simultaneously demands openness to a surrounding world. Even at its most private,listening is about being socially connected,about making meanings. Listening is an activity that anticipates and expects. Being far from passive, it actively folows the desires it unjeashes, opening itself up to communication and alowing subjectivity to mutate and merge. By being opened and joined, by desiring the sounds, by being engulfed by them, means that listening, once it occupies the“space The Opportunity Britain is laced with a superb network of arterial motorways,a System largely constructed from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s. It was one of the Committee “s initial and founding contentions that the survival and maintenance of this system is, at least in part, dependent upon the destruction and marginalisation of more ecologically and socially sustainable forms of transport:,Moreover,that as more socially responsible modes of transportation are advised and implemented, that the motorway network wilt become the legitimate object of political speculation on its future usages and maintenance. This then is *the bpportunity「“ facing British road planners in the Ccoming years. can no longer be satisfied with reproducing models but can change minds. Listening s social inspiration. Preliminary Observations on a Sustainable Solutiot: WVatersheds and Watershed Emplacetments One of the largely unknown facets of Britain「s motorway network is its relationship to the country“s fluvial morphology. Over 60% of Britain「s motorway IOutes are Positioned alongside, or adjacent to, the receiving areas「 for 62% of the run-o珉 fromt the nation「s total rainfall. What this means practice is that,with a little,and we would contend, feasible human intervention, these routes could be employed as fluvial

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100 Transgressions No.2 conduits. In order to increase the“efficiency“ of this process, and to extend the reach of any Such project from 609 to 1009 of the country「“s motorway network, a series of “watershed emplacements「“could be constructed. These moveable and “landscape- Dislocation sensitive“artificial barriers would be placed at strategic positions within any one watershed area, thus increasing the efficiency of the flow of sub-soil and spill-off on liquid towards its intended Hhe But, it might be asked, why would we want motorways flowing with water7 The lsle of Dogs answer is simple. We don“t. We want them flowing with blood. y Fapfay Tops6十 The Sbpiling of Cabpitalist-bureauctacy: Motorways of Blood As many have remarked before us, the necessary struggle against the representatives Some people will be familiar with the ilustration on the left. It was developed by Gestalt psychologists to illustrate their understanding of how visual perception works. of authoritarianism,bureaucracy and capitalism,is an inewvitably“bloody affair“. However, what has often been overlooked is the opportunities this process presents for The image can be seen as a vase or two people facing each other in profile. These are transport planners. And it is because of this that the Committee believes its has an important and unique role to play in the future development and management of distinct viewings, as the faces must disappear from consciousness for the vase to manifest itself and vice versa. Either the faces constitute a black fgure against a white Britain「s social and physical environment. ground, or the vase constitutes a white figure against a black ground. It requires an act of will to move between each viewin8, and there is an unstable point where the whole We and many other similar research and interest groups are of the conviction that the British landscape is disfigured by kmots of parliamentarians and “yuppies“. Furthermore, these groups tend to clump together with others of the capitalist class. In is simply seen as an abstract image. the forthcoming and, perhaps, inevitable, class struggle we envisage that a majority of these individuals will be slaughtered. Moreover, that this“blood-bath「“will result in considerable sub and surface soil liguid run-off. Under our proposals, these predicted torrents of capitalist blood will flow in a manageable and socially-useful direction. The once dry and unsightly motorways of Britain will be transformed into attractive and environmentally sustainable “red rivers “. But what use, other than the purely aesthetic, could these new fluvial features be Put to7 Again, we think we have an ansSWer. Transport of Delight The Roads Advisory Committee has considered a number of exciting proposals concerning the use and maintenance of the predicted “motorways of blood「. However, we believe the moral force of one particular solution cannot, at present, be rivalled. Today in London we are participating in another reversal of fgure and ground. The East End is frequentity used as a back-drop for film and television. It is generally treated as a passive ground in: front of which frightfully interesting characters do frightfully interesting things. However occasionally figures from the cityscape are along the new canal network, Such barges would be free of charge. They would be drawn into focus and become elements in the narrative, abstracting them from their environment and placing them in the mythic stucture of the flm or TV programme. sPecifically built and designed to enable the numerous victims of capitalist oppression and boredom to enjoy leisurely cruises throughout the length and breadth of the UK. This process and the manipulation of these images has a real effect on the locations and the people who live in the East End. The use of the location can create a senise of We suggest that children and elderly people would find a particular satisfaction i dislocation. In summary, we envisage the sailing of wind and solar powered pleasure barges relaxed and contemplative drifts along Britain「s new“scarlet streams“. Roads Advisory Committee To highlight this sense of dislocation, the illustration on the right refers to an item in an exhibition on visual illusions held at the National Gallery in the 1970s. The white lines can be seen as a cube in two distinct ways 一 either with the lower corner (A) projecting towards us, or with the upper corner (B) coming out at us. In fact the

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Dislocation on the Isle of Dogs 103 102 Transgressions No.2 visitor was invited to hold the bottoml of the cube 训 the tips of their fingers, shocked to read how Lewis Mumford described this as “a little masterpiece“ featuring a “cheerful covered walk punctuated by sustaining columns“, but then he didn“t have pPerceptually reversing the way they saw the cube (i.e. they saw the comer facing them to trudge there every week to do his shopping.)! as the most distant) and then to gently rotate the cube. The visual reversion gave the illusion that the cube was rotating in the opposite way from that which the hand This grim world has disappeared 一 or so We are lead t0 believe by the glittering images disseminated by the LDDC. The north of the Island has become the site of show piecce architecture such as Cascades, a wedge shaped housing block and, C exhibit was actually a wire cube painted with fluorescent paint in a black box. The actualiy turned it. This gave rise to a most peculiar sensation in the wrist, as 迂 the wWrist Was dislocated. Iwant to relate these effects to the impact that flm and television can have on our sense of space in the East End「s Isle of Dogs, which is where I live. The area has been course, Canary Wharf, which has in many ways become an emblem of the Thatcher years, symbolising both the arrogance and the subsequent economic collapse. Despite transformed over the last fifteen years. This section of London Docklands has been at the 1980s being a time of major architectural and building development in the City of London, the Isle of Dogs, a couple of miles down the road still drew most of the the centre of the so-called regeneration“of East London. This transformation has attention. resulted i spectacular modern architecture which has frequently been used as a backdrop for various filmic enterprises. Indeed,the area has been actively promoted by the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) for this purposeBefore going any further I want to make some remarks about the organisation of the physical and symbolic cityscape through architecture and flm. The separation of the physical and symbolic environment is an analytic abstraction. In daily life they are experienced as a whole. As we go about our daily life in the city, we negotiate and comprehend built and social structures with our internalised mental structures, All these are changing i relation to each other. But im the patterns of our life,certain journeys attain the quality of a familiar tune. These are our song-lines 一 a sequenced string oflocations engraved on our memory, sometimes experienced half-awake in the early mormming on the Way to work, sometimes experienced half-asleep, coming home after a night out. Our unique experiences, the particular routes we use from our home to our work, to the shops, to visit our friends and family, are interwoven with those of our neighbours to create the texture of city life. Urban planning and “regeneration「 grasps this texture and sets out to transform 训 On the Isle of Dogs, we have been subjected to a fifteen year offensive by the capitalist state in restructuring our urban environment. Fifteen years ago, the Island was ike the land time forgot: neglected working class communities wedged in between industrial sites, some derelict, others in tingering decline. The entrance to the Island involved traveliing down a narrow road between two walls so high that they dwarfed even a double-decker bus. Where once the activities of the docks were masked from sight, these walls now hid inactivity. When I moved For those tving on the Island, it was both a gradual and a rapid transformation. With little work on the Island, many people travelled daily through the building sites on the north of the Island, watching the zone being transformed. The developments to the Island our neighbours would joke about having been on the waiting tist to get they saw were clearly alien. Cascades offered housing for the rich, whilst the Canary Wharf complex was to be a bizarre hive for office drones who commuted in from the alternative council housing elsewhere for a dozen or more years. At tmes it seemed that the dock and factory walls surrounded the housing estates rather than the factories suburbs. It was clear that these facilities were“not for us「“. This so-called “inner city regeneration「 had more in common with colonialism than the stated aim of improving and docks; that we“d moved to an open Prison, a barracoon, with an indeterminate the lot of the indigenous inhabitants. As the gap between rich and poor widened acrOss the whole of Britain, the Island became a cucible where the extremes existed side by sentence. The area Was composed of the highest concentration of council housing in England, linked by this one road which went around the edge of the Island, providing access for the single bus route. Taxi drivers would refuse to 8o onto the Island. After a while you would learn how to trick them to take you nearer home. It seemed to be the one area not covered by London taxi-drivers「“comprehensive geographical training, known as“the knowledge“. The over-priced local shops were complemented by the sadness of Chrisp Street market and its shabby stalls on the mainland-. (I was side. Estates which had been the poorest in London since Booth「s nineteenth century maps of urban poverty, were now down the road from yuppie flats equipped with private gyms and swimming pools. The inhabitants were never intended to mix. For the locals, the past doesn“t simply disappear when certain buildings get demolished or others are erected in their place. The old buildings still cast shadows in

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Dislocation on the Isle of Dogs 103 102 Transgressions No.2 exhibit was actually a wire cube painted with fluorescent paint in a black box. The visitor was invited to hold the bottom of the cube in the tips of their fingers, shocked to read how Lewis Mumford described this as ““a little masterpiece“ featuring a “cheerful covered walk punctuated by sustaining columns“, but then he didn“t have Perceptually reversing the way they saw the cube (i.e. they saw the corner facing them as the most distant) and then to gently rotate the cube. The visual reversion gave the to trudge there every week to do his shopping.)1 illusion that the Cube was rotating i the opposite way from that which the hand the actually turned it. This gave rise to a most peculiar sensation in the wrist, as This grim world has disappeared 一 or so we are lead to believe by the glittering images disseminated by the LDDC. The north of the Island has become the site of WTrist Was disloCated. show piece architecture Such as Cascades, a wedge shaped housing block and, of course, Canary Wharf, which has in many ways become an emblem of the Thatcher Iwant to relate these effects to the impact that flm and television can have on Our sense of space in the East End「s Isle of Dogs, which is where Ilive. The area has been years, symbolising both the arrogance and the subsequent economic collapse. Despite the 1980s being a time of major architectural and building development in the City of transformed over the last fifteen years. This section of London Docklands has been at the centre of the so-called Tegeneration“of East London. This transformation has London, the Isle of Dogs, a couple of miles down the road still drew most of the attention. resulted in spectacular modern architecture which has frequently been used as a backdrop for various filmic enterprises. Indeed,the area has been actively promoted by the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) for this purposeBefore going any further I want to make some remarks about the organisation of the physical and symbolic cityscape through architecture and film. The separation of the physical and symbolic environment is an analytic abstraction. In daily life they are experienced as a whole. As we go about our daily life in the city, we negotiate and comprehend built and social structures with our internalised mental structures. All these are changing in relation to each other. But in the patterns of our life,certain journeys attain the quality of a familiar tune. These are our song-lines 一 a sequenced string of locations engraved on our memory, sometimes experienced half-awake in the early morning on the way to work, sometimes experienced half-asleecp, coming home after a night out. Our unique experiences, the particular routes we use from our home to our work, to the shops, to visit our friends and family, are interwoven with those of our neighbours to create the texture of city life-. Urban planning and regeneration“grasps this texture and sets out to transform i On the Isle of Dogs,we have been subjected to a fifteen year offensive by the capitalist state in restructuring our urban environment. Fifteen years ag0, the Island wWas like the land time forgot: neglected working class communities wedged in between industrial sites, some derelict, others in lingering decline. The entrance to the Island involyed travelling down a narroWw road between two walls so high that they dwarfed even a double-decker bus. Where once the activities of the docks were masked from sight, these walls now hid inactivity. When I moved to the Island our neighbours would joke about having been on the waiting list to get alternative council housing elsewhere for a dozen or more years. At times it seemed that the dock and factory walls surrounded the housing estates rather than the factories and docks; that we「“d moved to an open prison, a barracoon, With an indeterminate sentence. The area Was composed of the highest concentration of council housing in England, linked by this one road which went around the edge of the Island, providing access for the single bus route. Taxi drivers would refuse to go onto the Island. After a While you would learn how to trick them to take you nearer home. It seemed to be the 0ne area not covered by London taxi-drivers「“comprehensive geographical training, known as“the knowledge“. The over-priced local shops were complemented by the sadness of Chrisp Street market and its shabby stalls on the mainland. (I was For those living on the Tsland, it was both a gradual and a Trapid transformation. With little work on the Island, many people travelled daily through the building sites on the north of the Island, watching the zone being transformed. The developments they SaW Were clearly alien. Cascades offered housing for the rich, whilst the Canary Wharf complex was to be a bizarre hive for office drones who commuted in from the suburbs. It was clear that these facilities were“not for us“. This so-called “inner city regeneration“ had more in common with colonialism than the stated aim of improving the lot of the indigenous inhabitants. As the gap between rich and poor widened acTOSs the whole of Britain, the Island became a crucible where the extremes existed side by side. Estates Which had been the poorest in London since Booth「s nineteenth Century maps of urban poverty, were now down the road from yuppie flats equipped with Private gyms and swimming pools. The inhabitants were never intended to mix. For the locals, the past doesn“t simply disappear When certain buildings get demolished or others are erected in their place. The old buildings still cast shadows in

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104 Transgressions No.2 Dislocation on the Isle of Dogs 105 their minds. Alongside everything that a visitonp or visiting flm crew, might see, this weight of the past hangs on in the minds of the living. Over the last century this layering of spatial memory has been interacting with filmic representations of the urban environment. In the last forty years television has tumed this process into a domestic, interior dialectic. In Docklands this has happened at the same time as the decline of London as a Port. Capitalist flm and television,as the industrialisation of the collective consciousness, interacts with the architecture of redevelopment in new strategies of class control and Tepression:. The same values which are reflected in buildings like Canary Wharf draw film makers to Dockiands. Whilst working on“Shopping「,the camera operator,Mike Proudfoot,remarked that the makers of Batman could have saved millions on building the set of Gotham city, 讪 they had used the East End. And, indeed, Canary Wharf is in some ways Hke a flm set. It「s failure to attract tenants gives the area an empty and ancient Egyptian ritual bestowing etemal iife. An interesting idea but set within a Famous Five formula,whereby ridiculous middle-class youth save the Cosm0s. Although they use the famous vista from the James Wolfe statue in Greenwich Park, Canary Wharf is seen as a diabolical object rather than the latest instalment in ruling class architectural domination of the area (a history that has continued from Inigo Jones「 Queen Anne House, through the work of “That Great Architect「, Christopher Wren, to the Present day). This latter theme is referred to i Soft Future Productions「“ “Heliocentrum「, screened recently on Channel 4,Here,they start with the seventeenth Century heliocentric court ofLouis XIV, the Sun King. But this discourse on his absolutist rule s transformed with representations of the Trafalgar Square anti-poll tax riot counterposed with Canary Wharf. In fact, this echoes the way Greenwich Palace, as a site of ruling class despotism, has been extended across the river to the Isle of Dogs and Canary Wharf, Whereas La N6tre was the landscape gardener of both Versailles, of film makers. Indeed it is periodically used as a location for spectacular events, home of Louis XIV「“s court, and Greenwich Park, Roy Strong, author of several books about the seventeenth century court「s use of the spectacle a8 an organ Of POWer, Was green lazers Projected across London,or decorated by computer controlled lights an adviser for the architects of the Canary Wharf complex. haunted look, which in turn makes it easier to organise the area for the industrial needs which change according to pre-determined patterns- Speaking at the 1993 East End Film Festival, a LDDC representative enthused about their desire to make a broad range of locations available to the film industry. She boasted about how the LDDC“「s powers could enable areas to be sealed o似, reducing the number of people fllm-makers must &pproach for permission. Aside from the more obvious PR and strictly economic reasons for promoting Dockiands I want to use this parallel spanning three hundred years to undermine the whole conception of post-modermism. As Strong has demonstrated, the“Spectacle“was 2 feature of the emergence of modernity, of the re-organisation of social life around economics. As the“intellectual certainties“of the nineteenth-century dissolye,we should remember that they only ever existed in the minds of upper class male Europeans. Post-modernism reflects the incapacity of academia to cope with the as a flm location, the LDDC was excited by the prospect of tides of “the kind of increasing commodification of knowledge. It may have kept various Careers afloat, people you get involved in film, kind of interesting vibrant, lively, creative people but it w达 always be more of a symptom than a Cure. who make things happen“, i.e., middle class people as opposed to the indigenous working class inhabitants (who from this point of view are mere drudges). This is Class stmuggle has always manifested itsetf around the construction of symbolic landscape. In 1649 Gerrard Winstanley and the Diggers set their commune up within tYPical of the vicious class hatred that has accompanied the use of Isle of Dogs「 sight of St. George「s Chapel, Windsor. In the French revolution the site of the Bastille locations by the film and TV industry-. became a raliying point for revolutionaries, and N6tre Dame was transformed by Placing a pile of earth within. During the Russian Revolution the storming of the Aside from the general terms of class domination embodied by the media, the use local inhabitant. For example, for many viewers, the first programme in the television Winter Palace had to be restaged for the cameras. Like Marx pointing to the demolition of the Vend6me Column, I would like to suggest as an epitaph for Canary series “Bugs“, might have been appreciated as a mundane action programme spiced up Wharf “Soon to be Picturesque Ruins“. of familiar locations can give rise to feelings of dislocation and disorientation for the with computers and fancy architecture.However,for the inhabitants of the Programme「s DockJands location, this sort of mediocre television consists of bizarre TRis arficle节 based around a ia仁 giver Qf扣 1995 Easf End Fil FesivaL. leaps around a familiar environment. A Ccar Chase passes the same point four times 一 evocative of the Eisenstein「s“Battleship Potemkin「“perhaps,but with none of the intensity. The mechanical constuction of the car chase is simply a genre formality to get from plot point A to plot point B. But it is also a violation of its location; a dislocation of the Isle of Dogs. Another programme,“Tomorow“s People“, a futuristic kid「s production, was more imaginative,in that it integrated Canary Wharf into an occult plan for world domination led by Christopher Lee. Here, the building has become an extra large obetisk modelled on Cleopatra「s Needle. Masonic magic is being used to recreate an NOTES 1 “Lewis Mumford “East End urbanity「 firstpublished in The New Xorker 1953,republighed i The Higjway and 功 C沟 New York Mentor, 1953

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Review Article: Detained and DEtourned 107 106 Transgressions No.2 The Manchester conference was a confusing, and in some ways demeaning affaitr. Was it an academic gathering, a reunion of situationist-related radicals and their kin, Review or something else entirely? Possibly a deliberately “post-modern「 hybrid form? Did anyone know what exactly it was meant to be? Its status never did become clear. Ar1icles Could one take the event to be some kind of “radical“activity,a challenge to conventional presentations and structures of the academic-ish conference or just some kind of mess, neither one thing or another? There was certainl]y, during that cold weekend in January,some kind of ambience of radicality at Play,the would-be transgressive side-stepping of orthodox academic practice,For one thing,the DerqaIze0 aH0 DE6rouKXe0 A Review of the conference“The Hacienda Must be Built: On the Legacy of Situationist Revolt「 (The Hacienda, Manchester, Bngland, 27th - 28th January, 1996) conference was held at a famous pop night-spot, a place named after a Phrase 0nce uttered by the SL. But, this name aside, why hold a couple of days of ostensibly serious critical debate in a freezing cold, essentialty unfriendly space whose one most evidentt quality was its unsuitability as a venue for the event being held? It didn“t work. It could not have done. Pejfer Suchip Because,presumably,of a sudden and disabling fall of snow the first day,this weekend event took a revised turn. Instead of beginning with the presentations of Pascal Dumontier (author of Les sifuationnistes et mai “68) and Gilles Tordjman (a contributor to Liberatiion), the Saturday session opened with the reading-oub, il French, of texts by these authors, since the writers themselves were unable,because of the bad weathen, to attend. These readings were supplemented by hand-outs of English translations of the same pieces. Dumontier「“s text proposed that there had been three types of recent commentary on the Situationist Intemational (SD: (1) the “maximalist“critigue, (2) a critigue which offered a“theoretical refutation“ of the SI Project and (3), an approach to the SI which Dumontier characterised as“ideological recuperation“. The conclusion to this third section of the paper read as follows: it 诊 a banality to say that the world has changed since 1972 and the dissolution of the SL. Bat … the social critique of tomorrow, 讪 still wants to have a revolutionary impact Cannot content itsef with simply rehashing theses formulated by the SI 训 and for its I wanted toreport these remarks because they are, I think, very much to the point in a The overall “feel“of much of“The Hacienda Must be Built「was akin to the miserable conditions that obtain within contemporary further education. The bad weather notwithstanding, thbe structure of the two days Was, at best, somewhat poor. And if certain of the speakers genuinely couldn「t make it to Manchester,well one began to get the impression that some of the other “speakers「 just couldn“t be bothered to turn up. Ralph Rumney, for one, decided that he didn“t, after all, wish to attend, and sent instead a grumpy fax. Jamie Reid,supposedly a contributor to the Sunday afternoon pane] discussion, did not arrive. Nor did Sadie Plant and Nick Land. One wondered 讨 this latter double absence had anything to do with a recently published critique of what wWas acerbically termed “Cyberdrivel「,an article i which these print.3 Present at the writers were taken to task for their jargon-packed adventures conference was a contingent of contributors to Here and Nowy, the journal in which the “Cyberdrivel“piece appeared、Were Plant and Land avoiding them7 Maybe the cybercouple were in cyberspace? Plant did send along a Piece of her work, a kind of Throbbing-Gristle-meets-Cruise-Missile extravaganza, a noisy and to many of those Present, irritating pop video. Reid also contributed an“arty“, rave-related video and light show. Sending in these works allowed Reid,Plant and Land to make 2 contribution without having to face up to any awkward or unpleasant questions that might have been put in their direction had they physically presented themselves. world in which courses on the situationists are Ccurrently being taught in academic Folowing on from the scrambled beginning of the reading out of Dumontier and institutions. The new-found academic worthiness of the Situationist Intemational is Tordiman「s papers further realignments were carried out. Gus MacDonald (who was initially down as a Sunday speaker) and Len Bracken together took on a wide range Pertinent to the very existence of the Manchester conference.2 I am not trying to Suggest that the theories of the SI should not be taken into the “academy「. On the contrary,such erstwhile radical ideas should be disseminated within 一 and indeed without 一 academic institutions. But the problem comes when Such critical positions, arguments and propositions for radical change are reduced to “mere「 ideas. The dissemination and discussion of ideas for their own intrinsic interest and value is not a trivial matter. Indeed, in a culture wherein knowledge for its own sake is being replaced by“useful“information and in which training rather than education becomes the norm, the spread and protection of critical thought becomes a necessary act. But the contmodification of critical theory is another thing entirely. of issues raised by the SI「s texts. Bracken「s paper,“Perspectives on revolutionary strategy and Debord「s game of war“did,indeed,attend to the complexities of Debord「s board game methods and he raised some notable points in connection with capitalist production and consumption. Hiis claim that 试 everyone in the West stopped Producing commodities immediately there would stil be three years worth of goods available for consumption was the kind of insight that allows one to see capitatism from a whole new perspective. Such remarks, slightly shocking as they are, reframe certain everyday assumptions vis-8-vis work,production,need and want、As I understood it, Bracken was seriously proposing that people simply refuse to work, disarming in one fell swoop all those whingers who say that 讨 people didn“t work

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Review Article: Detained and DEtourned 109 108 Transgressions No.2 we“d all starve and there“d be no new programmes on the telly (and no one to make the TV sets themselves eithep, of course). MacDonald and Bracken brought to the Proceedings 8 wave of accessible complexity. One started to feei that the journey to Manchester had been worth it after all. This feeling was not, however, to last. It became apparent,almost before the first morning session was over,that the Planned structure of the conference had been all but lost. The speakers that had turned up muddled through, agreeably going on stage at points in the programme not timetabled into the original plan. When itcame to the screening of Brigette Comand「s G the audience, aS Tequested, moved to a larger hall in the Depord son art ef son building wherein the screening was to be carried out. Indeed the piece was shown but, alas, the roof was partiy made of giass and there was no means of masking out the intmuding daylight. And so the film was barely visible, with atrocious sound quatity to boot. The earlier part of the conference had been held in a room which had, as one of its most pressing features, a considerable lack of light. In this respect it would have been an ideal place to project Cormand「s film. By this stage many people were wandering about,looking for the cafe or the bookstall. It was very cold - you had to keep moving to try and avoid noticing it. any what some of that audience expected from this clutch of voices. What they got, appeared often too far amusing, quite Case, Was a discussion which, whilst sometimes merely the result of yet more bad planning, not to mention a clash of personalities, “theories「 and egos. Wilson prattled on about how he“d named his club the “Hacienda「 for no real reason - it just seemed like a good name. But he added,at some (very tedious) length that he always insisted his employees consume some S literature when they began working for him, This sounded more like an act of arrogance and minor oppression than a gesture of liberation. The generaliy banal discussion bordered on impotite accusations exchanged between Smith and Wilson until, finally, insults did actually get exchanged. Smith purported not to know what situationism Wa$; Wilson proceeded to explain i to him. But neither character had much of a clue as to what they were talking about. Home said little: he couldn「t get a word in between the bitter banter of Smith and Wilson. Smith at one point referred to the Gang of Four and when King disagreed, saying his band had never done that of which it was being accused, Smith wittily remarked that he meant the CARinese Gang of Four. At least this quip was amusing, and it showed that Smith wasn「t as naive as he initially appeared. However, this sharp, comic moment was brash contrast to Smith「s pretty Tude, boozy shouting down of the other speakers「 Temarks. No-one seemed to know what arrangements had been made for Saturday evening. There were a number of instances of this inability to listen to anyone else. Smith Was anyone meeting up with anyone else, and 讪so, where? There were rumours of a Projected meeting place but also stories to the effect that the conference 0rganisers had evidently been on the alcohol earlier in the day. But it was later in the afternoon, during Ben Watson「s vituperative attack on what he called the“popsicle acadermy“ were only telling select attendees of the conference where this was, Visitors from that Smith「s interruptions were most prominent,. Smith drunkenly shouted from the back of the hall that Watson「s talk was jargon-infested nonsense. The latter kept his France and Germany were trying to find a place to eat. This little state of chaos at the end of a cold and unpleasant day was not much appreciated. On the Sunday a range of speakers attended to a variety of issues. Lucy Forsyth spoke anecdotally about the time she lived with Debord and others in a house in the south of France. She took the opportunity to consider and correct some of the“myths「 cool and continued to read out his paper. This little fragment of audience participation was not a radical intervention from the floor but a burst, rather,of embarrassingly drunken behaviour Frank Dexter「s remarks upon the implications of this outburst are apt. According to Dexter there is a, surounding Debord「s cult-leader status. widespread delusion that inarticulacy is somehow distinctively proletarian and, thercfore, somehow revolutionary. Everything [Smith] said couid have been put through an upper class accent-modulator and the audience reaction would have been completely different. Phil Edwards presented an analysis of the SI「s claim that “the Hacienda must be built“ in a paper that argued, not without a sense of irony that, on the contrary,“the Hacienda must be destroyed“,Isuspect many people agreed with this proposition, on Only 训 Engiand could elementary bad manners (ignorance,stupidity,alcoholically intecrupting others, egocentric inability to listen to anyone else, presumption of being forever“working class“because of one「s origins and claiming as such t0“represent a tteral level, by the end of the Sunday session. The paper on situationism and recuperation presented by Richard Hooker was among the most critically interesting moments of the entire conference. Hooker them,etc)》be taken seriously 8 a radical posture. The occasional pearl of wisdom s straight from the bottle. The punk-thug -attitude of contempt is more striking for the damaged psyche it reveals than 化r anything it may tsll one about what if is an attitude towards … Pimps like Wilson have been plying such stage-prole creeps with booze and gratifying their self-delusions for centuries … to make a spectacle of themselves for the stressed that the SI had clearly held to a practice in which the cultural and the political were seen as directly connected. And it was in practice, not“merely“within their voluminous theoretical writings that the SI addressed this complex knife edge of concerns. A pest in the audience repeatediIy, and unproductively,kept interrupting, Proposing that Hooker had misunderstood what the SI had “said“. But Hooker calmly responded to the awkward interrupter. It was clear that the latter,notwithstanding Hooker「s evident erudition, was the pedant. Manchester is a place very much associated with pop music. A relatively large attendance for the exchange between Anthony Wilson, Stewart Home, Mark Smith (of The FalD and Jon King (of the Gang of Four) was, therefore, to be predicted. I wonder &gratification of the (reaD) bourgeoisie.4 Dexter「s comments on Tony“Hacienda“ Wilson and his ilk also seem worth quoting here: What a slick, oily, recuperateur he is … the essential sixties formation lies at the basis of his incoherent and self-serving “radicality“. Basically the ever-same elernal recurrence of adolescent rebellion against daddy serves as a profitable simulacrum of revolt against capitalism. There is an entire class of such people … running the music biz.

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Review Article: Neutral and Commercial 111 110 Transgressions No.2 The remainder of Sunday afternoon was taken up with presentations by Patrick Ffrench (on Walter Benjamin「s RQnexur, the city, and the simuationists), Stewart Home and Fabian Tompsett (on radicalism and the mystical tradition, the destruction of the avant-garde and other complex intersections of diverse bodies of knowledge), and ended with Plant「s Swarmachines. Were we supposed to enjoy this extended pop video or was it there,as much pop music appears to be, as a means of actually policing ctitical thought? Images of riots and a loud beat that drowned out all possibility of conversation resulted in a namber of people leaving the hail As with Reid「s video any Possibility of dialogue was destroyed, neither piece offering more than a repetition of conyentional club-scene pop. (It always amazes me that, with the complex technology condescension. It is only within such a context that this text could appear“hip“or Tadical. The grave implications of this academic isolation emerge in the sub-chapter entitled A night ofresearch「 which brings into clearer relief the operation of the elitist discourses that can be witnessed throughout the book, Here, Thormton「s status aS an “outsider“ to club culture, needing“guides“and “informants“, increases the sense of “objectivity“ and judgmental superiority. These elements combine to give the writing a Smug“governmental tone“that renders the heterogeneous complexities of club culture“knowable, practicable and amenable to governing“(Johnson, 1993, p.151). that「s available today for the making of music, the potential for interesting diversity is almost without exception reduced to a depressing Samenes$s). I“d rather read Deleuze The academic writes“tmuths「, not allowing stray elements into heryhis carefully worked intellectual structures. Thornton doesn“t engage with sub-culture, rather she and Guattari or Virilio than have to suffer Plant「s awful aural translation of same. 迢 ever one needed proof that radical theory, 8s taught in universities, had become as subjects 讨 to pre-ordained academic tools conservative a concerm 8s tbhe druggy culture of the club, this was it. Stewart Home had earlier made the point that pop rebellion was an institutionalised means of releasing anger and frustration within capitalism,a way of preventing, through a marketed image of rebellion, the taking place of any genuinely revolutionary action. and boxes it off under rubrics of “distinction“and “authenticity“. These tools are themselves inforned by academic isolation. Even though Thomton rails against the division between an objectivist approach and a subjectivist one, the practice of professionalism, its ways of operating, necessitate that she is always at a distance, always operating under undisclosed rules: “[was working in a cultural space in which everyone else was at their leisure“. Or in the same passage,“T tied to maintain an analytical frame of mind that is truly Unfortunately, he was right. anathema to the“lose yourseif「 … ethos of clubs and raves“ (p.2). This capitulation to the mindybody dichotomy not only denies dancers their sensuous intelligence but NOTES locates the generation of meaning firmly within the walls of the institution, or at least 1,It appears that the texts wWere translated specitically for the bencfit of those who attended the conferenceDumontier「s paper, 达 English translation,wWas entitled “The Situationist Intemational as Subject and Representation「; Tordiman「s was rendered as Refutation of a few judgerments passed on Guy Debord and his books「. The tanslator was not niamed. within the bodies of its emissaries. For not only does the scene not get to talk for itself 2 For a review of an earlier UK conference and exhibition conceming the legacy of 山 SL, held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (London) 训 June 1989, see Peter Suchin“Rebeltion Remodelled“, Here and Now 9 (1989) pp. 14-15. 3 Mike Peters“Cyberdrivel“, ere and Now 16117 (Winter 1995/1996), PP. 24-27. 4 Dexter「s text fom which this and the following Temark are takeru 述 a Private letter to Peter Suchin, dated Monday, 28th January (1996), Quoted with permission. but there is no reflexive consideration of the academic“s role (ie.,Thornton“s investment 训 her career,her sifting through interviews to select quotes that best compliment her thesis etc.). This operation of“knowledges「,albeit conflated with “professional practices「, comprise a Power that is wielded over club culture. In this way Thomton relegates an investigation of the desires unleashed through dancing to music to the status of generational conflict (“lost within the excesses and irresponsibilities of youth“). This age motif, as befits the study of youth culture, constantly raises its head and serves s a Screen that obscures the wider psycho-social dimensions of the club/rave scene2 (there is only one speculative attempt to engage the latter process in the whole book: “crowds become a self-conscious cultural phenomena, one which generates moods NeurRaL aM0 CoomeRcIdL... JusT LIke EyeKyBo07 immune to reproduction“). Even though resistance would remain hidden for anyone it is further who conflates the notion of freedom with“substantive political A Review of CluD CuIfures: Music, Media and Disfnction by Sarah Thornton obscured迈 this work by the (Oxford, Polity Press, 1995) “supposed egalitarianism“is not a valid area of consideration as it does not offer a “value-free account“、Without getting into debates about “freedom「“,the obvious academic/objectivist contention that the scene“s Howard Safer question to ask is what makes the academic“s account a“value-free“one when“the rules of formation of discourses are linked to the operation of a particular kind of Being one of the first steps in the canonisation of club culture, Sarah Thornton「s book raises some serious issues about cultural empowerment and the retrograde role of Thornton「s view become a socially sanctioned tuth while the clubbers「 discourses are posited as deluded. A link arises here with the operation of the media. For both social power“ (Gordon,1980,p.245)? In other words,how and why should Culfures could only ever appeal in an academics and journalists are legitimated through their role as specialist professionals institutional arena where club cultures are 8enerally looked upon with disdain and invested with power/knowledge. Once the professional identifies with the aims of a academic cultural studies. In many ways

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Review Article: Neutral and Commercial 113 112 Transgressions No.2 society he/she can see nothing but his/her own conformist positions replicating everywhere. Hence Thomtor「s claim that as far as clubbers are concermned,“interest in authenticity and distinction would seem to be the norm“. Authenticity and distinction are mainstays of the status-quo. Itis at this point that we can getto the nitty gritty of CIxb Cultures. For itis in these two concepts - authenticity and distinction - that Thornton「s claim for originality within cultural studies lies, and it is through use of these tools that club culture is understood. By using Bourdieu「“s theory of distinction Thornton hopes to legitimate club cultures as an area of academic study,What is most disturbing about this operation is that,whereas Bourdieu provides the reader with a means of deconstructing the operation of high cultures, Thormnton inverts the whole paradigml and implants his concepts onto popular culture. The implication is that clubbers want to replicate already existing social norms - to hayve a“Symbolic share“, to assert their “distinctive character“. It is unarguable that any Sub-culture, existing as part of the dominant culture, will to some extent, reproduce dominant cultural values: that there would be some who have a desire for status, who uphold hierarchies and “jockey for social power“. But Thornton「s main thesis implies that distinction is rife throughout dance sub-culture is propelled by a desire for “classlessnes57). Departing again from clubs,but closely linked to the influence of raves, is the Phenomenon of the “free-party“. The free-party has been a persistent feature of dance culture and is personified by Spiral Tribe (now mainly operating in Europe), Bxodus Sound System and the United Systems Network. In many Ways the free-Party scene is the least“distinctive“, most anti-commercial and consciously oppositional of subcultures. Were it to be included in Club Culfures it would be under the category “underground“, which is yet another facet of dance culture that Thornton is quick to map Out as a site of exclusivity. The problem here is that, in defining the underground solely in opposition to the“overexposed“ or “the mass produced“, Thornton can only see in its adherents a desire to be“part of something that is not widely distributed“ (p.121). Here there are flaws in the methodology. For,whilst she rightly criticises others for meating the media as monolithic, the yardstick by which she attempts discussion of the underground term “selling out“ s the long running television programme “Top Of The Pops「. Many people who are loosely involved in something that could be called, at one time or another,“underground「 would rarely watch such a the entire dance culture. Not unrelatedly, she blocks-oft the psycho-social aspects of Programme. More to the point, these people more otften than not see themselyves as involved in activities that“by-pass「“ or un “parallel「 to the mainstream. They are just Culfures「 desire for a culture whose common base-line is feelings of collectivity. concrete evidence and proof acts to belittie these feelings and subordinate possibilities as involved in recycling the mainstream as in defining themselves in strict opposition to it Many would attest to the view that just because a recordy/sound becomes popular of resistance to nonmative Criteria. doesn“t mean to $8y that it looses its sense of being“underground「. Thus the idea that “the underground「 bemoans those who“sell out“because“the underground「 thereby The thesis of“distinction“becomes all the more problematic when we gradually realise that CIxb Citures is not going to adequately delineate the ciub scene from the rave scene. This is a serious oversight. For just as Thornton highlights the tendency of clubs to cater to differing genres of music, the rave scene,at least at its inception, acted to bring disparate groups together. So, just as clubs seem ready-made for the “distinction“thesis,the raves offered people something different; something that contained,but i no way consciously constructed,an effect of resistance. In this Tespect 让 is worth re-treading a facet of the Iaves that has become common Currency, but which receives no mention in Clxb Cultures, namely the desire for coliectivity, the group-experience. To adequately understand this desire it is worth coming out of the ivory tower and placing the rave in its social context, i.e., the political situation of the late 1980s and early 1990s. These were times when anti-trade union laws, new 1aws On affray and trespass8,the crackdown on football fans and,more recently,the Criminal Justice Act, demonstrated a“tendency towards the prevention of sociability“ (Barret, 1994, p.4). Following in the wake of Anti-Poll Tax demonstrations (which disparate sub-cultural groups coming togetheD) the rave experience articulated,however fleetingly,the“recurring stmuggle of people t0 reconstitute communities from what has been overlooked or not yet drawn into the hands of themselves looses some“sense of possession,exclusive ownership and familiar belonging“ (p.124) is far too pat. To use the dualistic device that is rife in ClxDp Cutures we could turn this round and say that many people experience “the underground「 as a place were knowledge or “sub-cultural capital“ is shared and squandered ahd the mainstrearm a5 the site where people jealously protect insights as“trade secrets「. That Thornton chooses to illustrate her point by trotting out the“white-label“scenario as being a “distinctive format“ cherished by“the underground「 is just another means by which her thesis can be propped up - you could also read the white-label as an anonymOus anti-product. Moreover, you could choose to focus on sampling and plagiaristic means of making music as non-proprietorial,anti-distinctive and group-creative events without individual authors. Such counter-readings could go on and on. The point is that Thomton「s notion of “the underground「 is developed in tootight a relationship to the mainstreami it doesn t escape the mainstream「s This association may be liinked to her contention that the media are involved in disseminating sub-cultures through the construction of moral-panics concerning youth crime and generational conflict. This is interesting to specific interests“ (Barret, 1994, p.4). Just because Iavers didn“t express themselves conventional political terms should not be used to belittle their experience of a degree,but Thornton,whilst claiming to be utilising a multi-dimensional perspective, tips the balance in favour of such media constructions. With reference to the tabloids Thormton suggests that “derogatory media coverage is not the verdict but coming together, the potential force of which should be read in conjunction with the increasing constrictions on social space. Anyone Who has been in a Iave Or on 2 the essence of … resistance“(p.137), This interpretation acts t0 obscure those activities that are carried out as part of“the underground「. The lack of visibility of football terrace knows the feeling. Novelist Irvine Welsh (1995) has spoken of raves being“one of the only places that working class people can get together“,(this these activities is not so much a result of its participants jealously guarding a “Telease of knowledge“, as an outcome of “the underground「s「 activities not fitting into readily mention of a specific class orientation also casts doubt on Thomton「s thesis that the marketable product categories and its desire to maintain a Control Over

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114 Transgressions No.2 Review Article: “Strangely Familiar“ 115 contextualisation, as well as an autonomy from any form of“editorial“ interference. Many of those who participate in the dance underground as Composers, label runners, Party organisers, fanzine producers etc. see it as a Site of experimentation, as a place or an attitude that allows input irrespective of status and distinction; a place of AKCJITECTHKES: ExXpEKIEHCE The discovery where inquisitiveness 许 activated; a site that doesn“t take at face value “Strangely Familiar“, one-day symposium at the Royal Institute of British Architects, media imposed categories and genre mongering; a place that is not always motivated by commerce and profit whether it is sub-cultural or economic:“Undergrolnd 芊 London, 27th January, 1996 When yoX ejoy doins your 扬ing wifRouF Dying i0 Please peaPle yoX donte, or “Strangely Familiar“, exhibition at the Royal Institute of British Architects, London, WRer yOX create someihing Wifhot 招lining about 招e Oney花 Hg Dring 训“ (Duivenvoorden and Michigan, 1995). The“essence“of resistance is far removed 12th December-10th Febrmuary, 1996 from tabloid opprobrium. Indeed in the dance culture there is$ no easily identifiable Strange Familiar: Narratives af Architeciure 记 ife City ,Edited by Borden, I., essence of resistance but a“warren of minute, individual, autonomous tactics and strategies“ (Gordon, 1980, p.257). Whatis objectionable about Kerr, J Pivaro, A. and Rendell, J、(London, Routledge, 1996) is the way that it acts to blunt and freeze over many of the posittve and oppositional aspects of clubyrave culture. What for many People has been a culture of social inspiration, amidst a pokitical situation of profound pessimism,is canonised here as nothing more than a relay between institutions that reflect the status-quo (cultural studies departments, tabloid press, style mags). There is very iitte sense of exploration, of speculation or possibilities. Instead these the ritualised procedures of academia are trotted out. Maybe, in the long criticisms place too great a credence in the possible ramifications of CIXD CuLfures, when it is the operation of academic disciplines, their will to“tuth「“and their social Elmoy Sadjer a0d BelJal10 历apKs As the market for post-modernism become saturated, the radical and egalitarian ideas that post-modernism once appropriated are to be dusted down and given some sleck repackaging. In fact, some of the“Strangely Familiar“ consortium, led by a caucus (Iain Borden, Joe Kerr, Alicia Pivaro and Jane RendelD originating from the Bartlett School of Architecture,London,are themselves professional designers (at Studio authority that is at issue. It is the implied “correctmess“of such writing that is so galling, the way that it acts to silence those Who“lacking a technical language“(de Myerscough). The ideas of Walter Benjamin and Henri Lefebvre have never looked so Certeau, 1986, p.26), cannot retort to disturb its impenetrable and artfully constructed exhibition and floating through the enchanting layouts of the“Strangely Familiar「“ theses. Bven so itis worth recalling, along with de Certeatuthat at the inception of the stmudy of popular culture, at least in France, there lies the“climination of a popular Catalogue. menace“ - the 1852 police survey of street literature. good,woven around gorgeous TV-style colours at the“Strangely Famitiar「 And the big guns, it seems, are rallying to the cause“Strangely Familiar“has been backed by a frightening battery of institutions - University College London, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the British Academy, Routledge, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the University of North London, the Arts Council - and individual NOTES 1,The title of this piece is tacen from the 23 Skidoo rack “Tearing Up The Plans「 2, See TechNET「s (1995) “Techno: Psycho-Social Tumult (test-press)“, paper delivered to Virtual Futures 「95 and availabje from BM Jed, London WCIN 3XX names (including Dolores Hayden, Elizabeth Wilson, Lynne Walker, Jonathan Charley, Sandy McCreery, William Menking, Doreen Massey, Edward Soja, Richard Sennett, and Peter HalD. Admittedty, when it came to the“Strangely Familiar“symposium Sennett was nowhere to be seen,and Peter Halt「s entertaining opening address on the impacts of REFERENCES information technology upon urbanism was partly dedicated to rubbishing some of the BARRET 小 (1994) The search for security「 Hers and Now 15 p.4 DE CERTEAU, M. (1986) Heterologiss: Discourse on 仪e Other Manchester, Manchester University Press DUIVENVOORDEN, J and MICHIGAN, F (1995) “Interview with Bunker Records「 Shimmer 15 Brighton,Harvester GORDON, C. (1980) Atfterword in FOUCAULT, M. T (Eds) Foucauts New JOHNSON, T (1993) “Expertise and the state「 in GANE, M. and Domains London, Houtledge WELSH, } (1995) Face to Face「 BBC2 Precepts of the day, in particular the work of Benjamin. The tone of general uncertainty 8S to What Was to be expected of“Strangely Famitiar“had been set. In faimess,itisn“teasy t0 setout a programme which will account for the perception and construction of the social reality of the city; one soon finds oneself having to acCcount for everything everywhere at ail times, As Adrian Forty writes in the catalogue “Forward「,“Strangely Familiar“was born of“the failure of architectural history to throw any light on architecture“s relationship to the rest of the world … Despite the obvious significance of architecture in shaping experience,[itl seemed permanently stuck a backwater of archaeology and attribution“ (p.5).

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Review Article:“Club Cultures: Music, Media and Distinction“ 117 116 Transgressions No.2 Initially, the project examined the making of architecture as“congealed ideology““ as the influential Marxist architectural historian Manfredo Tafuri had put it、But Trace, Sexual and non-Western issues was unsatisfactory in quantity, quality and critical “Strangely Familiar“now concentrates on the period afer construction,since These problems are significant because“Strangely Familiar“ has, quite rightly, even courageously,set out to change both the content and Presentation of architectural “architecture is not made just once, but is made and remade over and Over again, cach time if isrepresented through another medium, each time its surroundings change, each time different people experience it「 (p-5). “Strangely Familiar“experiments with three main organising themes. The first, “*Conflict and Appropriation“, borowed from neo-Marxist traditions of understanding city space in terms of class conflict. The second“Memory and Narrative“, a Cultural studies approach, examined the constitution of cities in the individual and collective mind:“choosing what to remember,and deciding how to remember,are important Procedures for urban social politics“ (p.12),、The third session,“Identity and Experience“, was the least clearly defined and overlapped the two preceding themes, but seemed to take more account of the way that the environment acts upon tbe individual, and how individuals reciprocally attempt to shape their environment. insight. discussion. And in this respect at least, it may well turn out to be a landmark event. In its attempt to bridge the boundaries of academic disciplines, and reach“those who build cities“ (p.8), it could hardly have done better than secure the hospitality of the RIBA (even 讨 none of the speakers at the symposium was an architecb). In terms of Presentation, moreover,itproperly aimed for popularity and accessibility. The prices of the catalogue and symposinm,whilst hardly peanuts, Were not excessive. In theory anyone could walk into the exhibition (anyone in central London,that i5).And, although the “yoof「-style presentation was aimed a little too squarely at the information generation, the exhibition and catalogue tried hard to be jolly and unacademic. But can“Strangely Familiar“induce fundamental challenges to contemporary The first session was the most coherent. A clear debate and set of strategies were ideologies of urbanism7 Has it sufficiently questioned the assumptions of the academic and architectural establishment? Despite its evocative use of images,“Strangety apparent. Keenly propounded by Charley, the notion of space as something ultimately class-bound was questioned by Soja, who demanded a more familiar“ required an inordinate level of English titeracy to get much out of it In fact, the catalogue Was“Strangely Famitiar「s most well developed vehicle (and so is well analysis of urban form, one that combined “micro“ with “macro「 readings of the urban scene (accounting for both individual and collective aspiration,both interior and worth acquiring), despite the project「s obvious desire to break out of the constraints of the published word,The exhibition was built around texts reproduced from the exterior spaces, both everydayness and history, etc.). Charley“s intransigence Was also questioned by Massey, who demonstrated that other social categories, such as a8e, Cut catalogue,some of which were, i turn, replicated in the symposinm (a mark of inexcusable laziness by those speakers concerned). Since the catalogue takes a good across those of class. And, in an intriguing history of London「s Westway urbant motorway, McCreery demonstrated that a proper understanding of urbanism is best couple of hours to read properly, i seems unlikely that any visitor to the exhibition would have had the grit to read every word. Moreover, on our visit several of the multi- Pieced together through empirical research. Fleshing out the idea of urban class conflict, McCreery detailed both the strategies employed by protesters to the Westway, media supplements had broken down, as these things usually do. Sheltering under their cases,the scattering of objects that are supposedly “metonymic“of the urban and its function, not merely as a means of capitalist circulation, but also as spectacular Propaganda, an idealised image of modern consumer mobility for the 1960s and 1970s. experience - a skateboard, a tolley, a telephone, and so on - unfortunately reminded the visitor of a traditional museum, without the concomitant programme of conservation. Such tendentious research was echoed in a couple of papers i the two later sessions. Menking「s study of the Business Improvement District 讨 Manhattan,where the At the symposium it was simply assuzed that we had all read Lefebvre, Benjamin and Michel de Certeau. These names may be staples of a diet in modern urbanismy, but govemance of prime chunks of the metropolis has, in effect,been handed over to business interests, should be consulted by anyone who wishes to be informed about the the assiompton that we have all feasted upon them excludes practically anyone without specialist higher education. Indeed, although we, the reviewers, have enjoyed ample terrifying future of the privatised city. A future in which the homeless are redefined as “outreach workers“, employed to scrape gum from the pavements and “persuade“other helpings of higher education, we still found one or two papers to be hermetically sealed against interpretation. Of course, it wasPossible to“discuss「 the papers from the floor, homeless people to leave the area, This research was complemented by Boyer“5 commentary on the visual representation of the new Manhattan, showing how Times Square has beem, and is being, remade into an ever more hyper-real 42nd Street now but discussion time gradually. bebame squeezed down to nothing by the inabitity of many Speakers properly to Prepare their presentations and be mindful of the patience articulated by the architect Robert Stern「s LUTS (Light Units in Times Square) and of their audience. By the end of the day the symposium was running as much as two hours behind schedule, forcing many delegates to leave before all the presentations had directed by Disney, Virgin and Tussaud7“s. been heard、Without prior experience i show business, partaking Unfortunately, the two afternoon sessions began to get flabby“Strangely Famitiar「“ attracted the worst sorts of academic indulgence - some papers tumed into pseudoPostic reveries on the city, others promised incisive histories but degenerated into a stream of undigested, directionless facts, which speakers would repeat apparently for their own fetishistic pleasure,Perhaps most disturbingly,and despite “Strangely Familiar「“s professed interest 训 “other histories“(p.9), the representation of gender, would, in any case, be a daunting experience. Amidst several hundred delegates a hand would be raised, a microphone would be delivered, and a disembodied voice would deliver a lengthy challenge to a half-dozen sightly hostile-looking speakers, raised on a fve-foot podium, seated behind a monolithic desk. The “Strangely Familiar“project seems to assume that the academy is nothing but benign, and to ignore the possibility that its power might not necessarily be welcome

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118 Transgressions No.2 amongst all ciizens. This failure was even evident within some of the most“socially engaged“ work presented at the symposium. For example, Hayden「s “Power of Place「 Project which she has led from the University of California at Los Angeles. The project s an exemplary attempt to link historians, planners, architects and the public, and to Reviews retrieve and represent “other histories“ through the erection of new public monuments. In the event, one of Los Angels「“other histories「 turns out to be a majority history, that Guy Debok0 of Black women. Nonetheless, the bureaucratic role assumed by Hayden and UCLA, even With the co-operation of ]ocals (a few of whom were pictured mixing with keen by Luther Blissett, 1995, London, Sabotage editions (BM Senior, London WCIN 3XZ0 is ReaLLy Dea0 hayro1 one graduate students at a wine and cheese Party), passed without sCrutiny. Logically the question boils down to whether there can be a Iadical academy. Banding around radical ideas is not itself a Tadical activity. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive of genuinely radical activity backed by the impressive institutional power that “Strangely Familiar“ has mustered. All credit is due to“Strangely Familiar“ for carning this backing, but the likely to exact may prove a hindrance to reaching the urban realities beyond the Porter「s Lodge. Charley had gently to Point out to his colleagues on the symposium panel that all their talk about“appropriation「 was naive romanticism: “Have you ever tried “appropriating“ a house, for instance? I have, as a squatter. Pretty soon you fnd yourself confronted by a big policeman““. By comparison, the activity of skateboarding, celebrated by Borden, might be momentarily significant n its transgression of urban space,but offers little challenge to the socio-economic balance of power (and,as Borden himself pointed out,the mere marks left by skateboards have been used by the corporate owners of buildings as evidence of Criminal damage). With luck,“Strangely Familiar“has the energy to sustain itsef simply as a stocktaking of the radical inheritance“. But numerous speakers seemed unaware 乙at many of their ideas had been articulated by groups such as the situationists decades before.“Strangely Familiar「,already encumbered with a“Mission Impossible「 corporate identity (logos, typography, and badge, the symbol of which - a“global eye「“ - Was incongruous to the point of being sinister), will have to become muthlessly selfcritical f步 is to avoid the recuperative posturing ofsome current projects. On the same day as the“Strangely Familiar“symposium,8a conference convened at Manchester This is an English ransltation of an Italian text“hacked out「“ as Stewart Home, writes in the introduction“immediately after Guy Debord「“s suicide“ (p.3) in 1994. Clearly less than overcome with grief, Luther Blissett delivers a scalding attack on the Debordist tadition. His main focus is upon the way Debord attempted to freeze the development of situationist thought,Drawing primarily on the Situationist International「s last text, TRe Yerilable Spff记 fhe Jnfernational (written by Debord and his Italian collaborator Gianfranco Sanguinetti,Blissett delivers four main rebukes, He firstly charges that“The Bore set up his Canonical bad reputation, disseminated “canomical of contemplation, style canonical fostered the misinformation“ (p.8). This point feeds into a second accusation, that the Situationist International (SD adopted judicial and authoritarian forms of organisation which “fostered a contemplative attitude and resulted in passivity“ p.12). This same attitude is tied, suggests Blissett, to an idealist current within the situationists「 analysis of their own revolutionary role. Thus he finds in the TRe Verilaple the old idealist fallacy of Holy Spirit descending into unconscious matter,of “consciousness being brought in from outside「“. There, standing against the light, i 乙e (p:20) decrepit fgure of the“separate intellectual“who“goes towards the people“. The implied aliegation of arrogance is developed into a discussion of the French situationists「,dismissal of the work of former colleagues in other countries. The “francocentric perspective“ (p.15) has,he suggests,distorted the history of situationism. Fourthly, and finally, Blissett attempts to read TAhe Veritaple Sp1f as a kitsch texf“,a caltural form characterised by“failed emulation,inconsistency, University on the “legacy of the Situationist International“was basking in a preview by The Guardian (27th January, 1996), which represented the situationist legacy and its Imaximalism“(p.17). interlocutors as a charming side-show,“an avant-garde rave where lunch is [the] only certainty“. Meanwhile, London「s exclusive Architectural Association (AA) is about to Apart from this lasb intiguing but unfocused assertion of good taste,Blissett「s accusations are hardly earth .shattering. Indeed,there is a bizarre nativity to his publish the diploma course work of Unit 10,tutored by Robert Mull and Carlos Villanueva Brandt,under the title“Unitary Urbanism「、The ttle refers to the discovery that Debord was “pompous“,“puffed up“(p.23) and full of “boastful talk“ (p.18). I would argue that the production of an aesthetic of extremism was one of the Sitmationist Intermational「s call for the revolutionary seizure of city Space. No matter how worthy Unit 10“s intentions may be, this attempt to position the AA「s professional achievemetis of the SLD and one their most unfortunate legacies. The contradictions and problems of revolutionary avant-gardism (latent idealism, leadership cults and so training within a tradition of political radicalism rather than of modernist planning, with all its attendant notions of expertise and reform, is disingenuous- on) have been around for some 150 years or so. What is interesting about the SI is, not only did they fail to learn from this history,but that they actually set about The academy and its media are often excellent places for discussion, learning, and making a living. But, as part and parcel of the establishment, they can be Tridiculously transforming these political taits into aesthetic ones: manufacturing and promoting themselves as and through an aesthetic sensibility of radicalism and“alternativeness“. inappropriate places to attempt revolutionary PTaxis. This explains both why the situationists, as Blissett notes, were unable to involve themselves seriously in ongoing political currents (including May 1968) and why, when challenged to develop a situationist form of socio-economic organisation, they

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Reviews 121 120 Transgressions No.2 copped out and simply bought council communism off the peg- The idea that The is a kitsch text accords with this interpretation and comprises the most Werilaple interesting and useful part of Blissett「s pamphjet. However, as this implies, what one notices from the citations of Debord and Sanguinetti「“s prose that Blissett highjights as obtaining“a trash effect“(p.17) i$ something more endemic and serious than a stylistic flaw. Referring to the SI, Debord and Sanguinetti declare: never had such an extremist projectb declaring itself in an epoch which seemed t0 be 80 hostile to i affirmed in such a short time its hegemony in the struggle of ideas … The theory, the style, the example of the SI are adopted today by thousands of revolutionaries in the principal advanced countries but much more profoundly, itis the whole of modern society which seems to have convinced itself of the truth of the situationist perspectives. (quoted by Blissett p18) To understand what the LPA is up to let「s take a look at the story under that last headline (which appeared in issue 6,“Beltaine, 1994“). It relates the“Titual visit to a site of key masonic importance“ of the Queen of England and Prince Philip, namely a trip to the Queen Anne House at Greenwich. Drawing on a variety of obscure historical sources the article goes on to explain that although ostensibly an “innocent「 royal event in aid of a posh school, the visit had been astrologically co-ordinated as a magico-religious ritual, paying homage to a site of occult power. Elsewhere the LPA has investigated how muling class institutions are physically situated in order to draw upon the energy of ley-lines. One such line extends from the Greenwich site, through Canary Wharf and up to Glasgow and beyond. The literal brains that dominate“critical theory「“start melting at this point. They want to know whether the LPA really believes「 in ley-lines and the occult powers of the muling class. They want to know whether ir“s all “parody“or whether it「s all “new What emerges from this passage is not only a sense of kitsch, but劳e siluationist characieristic and singxilar affention i0 劳e Dryy raQfRer ihQR 扬6 COnseCHENCES 0 age nonsense“. Well Im afraid their suffering w continue as long as they remain wedded to scientific metaphors of, and approaches to, radical critique. For the LPA is Pyractice,of politics, The obessional care over the positioning of players,the yelationship of perspectives, the crafmng ofapRorisys and ilzages; all point to the fact that situationist theory is essentially an aesthetic production,ft is these formal not concemed with the real existence“of anything (except,perhaps,the class struggle). It is engaged i the excavation of the imagination of the ruling class; 记 qualities that animate the central situationist texts and which linger on, entrancing a pathetic post-modern generation whose only sense of choice and adventure lies in the aesthetic realm,. rooting around through its undisclosed myths and traditions. This has nothing to do with“parody「“or “irony“(those most useless of situationist strategies) but everything to do with the subversion of ruling class powerThe LPA _has encouraged the formation Of other,regionally “based, Psychogeographical groups, both 训 England and in other countries (for example Italy「“s Associazione Psicogeografica di Bologna). These more recent enterprises tend to draw on more taditional situationist and historical sources than the LPA. The Manchester Area Psychogeographic (MAP) group appears particularly interested in PsychoseogKapbicaL NeMWSLeTTER Numbers 1.12 (1993-1995) available from L.PA., Box 15, 138 Kingsland High Street, London E8 2NS. Library and supporter subscriptions f5 (cheques payable to Unpopular Books). English popular radical history. Thus, for example, issue four of its newsletter consists of two historically based essays. The first is about Luddism and the sexualisation of work relations. The other is an account of a MAP exploration of the gendered and Political connotations of the Nico Ditch,“an ancient scar linking unlikely and disconnected terrority in the southern half of Manchester“. Although the intentions of MAP are somewhat more conventional than those of the LPA, it provides arresting MaxnchesTeK AKet Psychogeo6KAPbIC and exemplary accounts of local geographical political activismi. Numbers 1-4 (1995-1996) [Bditor: Setting up a psychogeographical group? Involved in psychogeographical activism and available from M.A.P, 24 Burlington Road, Manchester M20 4QA. For past or future publishing? Transgressions is interestedt Send material reviews, information etc. t0 the editor copies send postage stamps and address or reviews editor at the addresses listed at the front of this issue-] siy B There「s nothing more entertaining than watching the reaction of situationist historians and academic recuperators to the activities of the magico-Marxists of the London Psychogeographical Association (LPA). They just donm“t know what to make of it. The LPA makes them nervous, it bypasses the训 “critical faculties“ and leaves them feeling frustrated. For the LPA appear to be intent upon a strange and troubling collision,a head-on crunch between revolutionary politics and occult investigation. The banner headlines of their Newsletierinclude “Psychic War in the East End「, “Omphalos Under Firel「 and “Smash the Occult Establishmentt“. InyeXTORY Volume 1, Number 1, 1995 and Volume 1, Number 2, 1996 available from 23 St. Marks Rise, london E8 2NL. Subscription f15 for 3 issues. hlasfair Bonpe二 The subtitle of Inyentiory, a new journal of urban material culture, consists of three cryptic but appealing words “Losing, Finding, Collecting「. And it s the sense of

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Reviews 123 122 Transgressions No.2 unearthing, of snuffling around in the city“s physical and emotional detritus, that supplies this magazine「s most satisfying,and surprising, moments. The first issue rewards its readers with some delicious 0Djef rouvk. I was particularly taken by the hand-written rant against Underwoods Chemists,“foreign nationals“and dozens of other“callous animals“,“found in a telephone box in the Spring of 1990, Russell Square, London“. This piece includes a list of 42“persons to long and obsessive be subpoenaed“ (“1. HESELTINE … 30. MICHEL WINNER; 31. JACK WARNER . Invermiory also contains short critical articles that draw 0n classic urban cultural studics sources, such as Benjamin and Lefebyre. These are all interesting in their choice of theme (for example, kitsch in easy listening music; graftiti by Le Corbusier; Planning for the millennium) but not always in their execution. A certain aridity certainly creeps into a few of the pieces in issue two of the journal, especially those where the bibliographies are overlong and the jargon academic. I guess Im jnst a bit bored with Walter Benjamin and his endless, romanticaliy“unfinished「,flashes of inspiration. He, and other figures ike Lefebyre, seem to be increasingly used more to They certainly obscure and glamorise everyday life than to rediscover and disorient aren“tsetin the context ofrevolutionary socialist argument and activism in which they might actuailly be politically useful. Nevertheless, Inventory is doing is something larger,and more vital, than most academic“critical studies“. It is bringing into collision disparate aspects of urban material culture: searching out ideas and things that give you a discomforting sense of the constitution and mutations of ordinary urban behaviour I also like the fact that Iryveriory looks so incredibly drab. Its dun coloured, account-sheet ike, form movement in his wired limbs. Sound sensors on his body were amplified around the room, creating a grinding mass of industrial noise. Finally,several video Ccameras enabled multiple images of both him and his spectators to be screened behind him. These images were also fed into his visor and onto the world wide web. So you got the sense that here was someone interested in the relationship between the body and technology. And though it wasn“t subtle, it worked. It provided both a visceral sense and an intellectual understanding of the possibilities of the mutation both of the body and of the ego; a vision of how our flesh and guts, along with our notions of self, are open to change and technological transformation. Obviously this work has far-reaching social implications. Some of these were spelled out with admirable clarity by Stelarc at his lecturer at the Tyneside Cinema on the lst June. Basically, Stelarc is looking forward to the technological superseding of the human body. He claims that evolution has stopped and that the only way forward is though the creation of cyborg and virtual bodies.With his characteristic and infectious giggle, Stelarc explained how he longed to stuff as many bits of technology a8 possible into, and around, his short hairy form:; that he wanted to shed his skin for an artificial replacement and to hollow himself out of organic matter. Exemplifying this process he showed the increasingly pale-faced audience slides of the insertion into his stomach (through his mouth) of various interior sculptures and other bits of biotechnology. Stelarc is a relatively original cultural worker,. But his performances only make sense within the wider context of technological and polifical development and debate. Although the idea of technologically superseding the body goes way back (to Mary is just the kind of thing one might spy out of the corner of one“s eye in a telephone Shelly and beyond), the past few decades have witmessed corporate and governmental agencies psychologically and physically preparing society for a new Phase in the box in Russell Square. commodification of human relations and reproduction. A new stage记 the transformation of use values into exchange values is heralded by the comodification of the human subject into, for example, & credit card number in virtual space, a web Page site or an e-mail number. The replacement of the organic body with technology is jnst another facet of this process. For what Stelarc forgets to mention is that all his STeLldKC 4M0 RAIMEK LIXZ body gadgets are bought and sold. They are commodities, with in-built and limited “Split Body: Voltage In/Voltage Out「 Zone Gallery, Newcastie, 30th-31st May, 1996 life-expectancies. When you plug yourself into cyberworld you are hooking yourself up to a commodity System. And of course ifrs8“exciting“and-“new「 , of course it makes everything else seeml “obsolete「, of course it「s an “invasion「. That「s how commodity culture has always “Psycho/Cyber: Absent, Obsolete and Invaded Bodies「 workedli In saying this I domt want to equate the Socialist body with the authentic, Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle, lst June, 1996 uncorrupted body,. Essentialist dualisms of“body versus technology“may have a Alasfair Borye二 certain strategic value but are,at root,Profoundly socially conservative. It isn“t People wandering up the Westgate Road in Newcastle at the end of May got an unusual treat. Just inside the Zone gallery, and visible from the streeb stood the naked economic system in which that technology is currently used and is currently given figure of Stelarc. A multitude of surgical looking wires dangled from his arms, torso and left ]e8. A metaliic visor partially covered his face. Once inside,visitors were corporate and government hands (through mechanisms such as copyright control and invited to touch animated representations of the artist on computer screens. These fed electric impulses directly into his muscles,causing endless spasms of eccentric Stelarc「s gadgetry that ITm objecting to, ir「s his lack of interest i the political and meaning. In the context of the increasing concentration of access to technology in the destruction of welfare and other“open-access“orientated social systems) the notion that, as Donna Haraway (1992, p.139) puts it, the“cyborg is the fgure born of the interface of automaton and autonomy「“ is painfully unconvincing.

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124 Transgressions No.2 Reviews 125 Stelarc「s8“art“is more impressive than the written,theoretical contributions of Haraway and her academic clones because it is able to work through the visceral, The personal focus of this issue of ODlivior and of the Sunshine Boys「 Farletter Days Betweer Siafions, is justified in the latter by a quote tom Raoul Vaneigem: corporeal connotations of bio-technology. It「s“seductive“and“appealing「. But the debate about the impact and use of new technologies is too important to be structured around aesthetic categories. We need to think about the socio-economic ramifications journals. Because I think Vaneigem 「s statement is totally daft. Individualistic excess of the virtual and cyborg body. And a good place to start is by inspecting some of those gizmos that Stelarc ingests and plugs himself into for familiar marks, such as @ capitalist culture; they inform both the specialisation of creativity into“art“and the and @. wider process “Megalomania is an important phase in the struggle of the self against the combined forces of conditioning“. This leads me to my one point of criticism about these two and narcissistic display are two of the central psychological mechanisms of late of commodity fetishism. And it is precisely because of its individualism,and“anti-political“sub-text,that tbe Sunshine Boys「“work“is,at times, but one small stumble from looking and sounding like performance art. What a 、 REFERENCES Science Modern of Word 问e Nature and FRace, Gender HARAWAY, D. (1992} Primate Yisions; London, Verso fatel But I think I should end this review by quoting from the “Glossary of sunshinespeak“ (p.46). Although the language, however parodic, gets a tad pretentious in this appendix, some revealing distinctions do emerge, especially between … OBLIyvlox: Pgdcmice A JouRtaL oF UxBaN SemiocLlasa aM4 America I 一 A zone (or zones) of Baroque complexity and varied micro-ambiences conducive to pedestrian pleasures and peripatetic spatial practices. A feld of trayersion hat 认 rich and resonant with emotive elements, epiphinal triggers, cnchantments, and conducive to encounter. Dispatch 3, undated available from PO Box 4011, Seattie, WA 98104-0011. Subscriptions $10 a year DAJS BeTWEEM STUTIOHS: The America I 一 The geography of Nowhere. FlaL Obvious. Cartesian. Slesk. Gentrified. Striated (in the Deleuzian sense). Mass replicated Stripmaled. Suburban. A-iocalized. Autogeddon. Most likely, the place from which you are reading this right now: Boys Fanlerrex Volume 1, Number 1, undated available from PO Pox 292053, Kettering, OH 45429-0053 hlasfair The Book oF So0o0 OpEviox w迈 be of considerable interest to readers of Transgressions. It covers similar ground,though it does so in & different way. On the plus side,it「s less academic, more readable, more playful. On the down side it「s more homogenous: the by Paul Hallam, 1993, New York,Verso. Product of a Small gang of self-consciously “playfulr,situationist-inspired,urban Pranksters. The issue under review is taken up almost entirely with an account of the Just ike that Big Red song of the mid-1980s, Sodom “is a place where nothing really Gdlrives, dliourmexent and general psychogeographical warfare undertaken in various American cities by the“Sunshine Boys“, Eddie Lee Sausage and Isaac Sanchez. never described in the Bible, it is safe to assume that much of what we have come to The Sunshine Boys clearly get about. And everywhere they 8o they aim to provoke and disorientate. Their accounts are diaristic and personal. Basically,they wander yearning, Certainly, Sodom has been more about the heterosexual than any sort of around trying to stick smalt spanners in the psycho-spatial reproduction of commodity culture. Hence, i Madison,we find them (as reported in“Media-rupture #1177) lbordorn happens.“ Given that the actual sex that was said to have taken place in Sodom was associate with this place is largely the stuff of fantasy, paranoia and, perhaps, a bit of homosexual imagination- If there.is to“be a queer archaeology, how we confront the fragmentary descriptions of andnarratives around Sodom will have a central bearing on our sense of history, community, and place. In western culture, the biblical history surreal of Sodom represents the gencsis of a central pilar of homophobia; the notion of Places interjections:“Seize the Elvehjeml“. Inspired by“their deep irreverence for any Star constellated in the Spectacle“ (p.27) the Sunshine Boys also ridicule Brown「s promise 也at corrupt,and, in turnm, the careful misrepresentation of gay male,lesbian,and interrupting the oratory of Republican Politician Jerry Brown with of 笃 obs for every graduate“, shouting over the loud-speaker System,“We don“t want to work …,We want to play1!“(p.28). They thus manage t0 provoke a minor bisexual experiences. Sodom as mythic place has always been more about the fantasies of reactionaries than a site of sexual deviance or even sexuality、Film-maker Paul disturbance and have to make a hasty escape into the assembled mass:“The Boys were subsumed into the corpus of the spectating crowd. Like two vital cells stirring in foreshadowing queer travel narratives), to present-day fantasies, confirms this. In the 2 CadaveI「“. Talmud, we leam of a plain with up to fve cities inhabited by“men of evil actions“ compilation of writings, from supposedly original descriptions (perhaps (p.105). In Genesis 18-19, the Lord states that the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah are

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Reviews 127 126 Transgressions ND.2 “very grievous「“. But nowhere in these texts are there any concrete descriptions of the sex. Were these ancient Hebrews just too shy? This is highly unlikely given that the older gay ghettos are increasingly transformed from sites of resistance to isolation and consumerism to high priced and only slightly queer Disneyworlds, Proust「s 1929 cultural obsessions with,and phobias against,sexuality were only just emerging. These stories of Sodom may have simply used homosexuality as & Cover, a decoy Perhaps. Sodom was probably originally perceived as simply a place of envied 68S8ay is the most relevant to our own-de-siecle: urbanites, some of whom were selfish consumers hostile to suburbanites. Sodom was the first mythic place for the construction of the vicious myth of the rich, self-centred fag - a stereotype that today the religious right is still using- Ihave thought it as well to utter here a provisional waming against the lamentable error of Proposing (just 8s people have encoura8ged 4 Zionist movement) t0 create a Sodomist movement and to rebuild Sodom. For, no sooner had they arived there than the Sodomites … They would repair to would leave town so as not to have the appearance of belonging (p. 104) Sodom onty on days Of supreme necessity, when their Own town was But the fantasies of queer sex may have been used to cover a deeper story of sexual abuse. Lot, Lot「s wife (who turned to salt for looking baci) and their daughters were also in the Sodom formula. The bad family dynamics, including incest, that emerged the fleeing of Sodom, as mentioned in Genesis 19 (pp.31-38), have been curiously forgotten. Homosexual acts have been used to distract from the weakness of the narrative against incest. The“Sodom“ legend, therefore, symbolises a particular fonm and use of homophobia 一 as a distraction from male violence. Certainly, the incest connection to the story of Sodom remains the most enigmatic part of Genesis. Voltaire notes (p.187) that other local stories have suggested that it was one of Lot「s daughter“5 fleeing incest who, while gazing at Sodom, was punished. In this narrative she was transfixed as a tree. In several other versions the woman continues to mentstruate. Much of Paul Hallam「s book is about the early and contemporary coalescence of gay male public space in London and the creation of a “new Sodom“. The books major contibution lies in its chronicle of the reconstruction and application of the Sodom myth to places of male contact and sexuality in Anglo-Saxon writings. Lesbians are largely spared this one. By the end of the nineteenth century, the idea of Sodom was widely employed as a way of conceiving of sites of homosexual contact in London as alien. The concept of Sodom, as we now know it became a device for English reactionaries, over the last three centuries, t0 SUpPIeSs and Tegulate the early formation of “queer Space「. Aside from the twisted nature of the stories, what makes this painful compilation so compelling, and gives us a bit of hope, is Hallam「s personal narrative on London “*Sodom: A circuit walk「. It is here that the undercurrent of competition for urban pPublic space emerges clearly.“Sodom“is also the code wWord for Places where heterosexuality loses its dominance. Hallam notes,“Any city worth its salt has been called at one time or another, Sodom“ (p.15). And Sodom, as a neighbourhood within the city, is always the big Other“the unwelcome guest, the import of impurity. The rabid taint of Sodomy, its contagion“ (p.30). The Book af Sodom is important because it begins the process of considering the means and value of a “queer“inverting and reconstmuction of the Sodom legend. Unfortunately,there are few examples of the transformation of such dystopias of fantasy into blueprints for new forms of community. Such a project would be onerous and fatally flawed 一 though potentially marketable. The book also contains some curious trivia on the geography of the Dead Sea region and its natural history. The inhabitants of the towns of those Plains may well have been destroyed by a rain of buming asphalt from volcanic fissures. Perhaps, as VeK0IEEKR 左 Exhibition by Stewart Home at workfortyheeyetodo 51 Hanbury Street, London E1 July 27th-Sept 7th 1996 Lu10ey Blsse万 Vermeer is Home“「s latest onslaught against the art establishment. It foliows on from his denunciation of the Cezanne exhibition at London「s Tate Gallery in The Big Jssue. This he denounced as“a sort of fast-food culture where the big names of art are delivered up for mass consumption“. He even suggested that a lot of art professionals disagreed with this sort of“blockbuster“show, but were too worried about their jobs t0 88y anything. “Although Norman Rosenthal was unable to bag Vermeer for the Royal Academy, Stewart Home is bringing him to workfortheeyetodo“ the invite boasted-“Home is exhibiting degenerated photocopies of Vermeer「s work. Thus blockbuster conditions are effectively stimulated without spectators having to suffer the inconvenience of being pushed and shoved by a miling crowd“. The twenty-two pieces consist of Photocopies suitably daubed with florescent paint. The invite claims that Home “s treatment invokes the detourned paintings of the Danish philosopher,Asger Jorn. However, on examination they are much closer to Jorn and Amaud「s LQ IQngxe yere e I cuite, where black and white photos are overprinted with blocks of colour to emphasise certain features. Home「s pictures Proved to be surprisingly“pretty“and many were snapped up for f25 at the opening. f Home「s exhibition can be marked as a success, unfortunately the performance which accompanied it fell a ,bit*flat. Without official announcement, Iumour had ensured that people arrived by 4pm, for that was when John Fare was scheduled to put 记 an appearance. Home had been involved in promoting Fare「s “intervention“at the Tate「“s Cezanne exhibition. Dressed in rags Fare had himself led around the exhibition in a blindfold telling all who asked that he was“taking in the aura““. This sort of prank relies on the naivet$ of the audience, and whije middle-aged tories in their Marks and Sparks「“best might rise to the provocation, the audience at the opening constituted the“cream“of self-styled “critical art“ in London. So when Fare eventually arived blindfolded, everyone stopped talking to watch him “perform“. Deprived of a response beyond the passivity of a traditional audience, Fare could do little. He started sniffing ostentatiously,eventually fnding the table with the wine and

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Reviews 129 128 Transgressions No.2 grabbing a bottle. Fortunately when he put the bottle to his lips a woman at the back started to applaud, thus brining the sorry little episode to a close. In the end Fare「s tomfoolery undermines the more serious points raised by Home “s critique: that artefacts have a productive power of their own before which both artist and audience are reduced to a similar position.“It「s not so much a Case of “everyone can do 讨 rather than one of “everybody does it whether they like it or not「: you are implicated“. In the face of this, Fare「“s self-indulgent antics provided merely a brief interlude to the social networking which constitutes the central function of opening the two generals,Plagius, (both played by Luther Blissett himself) finally restore order in the capital city of Taliskaulis it creates a sense of relief. The citizens embark on a Carnival where two processions snake across the town, intertwining footage from Brazil and the New Orleans Mardi Gras. This celebration of a cultural duality, which dissolves identity as it continually recombines in new combinations, is counterpoised to the sterile duality of Mxyzptik and Arira, an archetype of the modern couple who le at the heart of nuclear family. (Note: The sound track of the film is available on“Luther Blissett: The Original Soundtracks「,8a collection of work by his long-term collaborators Le Forbici di Parties such as this. Manitu (Manith Rossi, Enrico Marani, 仁 Vittore Baroni) for US815 (cash or IMO) from: Vittore Baroni, via C. Battisti 339, 55049 Viareggio, Italy.) ReruKX To The Duplex PLaer Film (35mm, Black &White, 90「 + 90“, 1988) HeKRe ajal TO12p56十 A parable of social sci-f,somewhere between Goddard「s“Alphaville“and Peter Greenaway「s“Prospero「s Books「, this is Luther Blissett「s only attempt at conventional fiction. Carried out with a limited budget, it is still the only film to date made using Comes EyeKyBo0y The First Annual Report of the Association of Autonomous Astronauts 1996, London, Inner City AAA available from Inner City AAA, BM Jed London WC1 N 3KX Tey The language of technology is the language of liberation. We are led to believe that the revolutionary“quadridemnsional“technique, invented by Blissett himself: two projectors show simultaneously, side by side, two almost identical versions of the filml that the audience, by suitably diverging their eyes, should blend into a single image, technology will free people from menial tasks, from poverty, from constraint, even from planet earth itself. Unfortunately these promises of release have rarely been realistically displaced on four levels of depth (4D),. fulfilled. Technology contains the potential for emancipation. Yet it is controlled by The film is an attempt to instrumentalise the notion of double consciousness developed by the African-American Hegelian, W.E.B. Dubois. On the very Temote Planet Duplex, at first sight utterly similar to earth, everything exists or happens in state and business interests who prefer to use it to confine our ambitions and channel our enthusiasms into cheering from the side-lines as yet another useless gizmo is shot into space, another giant leap taken on our behalf. true double copy: there are two suns that Shine, all the births are twins, When you marry you do it twice in two adjoining churches, and so forth. The very concepts of uniqueness and originality are banned, each idea or action should reproduce or imitate One of the ambitions of the Association of Autonomous Astronauts (AAA) is to make this recuperative process visible. However, Iwould not wish to suggest that they what has already been done before by others. This satire on the racial slur that those of African descent are only capable of imitation is interrupted by the unexpected bad, they want to“leave the sneering lefties AND the sell-outs at NASA behind to appearance of Mr Mxyzptlk, a singular and asymmetrical individual. The only White Person in an otherwise Black caste, Mxyzptlk produces the right conditions for a Popular uprising against the inflexible laws imposed by the despotic Double Directory. This explores a traditional Hollywood theme of the arrival of a western man,embodying the western cult of the individual,who then transforms the “traditional“society offering the illusion of individuation,However this familiar discourse is interrupted when the numerous followers of the Uni-Messiah are Mxyzptlk,mass-deported and reprogrammed to follow submissively the dictates of the bi-bureaucracy. Left alone with his beloved Arira, the deceived by a false rebel hero can only take flight, living happily ever after adrift on the uninhabited side of Duplex. The film may be said to shackie itself to a too literal instrumentalisation of Dubois「 theory of double consciousness. This leads to some grtificial scenes rather too characteristic of a second rate comedy, scenes where an initial joke is stretched too far However, the inversion of the image of the redeeming White hero is effective. When are engaged in a merely hetorical stuggle. They want to get into space something smell our rocket fumes“(p.15). The overall aims of the AAA federation are spelled out in the sub-ttle blurb that appears on the inner-cover of the bookiet under review, Published April 23rd 1996 on the occasion of the first anniversary of The Five Year Plan for building a world-wide network of local,community-based groups dedicated to building their own space ships. 。 ˇ The same ambitions are expressed i more surreal fashion in the AAA「s mutant slogans,“ABOVE THE PAVING STONES 一 THE STARSI“ and “Only those who attempt the impossible will achieve the absurd“. Those sky-gazers who have been receiving the Inner City AAA「s irregular bulletin,Escape From Gravity,will be familiar with that last call to arms. These same folk won“t, however, find much to surprise them in Here Comes Everyone, since a large part of its contents is made up of reprints from Escape Fyom Gravib. Clearly the bookiet has been designed as a launch-pad, from which the AAA hopes to propel itself onto a wider public. As 让 to confrm this intent, my copy contains a slender siip of paper reminding me that the AAA will soon be featured on the BBC television programme,“Future Fantastic“. It

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130 Transgressions No.2 Reviews 131 wil be interesting to observe how the BBC copes with the complex and multidimensional strategies employed by these space missionaries. For the AAA asserts its right to be, at one and the same time, completely serious and riotously ridiculous. Their whole project is premised on the contention that one can be engaged in an important debate about the uses of technology Q!劳 sQe 凶e as taking the piss out of oneself and others. I would imagine that the BBC will want to highlight the latter aspect of the AAA「s activities whitst marginalising the former. The AAA needs to be careful not to ease the path to this interpretation.、They need to insist on the maintenance of the creatve tensions at work within their project. I mention this because every now and then Here Comes Everyone displays signs of collapsing into boring eccentricity. For example, the discussion with Raido AAA (Pp.24-26) appears to align the organisation with an assortment of“weird hipster“ phenomena (such the Temple of Psychic Youth,“anarchist things“ and William Burroughs). I have no idea why the AAA would want to append itself to such a drab list of inarticulate and lost These are useful, hard-to-find, historical sources, the former being circulated as part of Trocchi「s Sigma Porjolio in 1964, the latter being Spur「s “Manifesto「 first released in 1958. Howeverp despite the reverence sometimes accorded the Spur group, their “Manifesto「 is total bollocks. They drone on that“Art is the domain of freedom“, that “We oppose the logical way of mind“and that they seek the“Testoration of individualism“. These silly clichks are so dull they make my brain ache. A tittle funnier is their resolution that“Kitsch is the daughter of art The daughter is young and smells good, the mother is an ancient stinking hag“. Well kitsch may smell OK but, on this evidence, Spur stinks of lad「s ego-wank. The documents by Trocchi are more alluring but present the same problems of masculinism and exclusivity. Trocchi is, at present,having a mini-revival amongst literary types who see him as a lost genius and get a vicarious kick from his sordid Hife-style (most famously, financing his heroin habit by pimping for his girt-friend). causes, If「s certain that they will never achieve orbit with this kind of baggage. The texts in Break/fiow provide a useful corrective to this distortion. They show that Trocchi「s concerns were not literary but political. He strove for“cultural tberation「. Earth calling AAA. Earth calling AAA. Your escape velocity is being impeded by tbe redundant weight of the avant-garde. Jettison immediately. Yet there is something decidedly cliquey about Trocchi「s emancipatory practice. He Calls for the construction of a cultural“salon“,“a Kind of cultural Turkish baths“, a “living-gallery-workshop-auditorium-happening situation where conferences and encounters are to be undertaken“. Groovy. And loads of “marijuana“! Nice, But a Political challenge to capitalism7 Well, not entirely. BKeakR/FLoW Not numbered (1996) (available from Breaky/flow, 89 Vernon Road, Stratford, London, EI 5 4DQ, f3) Mayrhk Tey Dance music,situationist politics and post-structuralist theory have been squelched together to produce the heady-brew that is BreakRow. It may look rather hum-drum 一 all that closely wdritten text, the blank cover 一 but 让 claims to offer“strictly As BreaK/fow demonstrates Trocchi“「8“happening situation“ and today“5 underground dance music do share a number of characteristics. But Im not convinced that they are all politically useful. The electronic music reviewed the journal exhibits the same counter-cultural ghetto mentality propagated by Trocchi. The “techno underground“ do, Im sure, create funky situations. But I don“t see why“a sound that「s dark, heavy, noisy and grooyy“ is any more emancipatory than my aunt“s off-key warblings. And at least with her you can join in. underground funk“. Sounds juicy1! various contributing influences through the notion of “autonomous creativity“.“Electronic dance underground“ music is interpreted as“the music best suited to practices of freedom“. [The work of BreakAow「s“sister project Breakfow blends its TecRVET“ which partly explains this proposition, appears elsewhere in this issue of Transgressions.】Situationist politics and Deleuze and Guattari「s Ani-Oedipus are I1 wishes to observe and enable“experimental agency“with the assistance of avant-garde and underground cultural workers. This approach has quite Thus a long history but it flls me with something like dread. It「s not that I doubt the libertarian imperative behind the various ideas and practices that Break/ow explores. It「s just that they seem to me to be partly, or wholly, products of elitist environments. If these ideas and practices are to be useful they need to be treated critically,as Politically contradictory phenomena, rather than heroic models of emancipation. Some of my concerns were confirmed when I read the documents by the situationists Alexander Trocchi and the German Spur group that appear in BreakRow. SIMUITCHUSE Send three postage stamps to: The College of Omphalopsychism, 7 Grandale Street, Manchester M14 5WS dribbled into the mix in order to provide techniques of free expression and critiques of the repression of desire. 4 - LuWeyr Blse “Omphalopsychism is a strategy. Itis not a form of mysticism; it s not an avant-garde art or anti-art movement it is not a doctrine of ideological opposition chipped of the old block“. Tracing its origin to Baarlam, a fourteenth century Calabrian monk who used the term to slag off some navel gazing hermits on Mount Athos, Omphalopsychism is roundly presented as a strategy which involyes“Free-falling from the womb of the void without a map [..] Through the navel“. Various memories have been collected, and texts from Damascius the Diadoch, a fifth century NeoPlatonist sit side by side a psychogeograbhic account of airports,where these “gateWays to the sky“ are compared to the hermetic symbolism embodied in medaeval Cathedrals.

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132 Transgressions No.2 Reviews 133 are invited to shuttle moronically along roads and train-tracks to their sites of work 168: Colqlesrex ang Blackwarek Axed and social reproduction.、 They have no blank space,they are mapped,made 1:50,000 by Ordnance Survey Predictable and routinised. The owners of territory and capital, by contrast, control the (1992, Southamptom, Ordnance Survey) Production of visibitity. Their king-size houses are sentimentally celebrated but their grip on 99 per cent of the landscape remains unmarked. Ah4lasfalr Bonpe十 This eccentric and lurid work claims to be“The all purpose map“ for the Colchester and Blackwater area of Essex. Indeed,the whole document is characterised by extraordinary delusions of grandeur. Ail “viewpoints“ are, apparently, accounted for, 8S5 are all“Public conyveniences“,“heights“and“gradients“. Also delineated is all “sand“,“dunes“,“outcrops“and “water“. The list of features named and Pin-pointed is vast Yet the evidence that any of these things have actually been assessed in a Tigorous or disinterested fashion is extremely thin. Instead Ordnance Survey“s neat lines of demarcation betray a lazy and cavalier authoritarianism. They appear to believe that readers will be cowed by their arrogance. But it「s a dangerous strategy. There「s one final weird thing about this dreadful piece of propaganda,As I mentioned earlie[, Ordnance Survey cliaim to have spotted all the“viewpoints“that exist in the Colchester and Blackwater area. They advertise this fact on the front of their creation and on its inner legend. But, as far as I can see, not 0ne“viewpoint“has actually been placed on the map itseif. One can travel the length and breadth of east Essex, it seems, and still not get to see anything. Nothing to see, nowhere to go but home and work. What a fucking life. My advice is to leave your map at home. Get into those blank spaces and fll them with events, labyrinths, fires . . . Particularly so when they push their ideological agenda too far, to the edge of visibility,Succinctly expressed this agenda expresses the territorial fantasies and MelatcboLlc Tkoglodyre strategies of intemational capitalism. There are two areas where this set of interests No.1, f3.50 from Box MT, 121 rallton road, Heme (the Hunter) Hillb London SE24 has started asserting itself a litte too nosily; namely, in the sphere of transportation Bilingual (PersiayyEnglish). and in the establishment of blank or white parts of the map. I shall address these two points inamoment. However, before Iforget, let me draw your attention to the related Lu1fhey imposition of the mystical so-called “British National Grid「 on the area in question. “The entire world is melancholic,mad, rotten and so is everything in This occult concoction is a brazenly utopian attempt to annihilate space and establish from Robert Burton「s Anatopy ofMelancholy (1621) on the cover underneath Diirer“s the quote & world of equivalence within which global capitalists may run amok. It is interesting of this dolorous mental condition. Inside quotes from Frank Herbert“s to note that this wulgar reliance on irrational symbolism has been subverted on this Dxune jostle with those from Nietzsche and Frances Yates. Written by“proletarian Particular product of Ordnance Survey“s craft by a series of what appear to be printing erors that distort the grid, causing it to warp around South Woodham Ferrers in a Products of cultures as diverse as the Middle East and Britain“, MT is offered as a contribution: decidedly spooky fashion. The outstanding and most visible aspect of Landrarger 168 is the attention given to routes and fonms of transportation. The road is treated as an object of fetishistic adoration: i is engorged, pumped with sickly colours and spurted across the surface t0 eScalating the ciass struggle: attempting to unify proletarian struggles in arcas where capital is completing its transmutation from its formal to real phase of domination, with Proletarians from more concentrated areasof capital where the real phase of domination may be giving way to . er … well something else71 Coven) of the chart 训 ridiculously abundant streams, No one believes that the A414 is actually that big, or that the only objects that exist in the Dengie Marshes are large This transition from tightly controlled Marxist discourse to a frank admission of yellow roads. The military background of the Ordnance Survey has combined with its incomprehension is reflected in the subsequent pages. The Prostration before the communication needs of capital to create an obsessive and worrying fixation on road transport. A similar point may be made relation to the “mullah-bourgeoisie“ draws on the history of the Mazdakis/Manicheans of Persia and issued against the the Zanjis of Africa alongside more well known currents of opposition in Europe such electricity pylons and train lines that zigzag across the white, apparently meaningless, 5 the rebels of Kronstadt and the rioters of Los Angeles. The anger of this text is voids that comprise the bulk of the map「s surface. These latter areas are the silent tempered by humour and punctuated by curious but appropriate 训ustrations. Other centre around and across which the busy,buzzing, circuits of capital are strung. Occasionally we find them cryptically labelled as“Danger Area“. But usually they articles deal with the Japanese Mithra cult, Robin Hood and finally the Zanj, a ninth century slave rebellion in what is now Iraq. Temain blank, not uncharted but not-to-be-charted, not-to-be-explored. Standing on the fringes of these impenetrable tracts we find the mansions of their owners and controliers. The Ordnance Survey, industrious bootlickers that they are, slavishly pin- I presume the same articles are repeated in Persian translation which reads from right to left starting at what Roman script readers would call the back. point and name these edifices, cravenly doffing their cap to Mundon Hall, Slough House and numerous other ranches. It becomes apparent that the blank areas around these properties are not mapped, not flied-in, because they are off-]limits. The masses The range of material is very far from grini-faced accounts of strikes and po-faced workerism. In breaking free of a eurocentric intenationalism MT challenges both the Spatial and temporal attitudes which have permeated socialist thought since its emergence in nineteenth century Europe. Too often the socialist and communist

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134 Transgressions No.2 evangelists echoed their christian forebears as they spread the message of European civilisation across the world. MT points to a need to go beyond traditional political discourse as it is understood in the English speaking world. The Iranian working class is faced with an Lranian regime steeped in an Islamacism which has arisen precisely through modern conditions, but yet is rooted in a culture which has flourished much longer than the few hundred years of capitalism. This doesn“t simply mean addressing a different range of questions, it means breaking the“gegacy「“of the enlightenment and all its pseudo-universalism. Whether MT succeeds in its aim Cannot be deduced from the first issue. Nevertheless, i seems that it will have a“disturbing“influence amongst radical English speaking currents 一 disturbing in the sense that it disturbs sedimented attitudes. I cannot really comment on what influence it may have in the Persian speaking world. The Volce The Newsletter of the Equi-Phallic Alliance, No.1 available for a few stamps from: EPA, 33 Hartington Road, Southampton, SO14 0EW L4HWey Blisse才 This bulletin concerns itself with contentious issues which have risen within the contemporary poetry scene and which I must admitIknow nothing about. The names of individuals have been hidden behind false names and epithets 一 Dr Minterm, the Blandford Elite, the Fatmany, Weedy. Yet despite not being involved in the dispute it makes compulsive reading. In this itreminded me of the periodic installments I would get about faction fghts within the Essex Rock and Mineral Society from my father in the late seventies. I knew none of the protagonists and little about minearology, but the unfolding of the dispute was fascinating. Previously I had particiapted in intense disputes where I had strong opinions about the issues involved. So to see such a confrontation tom an external,more“objective“position helped me differentiate between how group dynamics function and the resolution of abstract issues. The EPA take to task“Wessesism「“, 8 poetic proto-fascist current they accuse of Projecting place onto placelessness, enclosing the“poetry of the south“which turns out to be an empty, mystitied “poetry of place“. Against this they pose the work of the apparently dead Dr Mintern whose: excavations within virtual Wessex proved,t0 him at least that not only were ail the archaeological remains Synthetically made, and placed, but that the chalk underneath the archeaology was also made, 山at it too is synthetic. ff that is the case then al[ Wessex history s myth, right down to its version of the class stuggle (that aspect being Cheesey in the extreme). He discovered the theory of the underchalk (and was the first person to Postulate that caves are suspended in a wider void), Together with Barny, he proved that Places are on stilts, that machineries exist which can raise and lower the elevation of Place, as required, according to Social conditions, in order to pacify the dispossessed, to quieten those who suffer enclosure. Now we must finish his work.

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Transgressi@Qns A Journal of Urban Transgressions: exploring new pathway5 out of _moments “revolt, moments extraordinary possibilities and everyday 5 Contents Two Walking Days 一 Jean MacRae; Ralph Ru Other Scams 一 Luther Blissett; The Transgressiv Dies.of,DailIy Life 一 Alastair Bonnett; Shopping for Principle n Gotland, New Babylon 一 Graham Birtwistle; Deb3a Race Traitor, Race Traitor and the Myth of the M Primeval: Fredy Perlman, Primitivism and Detrol Barbarie to Communism or Civilisation; Report colonial State by Amanda Araba Ocran; Wheres Sleeve Notes 一 Howard Slater and Jason Skeet 一 the Roads Advisory Committee; Dislocation Fabian Tompsett; plus reviews. Recent years cultural have witnessed a politics of the city, growth A debate h 弋 contested nature of urban space and its 坪 transformation by different social group5. 【 independent j an is Transgressions s international perspective that aims to on Drawing heart of this discussion. workers and writers from urban planning,。 art history as well as from sociology, geogr 司 studies, Transgressions provides an essent critical debate of the contemporary city、 Cover: Canary Wharf Photo by F s ander Pres by Salam Published , OId