[-empyre-] Re: Critical Spatial Practice

[Ryan Griffis <ryan.griffis@gmail.com>]

I'm flattered that Kevin found the van tour in Brooklyn an  
interesting enough example to use here, but i should clarify one  
point (just for the record):

> Last Fall, on a van tour of Brooklyn's parking infrastructure, we  
> got to experience firsthand the distance (by car) from the  
> convenient, privately-owned parking near BAM to New York's only  
> city-owned parking structure, way the way out on the fringes.

The municipal/city owned lot we visited in Brooklyn (The Grant  
Parking Field) is not the only one of its kind in the city - there  
are 59 in the city altogether - but Kevin's assessment of the  
distance compared to privately owned/operated facilities is correct  
nonetheless. You can compare them here (blue arrows = municipal lots,  
red drops = private ones)
http://maps.yourgmap.com/v/c_fp_Parking_Public_c_Brooklyn_2006.html
But i digress into minutiae...
More on topic and of general interest, the questions raised by Kevin  
and Brett about instrumentality, criticality and reception are, i  
think, really key to these discussions getting past their over  
determination by techno- and aesthetic-determinist frameworks, but  
also past the idea that practice and/or research is a transparent  
tool to understand the world.
In an interview with Paul Rabinow (reproduced in the Routledge  
Cultural Studies Reader), Foucault is questioned about the role of  
space in conceptions and realizations of "freedom". His remarks are  
also related to questions of technological development and freedom  
and subjectivity. In many ways, his statements seem obvious, but  
somehow counter to the way a lot of practitioners and theorists write  
about "space" and materiality.
Foucault: "Liberty is a practice. ...It can never be inherent in the  
structure of things to guarantee the exercise of freedom... This is  
not to say that the exercise of freedom is completely indifferent to  
spatial distribution, but it can only function when there is a  
certain convergence..."
I know Foucault is hardly at the cutting edge of discourse here (and  
yet another continental reference), but i found this questioning from  
the 1980s as an interesting foil to a lot of the emphasis currently  
being placed on developing spaces and technologies as solutions to  
political problems, whether it's in architecture, design, urban  
planning or even tactical media. Interesting because it is a position  
still rigorously invested in "space" as a material and discursive  
affair, rather than an avoidance of it.
Kevin introduced a great way, IMHO, of furthering this (as I think  
Brett's examples do too):

> To borrow from Mobility Studies, these projects pay attention and  
> respond to the ways in which one person's movements occur in  
> relation to, or even at the expense of, the lessened movements of  
> others - especially when posed as "critique."

Remarks that art can become/has been used as a tactical means of  
support, is i think also significant and no small concession. A  
critique of how and why "interventionist" practices become  
institutionalized and assimilated into the "high" cultural sphere  
(i.e. non profit and commercial museums and galleries) is a  
significant and important task, but i don't think the most important  
or significant one. At least not without a larger engagement with the  
what and how of that cultural sphere. It's all too easy to accept  
seemingly solid economic, spatial and industrial boundaries that are  
really quite fluid and often supported more by a cultural imaginary  
than anything else. In other words, what's at stake in questioning  
"where's the art" when we're only using a map with art institutions  
and labels on it? Along these lines, an essay by the Radical Culture  
Research Collective addresses some of these questions (pointed out to  
me by Kevin a few days ago):
http://post.thing.net/node/1741
There are practices that I think encourage a reading of CSP as a  
methodology that includes academic/aesthetic modes, but one not in  
any way subjected or beholden to the histories and needs of the avant  
garde culture industry. Of course there are plenty of historical and  
recent examples from various forms of protest carnival, sit-ins, etc.  
I think that we'd be doing a disservice to the discussion if we  
didn't take into account such practices, alongside those with more  
visibility to us as artists and scholars. My particular interests  
have led me to practices like Toxic Tours and other forms of spatial,  
experiential didactics aimed at generating a convergence of knowledge  
dissemination, spectacularizing spatially organized inequities,  
building coalitions, etc.
(if you're interested in toxic tours: http:// 
www.temporarytraveloffice.net/blog/2007/06/toxic-tourism.html )
How to account for the intervention of aesthetic exercise/analysis  
into these realms, i.e. how power is shifted and redirected, is of  
concern...
Best + thanks to the guests and other contributors for initiating a  
great discussion.
ryan