Performing Places
Convenor: Katharine Willis

“The space of the city is not a static reality defined by built forms or demographic facts, but is instead a form of spatial practice created by the interweaving of everyday actions and interactions of its citizens. These interactions are no longer confined to face-to face contact, as communications media have re-arranged many social environments so that most people now find themselves in contact with others in new ways. Walls, doors, gates and distances still frame and isolate encounters, but new technologies have increasingly encroached on the situations that take place in physically defined settings. This session will look at how thinking about places as performative opens up new possibilities for both understanding and reacting to the potentials for communications technologies in space.

Networked space
The media theorist Castells has popularized the concept of the ‘space of flows’; where space is understood as linking up electronically separate locations in an interactive networks that connects activities and people in distinct geographical contexts. He contrasts this with the traditional concept of the ‘space of places’; which he defines as organizing experiences and activity around the confines of locality. One of the social consequences of such networked space is that that multiple social realities can occur in one place. The same physical space may be caught within the domain of two different social occasions. The social situations that occur in these overlapping behaviour settings support gatherings that possess a special characteristic in that they exist on more than one social level. For example, presence in public space and interaction has traditionally been equated with face-to-face contact. Yet, presence in public space as mediated by new technologies has a different type of aesthetic, no longer dominated by visual access but by informational access. The features and structure of the interaction is enabled by a connection, which is not necessarily achieved through physical movement from one location to another. As such, everyday actions and behaviours no longer belong to particular places, and are now multiplexed and overlaid; there now exists the possibility to switch rapidly from one activity to another while remaining in the same place, so we end up using the same place in many different ways. On one hand this gives rise to confusion, and ambiguous and contested zones emerge, where the multiple and overlapping behaviours created create disparate, fragmented and discontinuous spatial references. On the other hand we can consider space as a field of interaction, composed of intersections of mobile elements it is in a sense actuated by the ensemble of movements deployed within it (de Certeau 1984, 117). In this case space is performed so that, rather than being inhabited as an intransitive bounded entity, it is experienced as a far more fluid event-based space that comes into existence only through the social actions of those present.

Performative space
In this session we will investigate the social effects of communications media on how space is inhabited and acted upon. We will explore the relevance of concepts such as neighbourhood, community and territory in times when cities become essentially transitory social spaces for many of those who experience them. In particular we will focus on the performative nature of space.”

Abstracts of no more than 500 words should be sent by email (following website instructions) by March 15th 2010.

Adam Pańczuk – Karczeby (2008-2009)

“In one of the dialects spoken in the east of Poland, which is a mixture of Polish and Belorussian, people strongly attached to the soil they had been cultivating for generations were called ‘Karczeby’. With their bare hands Karczeby cleared forests in order to grow crops. The word karczeb was also used to describe what remains after a tree is cut down — a trunk with roots, which remains stuck in the ground. This also applied to people — it was not easy for the authorities to root them out from their land, even in the Stalinism times. The price they paid for their attachment to their soil was often their freedom or life. After death, buried nearby their farmland, a karczeb himself became the soil, later cultivated by his descendants.”

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Parkour Motion Reel by saggyarmpit

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YIN XIUZHEN
Portable City: Jia Yu Guan, 2009
Courtesy Beijing Commune

“While Beijing has been the focus of inspiration for much of Yin Xiuzhen’s work, documenting the process of deconstruction and reconstruction, Yin has since installed her work worldwide, examining cultural changes in different locales. Investigating the repercussions of globalization, with the massive changes brought about by mass transportation and communication, where physical distances have decreased by massive leaps and bounds—she examines how the cultural fabric that identifies individual cultures are either reinforced or broken down by change. In addition to examining the effects of globalization, Yin also draws heavily from her personal experiences. In her work, Portable Cities, Yin recreates her personal images/memories of a city, and experiences of ‘living out of a suitcase’, into miniaturized cities.”

YIN XIUZHEN
Portable City: Melbourne, 2009
Courtesy Beijing Commune

“Taking found fabric and clothing from the city in question (i.e. Vancouver, Berlin etc.), Yin sews together little buildings, bridges, and greenscapes inside suitcases, manufacturing transportable cities. With landmark buildings recreated on a miniaturized scale in the likes of gingham cloth, corduroy, and cotton, and recorded soundscapes of the city in question, the pieces are at once humorous, nostalgic and poignant. With their hand-crafted appeal and use of old clothing, they infuse the anonymity of city-living with the personal. While globalization and the increased openness of China has allowed the possibility for more people like Yin to travel and visit all the cities within her suitcases, ironically it has also meant that the cities themselves have incurred a certain proclivity to becoming increasingly indistinguishable. Confronting the notions of increased homogenization of cultures and environments, versus the conflicting stratifications of wealth distribution and access to commodities and exchange, Yin’s work brings about questions concerning the desire for rapid modernization and globalization.”

YIN XIUZHEN
Portable City: Shenzhen, 2008
Courtesy Beijing Commune

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A Coffee Guide to Wellington

“This tea towel, probably from the mid-1960s provides a coffee guide to Wellington, complete with descriptions of the type of food served in each café.”

Wellington café culture + media gallery

“Wellington’s café culture is today an integral part of its identity as a city. This culture began in the 1930s with the arrival of the milk bar, followed closely by coffee houses in the 1950s. After a period of decline in the 1960s and 70s, the city’s café scene has grown in spectacular fashion over the last 20 years…”

Cafés and civic life have long interested scholars of space and culture, and Wellington is considered one of the best cities in the world for drinking coffee. Midnight Espresso, located stumbling distance from my office,  is where I most often procure the flat whites (and cheese scones) that sustain my work. But after seeing this strangely fascinating coffee log, I’ve been careful to make sure most of that money goes to our holiday fund instead.

Louis Faurer, “Accident, New York City,” 1952. Deborah Bell Photographs, New York / © Mark Faurer

Street Seen: The Psychological Gesture in American Photography, 1940–1959
Milwaukee Art Museum, January 30–April 25, 2010

“[The] graphically charged and emotionally engaging photographs evoke the excitement and unease that characterized the era, as popular culture, the arts, and everyday life underwent substantial, dramatic changes. They not only emphasize the candid experience of being an anonymous individual amongst an impersonal, fast-moving crowd but confront the viewer with the material presence of their photographs.”

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A Couch in New York, Chantal Akerman (1995)

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A North Korean woman carries water she collected from the Yalu River in the North Korean city of Hyesan, which borders China’s Changbai county, April 6, 2009. (REUTERS/Reinhard Krause)

A young girl and her dog looks out from a vehicle as she and her family wait for security clearance at a checkpoint on the outskirt of Bannu, a town on edge of the Pakistani tribal region of Waziristan, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009 as they flee a military offensive in South Waziristan. Pakistani troops and the Taliban fought fierce battles in Waziristan, a militant sanctuary near the Afghan border, with both sides claiming early victories in an army campaign that could shape the future of the country’s battle against extremism. (AP Photo/Ijaz Muhammad)

Supporters of ousted Honduras’ President Manuel Zelaya clash with soldiers near the presidential residency Tegucigalpa, Monday, June 29. 2009. Police fired tear gas to hold back thousands of Hondurans outside the occupied presidential residency as world leaders from Barack Obama to Hugo Chavez appealed to Honduras to reinstate Zelaya as president. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

Pakistani men pray next to a bullet-ridden vehicle parked in the compound of radical Lal Masjid or Red mosque as the chief cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz, not seen, talks to his supporters during Friday prayers, in Islamabad, Pakistan, on April 17, 2009. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

A Hindu woman devotee offers prayers after taking a holy dip in the waters of river Ganga in the northern Indian city of Allahabad May 4, 2009. (REUTERS/Jitendra Prakash)

A hunter holds his hawk during an annual hunting competition in Chengelsy Gorge, some 150 km (93 miles) east of Almaty, Kazakhstan on December 5, 2009. (REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov)

Fishermen row a boat in the algae-filled Chaohu Lake in Hefei, Anhui province, China on June 19, 2009. China invested 51 billion yuan ($7.4 billion) towards the construction of 2,712 projects for the treatment of eight rivers and lakes in 2009, Xinhua News Agency reported. (REUTERS/Jianan Yu)

A leopard walks with a tranquilizer dart hanging from its neck, in the residential area of Jyotikuchi in Guwahati, the capital city of the northeastern state of Assam, India on March 15, 2009. Three people were mauled by the leopard after the cat strayed into the city before it was tranquilized by forestry department officials. The full grown male leopard was wandering through a part of the densely populated city when curious crowds startled the animal, a wildlife official said. (BIJU BORO/AFP/Getty Images)

Thousands of scrapped taxis are abandoned at a yard in the center of Chongqing city on March 4, 2009. Traffic congestion and pollution have worsened dramatically in Chinese cities as the country’s long-running economic expansion has allowed increasing numbers of consumers to make big-ticket purchases such as cars. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

A mental patient named Totok reacts as he is given a shower at the Galuh foundation house in East Bekasi, outskirt of Jakarta, Indonesia on October 23, 2009. The Galuh foundation house has housed more than 285 underprivileged mental patients since it was founded in 1982 by Gendu Mulatip. (REUTERS/Beawiharta)

Reviewed by Pablo B. Markin, DAAD Center for German Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Richard Münch’s 1991 Dialektik der Kommunikationsgesellschaft [The Dialectics of Communication Society (my translation)] makes notable contributions to sociological theory, historical and comparative sociology, and sociological analysis of contemporary society that may not be familiar to non-German readers. This review seeks to introduce his work by summarizing his argument that a scholarly grasp and analysis of the complexity of social interdependence is only possible with the help of theoretical points of view that bring the comprehensive scale of economic, political, social and cultural processes together.

[CC image: Paul-Löbe-Haus by warein.holgado]

Of particular interest to scholars of space and culture, Münch’s (1991) theorization of interrelations among modernity, accumulation, and action offers a perspective that clarifies economic, social, cultural, and political transitions taking place in cities. In this regard, cities stand out as historical crystallization points of cultural accumulation. Münch comments that “[i]t was, moreover, cities and the special nature of their life that has played a decisive role in a further renewal of Western culture: The Enlightenment and modernity were decisively brought about through them. [...] Once created, culture gives to corresponding urban life a long-lasting continuity” (my translation, Münch 1991: 231).

Furthermore, he argues that without an integrative frame of social theoretical reference, sociological accounts miss the relationally interwoven and socially dynamic existence of their subject matter (Münch 1991: 19-20). According to Münch, the present development of modernity brings about an unlimited reproduction, acceleration, compression, and globalization of communication. Permeating society to an unprecedented extent, communication needs to increase its scope and become more complex to overcome the corresponding loss of its effectiveness. An unintended consequence of its intensification is that communications deepen social contradictions by creating inflationary pressure on media of interchange, such as money, power, reputation and expertise. Social contradictions become more acute as continuous communication is integrated into modern culture. As controversies, conflicts, and disagreements become commonplace, the devaluation, inflation, and impoverishment of communication derail effective communication with violent reactions, power-accumulation strategies, and communication breakdowns coming in its stead (Münch 1991: 22).

Another contradiction of social development results from the unremitting expansion of economy, politics, society, and culture. These spheres increasingly put integration, overlap, conflict, and competition at the centre of their communicative processes. Thus, his theoretical orientation towards structural relations, systematic analysis, and theory building sets Münch apart from other streams of sociological theory such as symbolic interactionism, rational choice theory, and systems or functionalist theories. His reconstruction of the theories of Parsons, Weber and Durkheim seeks to demonstrate that the perception of modernity as an outcome of a functional differentiation of its constituent systems is secondary to the integrative processes that are at the heart of modern social order.

Via the intensification of communication, Münch argues that society is altered to an unprecedented extent. Accordingly, society is constantly reorganized by the increasing circulation, application, and relevance of knowledge. No one can escape the pressure to take public attention and successful self-representation as reference points for fear of being forgotten, lost, and disadvantaged. In addition, modern integration of cultures hailing from all corners of the world creates further contradictions. Constantly increasing demand for influence on public awareness and attention makes public discourse increasingly central, but creates inflationary waves of communication. The latter cause relapses into less advanced forms of strategic conflict settlement, such as confrontations between state forces and urban squatters (Münch 1991: 17-18).

The existing forms of regulation and coordination lose their effectiveness unless their complexity and adaptability is increased to fulfill the function of symbolic and generalized communication. For Münch, the present development of modernity distinguishes itself by the extent of social contradictions between different facets of culture and social action. However, the crises that ensue from these contradictions increasingly exceed the coping capacity of capitalism, technology, democracy, bureaucracy and law, while problematising their deepest cultural foundations. Furthermore, in the process of these crises, Western culture increasingly needs to produce self-justifications via communication within a discursive interrelationship among different cultures of the world. The competition among Western, Islamic and Asian cultures leads to their participation in a shared discourse over meaning, value, and purpose of human existence (Münch 1991: 21).

[CC image: Cold War Communication, Pt. II by mr * p]

Ultimately, and of particular interest to researchers of communications, space and culture, Münch suggests that the stable mediation between conflicting functions and orientations requires going beyond the mutual adjustment of economy, politics, society, and culture. Institutions of inter-systemic communication, such as litigation suits, out-of-court settlements and negotiation rounds, will be an ever more urgent need as conflicts over contradictions need to be productively resolved. In cities, cultural, political, social, and economic accumulation involves particular interests, identifiable individuals, and differentiated institutions. As theorized by Münch (1991), modernity has not only macro dynamics of and contradictions between systems of political, economic, cultural, and social accumulation, but also micro dynamics and contradictions of strategic relations among project-oriented groups, formalized organizations, and urban spaces.

Given the concerns that Münch raises, researchers of space and culture might want to consider some questions that follow from the concerns I have raised. First, could it be that Münch’s greatest contribution to social and cultural theory lies precisely in keeping applied research and theoretical concepts closely related in concrete analytical terms? Second, in view of Münch’s macro-spatial reference points including England, France, United States and Germany, is a micro-spatial corrective, such as a greater emphasis on cities, not in order? And in conclusion, what would be the challenges of comparative application to other countries, especially given the cultural, social, political and economic differences involved?

“Now available for purchase or free download, Tokyo Blues is a photographic record of Nurri Kim’s 2002-2003 investigation into this humble industrial material and the very wide variety of uses to which it’s put in the everyday life of Japan.

From construction sites and homeless settlements to cherry-blossom viewing parties in the park, the ubiquitous blue tarp is a constant of Japanese life and a bearer of multiple registers of meaning. In sixty-four images from the boulevards, alleys, sidestreets and interstitial spaces, Tokyo Blues explores these dramatically different contexts, returning something ‘we see too often, and then forget to see’ to full, vivid visibility. The result is a book that provokes its readers to see the city around them with new eyes — whether that city is Tokyo, or their own.”

In addition to 64 beautiful photographic plates and an interesting essay by Do Projects and real-life partner Adam Greenfield, I was honoured to contribute the book’s foreword.

“Perversely enough, after spending some time with Nurri’s Tokyo Blues, I came to see the blue plastic tarp as the symbolic, and maybe even something of the actual, presence of nature in a city and a culture in which that quality is impossible…”

- Adam Greenfield, “Blueshifted”

Tokyo Blues has been published under a Creative Commons license as a free pdf download, but I encourage those taken by things spatial and cultural to get their hands on one of the signed (and very affordable) limited edition books.

Congratulations Nurri & Do Projects!