THE RIGHT PRACTICEa handbook to using theory as technology

contentsa body made lame /3

the becoming of space /7 of site and citing/11

against power/15cities: between desire and power/19

The Right Practice is a compilation of responses to readings that dealt strongly with the themes of theory as technology, knowledge as power and our desire for freedom. The main question raised here is: how can theory be put into practice to exercise out our embodied subject within in the context of a capitalistic society?

THE BODY MADE

LAME//

A response to The Mutant Body of Architecture by George Teyssot

Teyssot introduced his essay on architects Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio and their ‘interrogative’ method in their practice, supporting their methodology of cutting and opening up architecture to explore the possibilities, and to fulfil the issue, of dwelling.

Teyssot highlights their criticality lies in their address

of subjectivity of the human experience; through a body or the lack thereof in the current society. The various examples of physiologies: exteroception, proprioception and interoception (1) dissects the conciousness into different subject, object and body relationships (2). Through that, the discussion moves from the vulnerability of the flesh, incorporation of tools, machinisation of the body to the perceptive submergence of the virtual world. These

technologies or advances made for or onto the body should be considered as subjects of encounter in architecture as well as the raw, the flesh. Teyssot argues that tools incorporated by the body extend the sensorial understanding of space, mutating our bodily perception that we are able to forget of its foreign capabilities. The body is also operated on to overcome its physical ‘defects’, so as to achieve an appearance or performance that the

natural cannot achieve. Turning to the extremeties, the prosthesis of body parts fuels the phantasy of the sci- fi world; the creation of the cyborg- the half human, half machine. Furthermore, Teyssot brings in the virtual reality into this gradient discussion towards physical disembodiment in space. The complete abandonment of the corporeal in experiencing space; the body is made lame.

‘Who, in this instance, is the parasite- the body or the

apparatus?’ (3) Is the body requiring support for expres-sion, or is the apparatus over-riding the original sensorimo-tors of the corporeal? The undertaking of the incorpo-ration of apparatus into the body can be thought as a way to further improve the embodiment of human bod-ies in space; being able to feel beyond what is natural, giving them knowledge to what was once concealed from them. Its fair to say then, the body is adapting to an increasingly technolo-

gised world, by taking away its corporeal limitations and itself be limited through that removal process. This double edged sword wounds the physical in order to educate and liberate the embodied subject within.

Ultimately, Teyssot concludes, Diller and Scofidio put the spotlight on the differences of ‘having and being a body’ (4). It all comes down to the body and where it perceives, it dwells.The practice of Diller and Scofidio strips architec-

ture naked to accommodate the perceptive bodies within it; their concern starting with the limitations and vulnerabil-ity of the flesh. To end, I will include a quote by them:

“Given the technological and political re-configurations of the contemporary body, spatial conventions may be called into questions by ar-chitecture. Architecture can be used as a kind of surgical instrument to operate on it-self (in small increments ).” (5)

(1) Drew Leder, The Absent Body, University of Chicago Press, p.39(2) George Teyssot, “The Mutant Body of Architecture” in Diller and Scofidio’s Flesh, p.10(3) Michel Guillou, “Le Corps et l’appareil” , p. 132(4)Stephanie Ferret, “Extraits de corps” in La Chair de Psyche, European Summer University(5) Diller and Scofidio, Key-note Address: National Tech-nology Conference, Phoenix, Ariz, 29 January, 1993.

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THE BECOMING OF SPACE//

” We would then have a different kinds of bodies and different kinds of body functioning, and perhaps even the possibility of dif-ferent becomings.” (1)

The ‘becomings’ is exactly the centre of this conversa-tion of Grosz; locating the criticality in the potentiality of body becomes the city and vice versa through technology. This discus-sion started with Grosz’s interest in architecture, that she was attracted to architecture as a process

of making through a set of practices in contrary to philosophy, her mode of practice where it judges and reflects. However, she contends that philosophy is ‘ not a building or dwell-ing but a different mode of habitation, a text , a position, and argument or a claim.’(2) Embodiment, then can be referred as the material habitation of something and technol-ogy the way in which it is enhanced. Thus so, the body and the city can be considered as different

scales of embodiment; addressing a possibility that the body and the city exchanges and negotiates its technology- its meth-odology of enhancing its embodiment.

Grosz states: ” What that corporeality might consist of, what counts as corpo-real or material is not so readily decidable, but it is clear that unless language, representations, structures, patterns and habits are constitutive ingredients of corporeality, then the com-

plexities of neither bodies nor cities are capable of being understood.” (3)This highlights that the meaning or the under-standing of the corporeal is what makes it material, the unchangeable objec-tive. If that is taken away, there will be no basis for embodiment, for embodi-ment is after all an exercise of material manifestations; that there need to be a production of spatial expe-riences.

As Grosz points out, ”…

A response to Elizabeth Grosz’s Architecture from the Outside

in this sense the city is in the subject as much as surrounding it.” (4) This defines the city as being subjected to technologi-cal advances, just like the body is too. It can be in-serted into technologies to become part of the subject and it can be the material that triggers subjectivity. It is compressed into a program, into a material sedimentation, expressed within the body, for the body and out of the body. Here, Grosz establishes the cycle of realities from cities

to bodies to cities, each cycle forming complex re-lationships and discourses into reality.

Thus, Grosz believes that ‘(o)ur agency comes from how we accept that desig-nated position and the de-gree to which we refuse it, the way we live it out.’ (5) Our embodiment is not controlled completely by the us ( the body alone) but is a relationship or the compromise that we are comfortable to be in, the certain technologies that

we employ that alters or enhances that fact of our becoming.

Therefore, in our ‘becom-ing’, space turns into a product of the interaction between technology and bodies. In fact, the bodies in space act as machines expelling into space differ-ent ‘becomings’, products of the receptive and active body.

(1) Grosz, E. Architecture from the Outside, Ch.1, “Futures, Cities, Architec-

ture” , p. 17(2) Grosz, E. Architecture from the Outside, Ch. 1, “Futures, Cities, Architec-ture” , p. 5(3) Grosz, E. Architecture from the Outside, Ch. 3, “Futures, Cities, Architec-ture” , p. 50(4) Grosz, E. Architecture from the Outside, Ch. 1, “Futures, Cities, Architec-ture” , p. 16(5) Grosz, E. Architecture from the Outside, Ch. 1, “Futures, Cities, Architec-ture” , p. 23

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OF SITE AND

CITING//

Response to Jane Ren-dell’s Site Writing The Ar-chitecture of Art Criticism

In the prologue of the book, Rendell begins with the explanation of the role of the critic in art, and how that can transform writing from a purely textual practice into a text generated through spatial terms and methodologies. Her introduction revolves around three key words: critic, writing and context. Through this, she explores

these interchanging relationships of critic- writ-ing, critic- context, and writing- context. She firstly points out that the critic is an art viewer as well as an art user, that the critic is able to contemplate and act upon the art. The critic here then is not only judg-ing the art ‘objectively’ but also able to add subjec-tive implications in their criticism. Writing, Rendell pursues, can be a highly experimental tool, able to manipulate the hierarchy

of information through its situation. The careful usage of pre-positions as Rendell points out is one the key ways to change the dynamic of the text to its content. In here, Ren-dell brings to the fore on the application of context when it comes to writ-ing. Context, discussed by Rendell is the site that the critics inhabit whether it be interior or exterior to their subjective context.

She points out: ‘…the site of

writing itself, investigating the limits of criticism, and asking what is possible for a critic to say about an artist, a work, the site of a work and the critic herself and for the writing still count as criticism.’ [1] Here I have to suggest, in what spatial condition does ‘criticism’ cease to be? This gives critical evaluation to the publication in guer-rilla means, questioning the importance of tension raised between the subject matter, the critic and the

objects of study. It is almost where if there is no spatial investment into the ‘fram-ing’ of the context, the criticism becomes loose and disengaged. The sites of writing, therefore, is an embodiment engaged through positing an argu-ment charged with the interest that relates to the factors of the immanent. The here and now can only be discussed through bodies and their relation in space; in their mortal-ity, temporality, positions,

actions – only that can be commented upon. Cri-tique is only useful where there is a consideration that it affects other bodies.

It is in my interest that how site- writing can prove to be a tool to gage with the thoughts of the masses, an amalgamation of subjec-tivities. Through criticism, the critic is able to provide a platform for discourse in the public- publishing a singular, pointed view into the perspective of

the masses. Critique, then, becomes an architecture built up through sites of understanding, misunder-standing, agreements and disagreements; the friction or frenzy that revolves around it a space of social debates. As Rendell con-cludes so well: ‘This pair of two- way movements between the critic and work suspends what we might call judgement or discrimination in criticism, and instead, through what I call the practice

of ‘site-writing’, traces and constructs a series of interlocking sites, relating, on the other hand, critic, work and artist, and on the other, critic, text and reader.’ [2]

[1] Rendell, J. Site Writing: The Architecture of Art Criticism. (2010) p.2[2] Rendell, J. Site Writing: The Architecture of Art Criticism. (2010) p.14

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AGAINST POWER//

Intellectuals and Powera conversation between Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze

This discussion between Foucault and Deleuze pinpoints the system of power that exists in a capi-talistic society and forms of struggle against it. The discourse started off with the identification of the intellectual’s role in society. In recent times, the intel-lectual lost his grounds as an informant to the masses. He himself is strug-gling against the grapple of power.

In this struggle, the intel-lectual will need to adopt theory in order to defend himself. Theory, then transforms into practice

under the intellect and eloquence of its user. As Deleuze points out, ‘theory is exactly like a box of tools’ [1], tools that enable its user to oppose and free themselves from power. This calls for an extreme relevance when it comes to its usage; as only those directly affected by the struggles against power can speak its whole truth and put theory into prac-tice.

Therefore, in relation to the argument above, struggle is the most ef-fective when it affects the form of personal interests

and investments. But the struggle is against the power’s ability to silence and marginalise its the voicing of its shortcom-ings. Hence, as Foucault puts it, ‘…to speak on this subject, to force the insti-tutionalised networks of information to listen, to produce names, to point fingers of accusation, to find targets, is the first step against existing forms of power.’ [2] The grapple of power weakens in protests, as if the sound of indignation and injustice, paints the elephant in the room vivid and crass.

Thereby, I have undertak-en the role of the Guerrilla Publisher not to awaken the knowledge of the threat of the institutions. On the contrary, I seek to tease out the secrets held, the forbidden whisper of the public in order to inter-rupt the exercise of power in Melbourne.

[1] Foucault, M., Deleuze G. in Language, Counter- Memory, Practice: Intellec-tuals and Power, p. 208[2] Foucault, M., Deleuze G. in Language, Counter- Memory, Practice: Intellec-tuals and Power, p. 214

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CITIES: BETWEEN

DESIRE AND

POWER//

A Response to David Harvey’s Right to the City

Harvey’s reading tackles the fundamental question to urbanisation. He discusses with great interest into the capitalistic system and the political and financial logistics that come into play to urbanise the city. In the reading, he details various examples in which the system fails at the expense of the masses- particularly those in the lower class incomes, where their rights are usually paralyse under the compensative methodology of the government.

The city is the centre of the exercise of power. From the planning of the city, the rural areas and the resources that they possess are also planned around the needs of the city. A right to the city easily means a right to control the economy.

As Harvey argues ’ the right to the city is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change the individual liberty to access urban resources by changing the city. It is, moreover, a common rather than the individual right since this transformation inevitably

depends upon the exercise of a collective power to reshape the processes of urbanisation.’ [1]

The city should not be at the mercy of the political and financial institutions of the moment but rather service the desire to reinvent or the betterment of the masses. Thereby, the neglect of these rights is the most appalling for its outright contradiction- for the city is now overtaken as an entrepreneurial investment, chasing the profits rather than fulfilling the humanistic ideals of a city.

The slums are competing for territory with the need for sites for infrastructure building. The city as an ongoing self- improving site functions to absorb the surplus of the economy; many of the city population belonging to the lower income demographic become dispossessed of their homes, paid out to leave where they have rightfully belong. As Harvey puts it neatly, ‘The planet as building site collides with the ‘planet of slums’[2]. Their homes or businesses withi n the city are sidelined for ‘better’city investments. The place where they

generate their assets, their resources are unplugged from them. This does not only affect their monetary fund but more crucially their identity. The context in which they embodied now turned into architectural debris. What rights do they have now? The politics of power were never sensitive to these struggles, they are ready to unearth the slums as a means of social advancement of the city. Yet, in situations when the grapple of power is ever so violent, the desire to be liberated from the grips of it grows stronger. Violence, whether that is in the form of creative

destructions or abuse of rights, needs to be addressed before the collapse of subjective desire- to want to change the world through our rightful living.

Harvey believes ‘one step towards unifying these struggles is to adopt the right to the city as both working slogan and political ideal, precisely because it focuses on the question who commands the necessary connection between urbanization and surplus production and use.’ By doing so, the surplus generating infrastructures is transformed into

handing the right to the people and deals it inclusively, combining work for them and political ideals. Thereby I am apt to add, this collaboration empowers the people of the slums to work for their right in the city, uprooting social unrest through the movement towards working for a fairer income demographic. Building up their wealth and at the same time building up the city: – generating positive social impact upon surplus absorption. Then, the city is truly urbanised, thick with desire, dense with sites for the emancipation of economical production.

[1] Harvey, David (2008), Right to the city, from New Left Review, September/October 2008, Susan Watkins (ed), London, p. 23

[2] Harvey, David (2008), Right to the city, from New Left Review, September/October 2008, Susan Watkins (ed), London, p. 37

[3]Harvey, David (2008), Right to the city, from New Left Review, September/October 2008, Susan Watkins (ed), London

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