[-empyre-] Re: critical spatial practice (a view from Philadelphia)

[Jeremy Beaudry <jeremy@boxwith.com>]

(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/).