From: Jeremy Beaudry <jeremy@boxwith.com>
Date: September 29, 2007 2:16:53 PM EDT
To: empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
Subject: Re: critical spatial practice (a view from Philadelphia)
(The following is a collaborative response by Meredith Warner and
Jeremy Beaudry. Thanks to Kevin for encouraging us to contribute to
an already astute and valuable discussion.)
Greetings from Philadelphia.
Many thanks to Markus and Teddy for their incisive posts, for
shifting this month's conversation into more solid territory. In
particular, we've found Teddy's language to be incredibly
productive in thinking about our practices as artists and
activists. We'd like to contribute some very concrete examples of
"critical spatial practice" which have everything to with everyday,
sustained practices of citizen-activists/-artists working against
violent instantiations of spatial politics on several fronts via a
broad range of tactics. And this work is critical because 1) it is
absolutely vital in how we make the world we want to live in and 2)
it questions, challenges, negates the status quo. Also,
appreciating Teddy's work (and other's on this list, no doubt) with
border politics and the tenuous status of migratory peoples, we
don't mean to privilege "citizen" here in terms of any legal
standing, but rather use it to describe invested, engaged residents
of the demos, however that body comes together in common,
structured spaces -- er, cities.
Let's get local, shall we? The complexities of Philadelphia's
dysfunction and pathology is a history too lengthy to relate here.
It is structural, cultural, institutional, and it permeates the
highest offices of civic government down to the families on our
block. This pathology is chiefly characterized by a patronage style
of governance whereby a small (like, really small) oligarchy of
elected officials, union bosses, and heads of quasi-governmental
development corporations summarily implement their own agendas to
the complete exclusion of any meaningful public participation. (For
example, witness the Penn's Landing Corporation which owns a large
chunk of Philly's central riverfront property. It's funded by
taxpayers, yet decides in its secret board meetings how public land
is to be developed.) The polis is repeatedly divided and pitted
against itself in competition for the favors of this powerful
elite. Consensus is systematically undercut, or falsely
represented. There is also a strong sense of identification between
Philadelphians as victims with their victimizers, resulting in an
unhealthy deference to authority. Agency is an attribute unfamiliar
to many of our fellow citizens. Repeatedly we see those in the
citizenry who have power or the capacity to build power fail to use
it or recognize it.
In the last few years, the problems inherent in the political
climate just described have really come to a head around issues of
large-scale urban land development, particularly along
Philadelphia's central Delaware Riverfront, which contains immense
parcels of post-industrial land that has sat vacant for the
previous 2-3 decades. It's the familiar story of the post-
industrial city re-branding itself as the new mecca of the
leisure / creative class and all the expected accoutrements: condo
towers, grand destination tourist attractions, instrumentalized
arts and culture entertaiments, quaint beautification, escalated
gentrification... it's the neoliberal city and it's magnificent! It
goes without saying that this is all to the enrichment of the
aforementioned cabal and to the exclusion of most Philadelphians.
The disenfranchisement of citizens from any legitimate process that
might ennoble self-determination has recently been exemplified by
Pennsylvania's recent foray into legalized, state-sanctioned (and
subsidized) gambling on a scale and speed that is really
unprecedented (eg. two 5,000 machine slots parlor casinos planned
for the riverfront adjacent to residential neighborhoods). The fix
has been in all along -- from the passage of the gambling
legislation in the middle of the night on July 4th weekend in 2004
to repeated state supreme court decisions that uphold gambling
interests to the cozy alliances between elected officials, casino
developers, and so-called regulators who stand to make billions.
What a gift we've been given! (And we're only being partly
facetious.) This casino clusterfuck has in fact mobilized hundreds
across the city and served as a first trial by fire for many who
had maybe not been paying attention nor ever considered themselves
as activists. What started as small clusters of neighbors self-
organizing in living rooms and barrooms in their respective
communities to oppose this unsanctioned development on the
riverfront evolved into city-wide networks of community activists
and also expanded to embrace other development-related issues like
eminent domain, gentrification and displacement, zoning code
reform, accessible public lands, environmental protections and
remediation, and open and transparent governance. The reckless
process that ushered in these planned casinos is symptomatic of
Philadelphia's (and Pennsylvania's) deep structural corruption. And
more than that: it is symptomatic of the fractures that follow from
neoliberal policies that our civic institutions have normalized.
It is this structural corruption, these egregious acts that
together we meet head-on. And there is no doubt in our mind, or in
the minds on our collaborators, that this is a battle. As Markus
describes, "In war, enemy and adversary usually hold territory,
which they can gain or lose, while each has a spokesman or
authority that can govern, submit or collapse." This is certainly
the space we find ourselves operating in. We bind ourselves to this
language of war because the acts taken by the state to determine
our future are, by their nature, violent. It is structural
violence, implemented by the state, to slowly strip the rights of
the people to participate freely in a decision-making process about
their environment and futures.
Returning to Kevin's question: "But are the military metaphors for
our response really necessary, and how do they function here?"
Yes, they are necessary -- because of the very violent nature of
conflict itself. War is conflict, and through conflict within the
context of participation, change occurs. Ultimately Markus
specifically clarifies what participation looks like by referring
to it as "conflictual participation," which is more descriptive of
the kind of participation that we have experienced as activists in
Philadelphia, and that we believe produces change. Linking these
words "conflict" and "participation" seems obvious to us because
without conflict, particiaption is rendered impotent. To quote
Markus again, "When humans assemble, spatial conflicts arise." In
our experience, the absence of conflict within the forum of
participation is a warning that participation is not actually
occurring at all. Red flags go up!
When we insert ourselves into a space of conflict, we often think
about thick and thin experiences of participation, or even the very
notion of participatory democracy (thinking here of how that is
defined in the Port Huron Statement). In our experience, thick
participation occurs within smaller, more organically formed
settings that have yet to coalesce into institutions. In these
settings, there is usually no funding, no major backer, no
particular political support -- not to mention, these organizations
are usually run by an all volunteer force that is very localized.
Any romantic notion of cooperation (collaboration that happens with
ease) is quickly dispelled by the level of conflict within the
group. Thick participation is much like "conflictual
participation": it is mired in conflict; it is a slow, dirty trek
through a thick slough with boots on that keep getting stuck.
Although compromises and resolutions are part of the process, we
have yet to see thick participation within a particular conflict
come to a definitive end; it is either just that slow, or we have
not been around long enough to experience it. What we are more
inclined to believe is, rather, that thick participation does not
end. It is a continual process that may require considerable
entrenchment and longevity.
Conversely, settings for thin participation are organized by large,
powerful institutions like cities, universities, large non-profits,
and mainstream media outlets. These forums are generally marked by
narrowly framed problems, convoluted processes for citizen
involvement, pre-established controls which to limit the outcome of
the participation, and the careful crafting of outcomes that
ultimately benefits the institutions. Conveniently for you, busy
Citizen, you need only show up on the appointed time, where we will
feed you pizza and let you pick between choice A and choice B.
Neither will you really find acceptable, but that is the price you
pay for convenience! Thin participation is fast; your involvement
in it is scant and has a defined end after which the institution
"takes the reigns" so you can get back to your busy life. Thin
participation is simply the veil of participatory democracy, a way
for institutions to create forums for public input that ultimately
legitimize projects whose outcomes have already been determined. In
our experience in Philadelphia with organizing and advocating for
citizen input and control in the development of the riverfront and
in our neighborhoods, those in power that would do as they please
rely in large part on tacit consent of citizens. (Well, to over
simplify, democratic governments in general rely on tacit consent.)
That is why thin participation is so insidious: via sham processes
of participation, tacit consent is codified and reinscribed as
explicit consent, the collective will of the people.
Our concern here is to develop some workable understanding of
"critical spatial practice" from a purposefully contextualized
perspective. Significantly, as we engaged in activist work, our
work as artists changed too. The walls we had maintained around the
citadel of Art were useless, even harmful, certainly false, and
only enabling a scenario that Christiane accurately bemoans: "One
could easily consider that the role of the artist has now melded
with that of the court jester in our privatized
realms." (Stallabrass' "Art Incorporated" has been helpful to us in
this regard as well.) So a handful of us who are artists and had
cut our teeth together "in the trenches" of this activist work in
Philly formed a collaborative group called the Think Tank that has
yet to be named (http://thinktank.boxwith.com/) because we
understand firsthand the experience of "conflictual participation"
that is essential to participatory democracy and working for
change. But we also believe (selfishly?) that the language(s) of
art has the power to open up spaces for meaningful discourse,
critical consciousness, (dare I say it?) redemption, and perhaps
even Kevin's "ethics of plenitude."
The Think Tank formed around the recognition of a single phenomenon
that we see present in each of the organizations or institutions we
work in as activists: the presence of the "neutral" voice. The
neutral voice is the voice of one who assumes some position of
power in a group (usually the "benign" mediator/facilitator), but
refuses to lead, or acknowledge his power. The neutral voice plays
both sides of the field as it suits his own purpose, which is to
remain a central figure in the process. The neutral voice often
impedes upon any progress that might be made because the neutral
voice avoids conflict. But the neutral voice is never neutral; he
promotes his agenda through a series of indiscernible nudges rather
than through outright leadership. In the participatory processes we
are involved with this neutral voice is omnipresent.
This epidemic of neutrality informed the way in which the Think
Tank organized itself. Each member (a word we use cautiously,
though have no replacement for) self-appoints his own distinct
Directorship. A Director's title exposes biases, revealing the
Director's position in the context of an investigation. So we
immediately declared our own respective agendas and made it a
prerequisite of participation that any other self-appointed
Directors do so as well.
One of the forms we created was the Publicly Held Private Meeting
(PHPM). These are performative and collaborative site-specific
interventions, and a format that we have used frequently in our
investigations of contemporary urban issues in Philadelphia.
Living, working, and organizing in Philadelphia, we rely on an
intimate knowledge of the city in order to initiate and faciliate
these dialogical projects. This knowledge is often gained over time
through research, observation, and by virtue of simply sharing and
negotiating space with others.
In these investigations we are also careful to implicate ourselves
as artists, if necessary. For example: the current Directors all
live in or around a gentrifying neighborhood in Philadelphia called
Fishtown. In addition to the claimed "organic" process whereby
artists are "pioneers" in the process of gentrification, there is
also a formal mandate by the City of Philadelphia to transform the
neighborhood of Fishtown into an "arts corridor." So whether we
came here because it was affordable, or because there were other
artists we knew here, does not matter. We are implicated in the
process, and it is certain that our presence will be used by the
city to further its project (here we are back at the neoliberal
city). So the investigation that occurs during a PHPM is understood
through the exposure of each Director's agenda via their title, but
also through the implication of our presence in this neighborhood
as both newcomers and artists. Teddy writes, "Since when are we all
not implicated in the power structure?" The Directors understand
this question and use self-exposure as an attempt not to diffuse
power but to acknowledge and make visible the power and privilege
we each wield and benefit from.
As activists, Teddy's conception of "critical proximity" describes
our point of entry into situations and institutions where we engage
directly with "conflictual participation," where we challenge power
head on, where we expose the "power inscribed on the territory."
But this notion of "critical proximity" is also employed in our art
practice, via our Directorships, to dissect the structure of power
and the ways in which institutions manage space and populations. By
examining spatial issues in a PHPM, at the site of contention, via
a model of self-exposure, we hope to generate constructive dialogue
that might bring to light new forms of action. But we also hope
that our physical occupation of a site, and our engagements with
those on or near the site, might create a spatial and psychic tear
that exposes the very structures that orchestrate spatial
injustice. Occupying the space in between our art and activist
practices, we have found these onsite conversations, the PHPM,
instrumental in reciprocally illuminating the strengths and
weaknesses of each practice taken on its own. Perhaps, ultimately,
art and activist practices need not be fully integrated, but exist,
too, in "critical proximity" to one another so that we might create
"counter procedures that can generate new models of possibility."
Best.
Meredith Warner, Director of the Dept. for the Investigation of
Failure (DIF)
Jeremy Beaudry, Director of the Dept. for the Investigation of
Meaning (DIM)
We are founding members of a grass-roots community planning
organization called NABR (http://nabrhood.org) and Directors of the
Think Tank that has yet to be named (http://thinktank.boxwith.com/).