Showing posts with label utopia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label utopia. Show all posts

Sunday, February 11, 2018

Η Μνήμη της Επανάστασης



Memorial to Collective Utopia, 2010


Την εκδοχή 70 σύγχρονων Ελλήνων εικαστικών δημιουργών για τα σύμβολα, τις εικόνες και τους πρωταγωνιστές της Οκτωβριανής Επανάστασης, τα μηνύματα, τα συνθήματα, το πνεύμα, την ορμή και τον δυναμισμό της, τις διαστάσεις ενός από τα ιστορικά γεγονότα που «συγκλόνισαν» τον κόσμο και καθόρισαν την ιστορία του 20ού αιώνα φιλοξενεί η έκθεση «Η Μνήμη της Επανάστασης – Σύγχρονοι Έλληνες Εικαστικοί», σε συνδιοργάνωση του Κρατικού Μουσείου Σύγχρονης Τέχνης της Θεσσαλονίκης Κρατικό Μουσείο Σύγχρονης Τέχνης / State Museum of Contemporary Artκαι της Ανωτάτης Σχολής Καλών Τεχνών / Ανωτάτη Σχολή Καλών Τεχνών.

Η έκθεση διοργανώθηκε και πρωτοπαρουσιάστηκε με μεγάλη επιτυχία στο ΚΜΣΤ στη Θεσσαλονίκη την άνοιξη του 2017, όπου είχαν την ευκαιρία να τη δουν χιλιάδες επισκέπτες. Η έκθεση παρουσιάζεται στην Αθήνα εμπλουτισμένη με έργα περισσότερων καλλιτεχνών. Συνοδεύεται από αναπαραγωγές έργων της συλλογής Κωστάκη του ΚΜΣΤ που σκιαγραφούν το σκηνικό της εποχής της ρωσικής πρωτοπορίας. Η τέχνη της ρωσικής πρωτοπορίας αποτελεί, εξάλλου, μέχρι σήμερα για τους καλλιτέχνες μια ανεξάντλητη πηγή έμπνευσης, προβληματισμού και ερεθισμάτων, οδηγεί σε θετικούς ιστορικούς και πολιτισμικούς συνειρμούς, αφού υλοποιεί εξαιρετικά και υποδειγματικά ριζοσπαστικές καλλιτεχνικές και κοινωνικοπολιτικές ουτοπίες.

Η έκθεση «Η Μνήμη της Επανάστασης – Σύγχρονοι Έλληνες εικαστικοί» δεν στοχεύει να υποκαταστήσει την αυστηρή ιστορική μελέτη, τις διαφορετικές αναγνώσεις, αντικρουόμενες ερμηνείες και αποτιμήσεις των ιστορικών. Αντίθετα, επικεντρώνεται σ' έναν ξεχωριστό προβληματισμό με τις έννοιες της Ουτοπίας και της Επανάστασης, αλλά και τους πειραματισμούς των Ρώσων πρωτοπόρων καλλιτεχνών, να βρίσκονται στον πυρήνα της και να συγκροτούν το νοηματικό της άξονα. Οι καλλιτέχνες της έκθεσης μέσα από διαφορετικές προσεγγίσεις "μεταφέρουν" την έννοια της Επανάστασης δυναμικά στο παρόν, έρχονται να μιλήσουν για τη δυναμική και την αντοχή της στον χρόνο, σε μια κρίσιμη περίοδο μετάβασης, κρίσης και αναμονής, αμφισβήτησης και έκπτωσης των ιδεολογιών.

Την έκθεση πλαισιώνουν επίσης αντικείμενα (αφίσες και προτομές με τους ηγέτες της Οκτωβριανής Επανάστασης, φωτογραφίες, ζωγραφικοί πίνακες σοσιαλιστικού ρεαλισμού, κ.ά.) της συλλογής του Βασίλη Κωνσταντίνου, την οποία έχει παραχωρήσει στο ΚΜΣΤ. Η συλλογή έχει συγκροτηθεί μέσα από πολυάριθμα ταξίδια και πεισματικές αναζητήσεις του συλλέκτη στη μεγάλη γεωγραφική περιοχή των Βαλκανίων και λειτουργεί αναμνηστικά, αλλά και ως υπόμνηση μιας μεγάλης πολιτικής ιστορίας και ταυτόχρονα πιο προσωπικά, αφού αποκαλύπτει πολλές κρυφές ιστορίες της ατομικής διαχείρισης της ιστορίας.

Συμμετέχοντες καλλιτέχνες: Γιώργος Αλεξανδρίδης, Άγγελος Αντωνόπουλος, Νίκος Αρβανίτης, Αννίτα Αργυροηλιοπούλου, Μιχάλης Αρφαράς, Βασίλειος Βασιλακάκης, Κωστής Βελώνης, Μπάμπης Βενετόπουλος, Ανδρέας Βούσουρας, Βασίλης Γεροδήμος, Δημήτρης Γεωργακόπουλος, Μανώλης Γιανναδάκης, Λεωνίδας Γιαννακόπουλος, Κορνήλιος Γραμμένος, Λυδία Δαμπασίνα, Γιώργος Διβάρης, Στέφανος Επιτρόπου, Θεόδωρος Ζαφειρόπουλος, Δημήτρης Ζουρούδης, Βασίλης Ζωγράφος, Αντιγόνη Καββαθά, Στέφανος Καμάρης, Δημήτρης Καρλαφτόπουλος, Γιάννης Καστρίτσης, Θεόφιλος Κατσιπάνος, Θοδωρής Λάλος, Γιάννης Λασηθιωτάκης, Ανδρέας Λυμπεράτος, Αλέξανδρος Μαγκανιώτης, Μιχάλης Μανουσάκης, Πάνος Ματθαίου, Ειρήνη Ματσούκη, Δημήτρης Μεράντζας, Τάσος Μισούρας, Μανώλης Μπαμπούσης, Εμμανουήλ Μπιτσάκης, Ξενοφών Μπήτσικας, Νικόλας Μπλιάτκας, Άλκης Μπούτλης, Νίκος Παπαδημητρίου, Αντώνης Παπαδόπουλος, Λήδα Παπακωνσταντίνου, Αιμιλία Παπαφιλίππου, Λίλα Παπούλα, Αλίκη Παππά, Κωνσταντίνος Πάτσιος, Νατάσσα Πουλαντζά, Γεωργία Σαγρή, Ξενής Σαχίνης, Χριστίνα Σγουρομύτη, Νίκος Σεπετζόγλου, Δήμητρα Σιατερλή, Γιάννης Σκαλτσάς, Άγγελος Σκούρτης, Μάριος Σπηλιόπουλος, Στεφανία Στρούζα, Δημήτρης Τάταρης, Νίκος Τρανός, Βίκυ Τσαλαματά, Γιώργος Τσεριώνης, Κώστας Τσώλης, Πάνος Χαραλάμπους, Γιώργος Χαρβαλιάς, Μανώλης Χάρος, Θάλεια Χιώτη, Κώστας Χριστόπουλος, Διονύσης Χριστοφιλογιάννης, Έλλη Χρυσίδου, Θοδωρής Χρυσικός, Γιάννης Ψυχοπαίδης

Επιμέλεια έκθεσης: Γιάννης Μπόλης, Ιστορικός της τέχνης - Επιμελητής του ΚΜΣΤ
Ανώτατη σχολή καλών τεχνών 
12.02 -14.04 

Sunday, April 2, 2017

Αλλόκοτος ελληνισμός



Ο ΑΛΛΟΚΟΤΟΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΣΜΟΣ φωτίζει επτά έκκεντρες μορφές της νεοελληνικής πνευματικής ιστορίας, οι οποίες αφοσιώθηκαν με πάθος στις σχέσεις ελληνισμού και χριστιανισμού, Ανατολής και Δύσης και αποτόλμησαν ασυνήθιστους πειραματισμούς με τη νεοελληνική ταυτότητα. Οι παραγνωρισμένες αυτές αναζητήσεις της ελληνικότητας γεννήθηκαν λίγο πριν και λίγο μετά τα δύο κρίσιμα ιστορικά ορόσημα του ελληνισμού, την πτώση του Βυζαντίου (1453) και τη δημιουργία του νεοελληνικού κράτους (1830), απολήγοντας σε επτά εκδοχές οριακής εμπειρίας των ιδεών στον ευρύτερο ελληνικό χώρο: περιπλάνηση (Κυριάκος Αγκωνίτης), ουτοπία (Πλήθων), εκτοπισμός (Μάρουλλος Ταρχανιώτης), βλασφημία (Χριστόδουλος Παμπλέκης), αίρεση (Θεόφιλος Καΐρης), αλλόκοτο (Παναγιώτης Σοφιανόπουλος), ψευδολογία (Κωνσταντίνος Σιμωνίδης).
Συνδυάζοντας τη μελέτη των πηγών με την ιστορία των ιδεών και τον φιλοσοφικό στοχασμό, το δοκίμιο του Νικήτα Σινιόσογλου χαρτογραφεί μια λησμονημένη μεθόριο της νεοελληνικής ιστορίας των ιδεών, την οποία η κυρίαρχη διανοητική ιστορία αντιμετωπίζει με δυσπιστία και αμηχανία.
Στην παρούσα συγκυρία ακραίας πολιτικής ρευστότητας και ιδεολογικών ανακατατάξεων, τα ανοίκεια άκρα της νεοελληνικής ιστορίας των ιδεών αποκτούν μιαν αναπάντεχη πολιτική σημασία.
«Κάθε σύστημα ωφελείται αναγνωρίζοντας την ανάγκη παρέκκλισης, ενώ συνάμα τρέμει την υπερβολή της. Μοιραία η αλλόκοτη σκέψη δεν ζει πολύ. Λίγες ιδέες κατορθώνουν να διαφύγουν από τη βία του κανόνα, κι όταν το πετυχαίνουν είναι για λίγο μόνο. Το αλλόκοτο δεν διαλέγεται παρά σημαίνει. Αλλόκοτο είναι ό,τι αντιστέκεται».

Monday, October 26, 2015

The Barricade and the Dance Floor: Aesthetic Radicalism and the Counterculture

Whole Earth Catalogue, July 1970

In Hjorvardur Harvard Arnason’s sweeping survey History of Modern Art, first published in 1968, a brief entry on psychedelic art completes his six-hundred-page tome. It seems a fitting way to conclude the book’s march through modernism, focusing as it does on the au courant style of the moment. As Arnason explains, “The recent appearance of psychedelic art may be accounted for in several ways: the easy availability and enormously increased use of psychedelic drugs; the mixture and confusion of appeals to several senses simultaneously in the so-called mixed media performances; the ethos of the hippies and flower-children; and the prevalent atmosphere of rebellion against ‘the establishment,’ whether in society in general or in art specifically.” 1 Arnason does not elaborate on these causalities, which, nevertheless, are instructive in their range of positions. The use of mind-altering and consciousness-expanding drugs such as LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin on the part of artists would seem to be an expected foundational definition of a psychedelic art. This “art under the influence” approach applied not only to some artists whose work was produced during drug-induced sessions but also for the many more who drew upon such episodes and experiences more symbolically or referentially, giving psychedelic art currency as both a form of process and representational art. Interestingly, Arnason does not parse the difference between the artist and the audience undergoing an altered state of consciousness, rendering psychedelic art also possible in the mind’s-eye of the beholder.


Text by Andrew Blauvelt

Read more : http://www.walkerart.org/feature/2015/aesthetic-radicalism-counterculture


"The Barricade and the Dance Floor: Aesthetic Radicalism and the Counterculture" is republished from Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia (Walker Art Center, 2015; Andrew Blauvelt, ed.). The exhibition is on view October 24, 2015 through February 28, 2015, before traveling to the Cranbrook Art Museum and University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.


Wednesday, June 25, 2014

What Models Can Do—A Short History of the Architectural Model in Contemporary Art

Charles Simonds, Floating Cities, 2014 (founded 1972). Wood, plastic, plaster, 115 parts, various sizes. © 2014 VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.

In the field of architecture and urban planning, the three-dimensional architectural model – on a reduced scale -- continues to function as a tool when communicating planned or realised architecture. The model can efficiently provide information about larger spatial contexts, which are either experienced very differently in their original dimensions or may even be impossible to experience at all. Through its reduction in size, the model also facilitates a reduction in spatial complexity. Suddenly, it is possible to grasp things at a glance that can only be understood in their original size through the time-consuming process of a physical inspection.

It is noticeable that contemporary art frequently adopts the architectural and urban model, removing it from its tightly framed functional context, adapting its phenomenological qualities and giving it a fresh function in the context of artistic questions. In the conceptually dominated art of the last 40 years, the architectural model is opened up poetically and employed in a metaphorical and theatrical fashion. Another important aspect in this context is the mysterious aura of the miniature (Gaston Bachelard), which the eye can penetrate – without the body, so to speak, but without forgetting the physical experience.

On the one hand, reference to the architectural model helps to develop issues concerning the sculpture; on the other hand, the architectural model can serve – precisely because of its interim state between concept and realisation – as an instrument of criticism and utopia. It is this not-only-but-also, this simultaneity of direct sensory presence and yet suggestive distance to the viewer’s sphere of experience, which constitutes the fascination of the model.

The exhibition writes a brief history of the architectural model in contemporary art. It begins with the legendary model by Charles Simonds, covers the 1990s with Ludger Gerdes, Hermann Pitz and Thomas Schütte, and weaves the thread further, up to the present day, with Alicia Framis, Hinrich Sachs and Carlos Garaicoa.

Participating artists: Absalon, Michael Ashkin, Thomas Bayrle, Peter Downsbrough, Jean-Pascal Flavien, Alicia Framis, Carlos Garaicoa, Ludger Gerdes, Christian Haake, Gabu Heindl & Drehli Robnik, Matthew Day Jackson, Friederike Klotz, Langlands & Bell, Rita McBride, Isa Melsheimer, Stephan Mörsch, Sirous Namazi, Hermann Pitz, Hinrich Sachs, Michel Sauer, Thomas Schütte, Laurie Simmons & Peter Wheelwright, Charles Simonds, Stephen Willats, Elizabeth Wright und Yin Xiuzhen.

June 29–October 2014
Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen

www.mgk-siegen.de

Friday, June 28, 2013

Όχι Μπραζίλια μα Οκτάνα



Όταν δια της πίστεως και της καλής θελήσεως, αλλά 
και από επιτακτικήν, αδήριτον ανάγκην δημιουργηθούν 
αι προϋποθέσεις και εκτελεσθούν όχι οικοδομικά, ή 
ορθολογιστικά, μα διαφορετικά τελείως έργα, εις 
την καρδιά του μέλλοντος, εις την καρδιά των υψηλών  
οροπεδίων και προ παντός μέσα στην καρδιά του κάθε 
ανθρώπου, θα υπάρξη τότε μόνον η Νέα Πόλις και 
θα ονομασθή πρωτεύουσα της ηνωμένης, της αρραγούς 
και αδιαιρέτου Οικουμένης. 
  Άγνωστον αν η παλαιά, που εκτείνεται προ του 
ωκεανού στα πόδια του κατακορύφου βράχου που μοιάζει 
με το Τζέμπελ-αλ-Ταρέκ, άγνωστον αν θα εγκαταλειφθή, 
ή αν θα υφίσταται καν στα χρόνια εκείνα, ή αν, απέραντη 
και κενή, θα διατηρηθή ως δείγμα μιάς ελεεινής, μιας 
αποφράδος εποχής, ή ως θλιβερόν μουσείον διδακτικόν, 
πλήρες παραδειγμάτων πρό αποφυγήν. Εκείνο που είναι 
βέβαιον είναι ότι η Νέα Πόλις θα οικοδομηθή, ή μάλλον 
θα δημιουργηθή, και θα είναι η πρωτεύουσα του 
Νέου Κόσμου, εις την καρδιά του μέλλοντος και των 
ανθρώπων, μετά χρόνια πολλά, οδυνηρά, βλακώδη και 
ανιαρά, ίσως μετά μιαν άλωσιν οριστικήν, μετά την 
μάχην την τρομακτικήν του επερχομένου Αρμαγεδδώνος. 
  Δεν θα εξετάσω τας λεπτομερείας..... 

.................... 

Αυτό που με ενδιαφέρει απολύτως-και θα έπρεπε να 
ενδιαφέρη όλους-είναι ότι η Νέα Πόλις θα 
ολοκληρωθή, θα γίνη. Όχι βεβαίως απο αρχιτέκτονας 
και πολεοδόμους οιηματίας, που ασφαλώς πιστεύουν 
οι καημένοι, ότι μπορούν αυτοί τους βίους των 
ανθρώπων εκ των προτέρων να ρυθμίζουν και το μέλλον 
της ανθρωπότητος, με χάρακες, με υποδεκάμετρα, γωνίες 
και Τ, μέσα στα σχέδια της φιλαυτίας των, 
ναρκισσευόμενοι (μαρξιστικά, φασιστικά ή αστικά),πνίγοντες 
και πνιγόμενοι να κανονίζουν.  
  Όχι, δεν θα κτισθή η Νέα Πόλις έτσι, μα θα κτισθή από 
όλους τους ανθρώπους, όταν οι άνθρωποι. έχοντας εξαντλήσει 
τας αρνήσεις, και τας καλάς και τας κακάς, βλέποντες το 
αστράπτον φως της αντισοφιστείας-τουτέστι το φως της άνευ 
δογμάτων, άνευ ενδυμάτων Αληθείας-παύσουν στα αίματα και 
στα βαριά αμαρτήματα χέρια και πόδια να βυθίζουν, και 
αφήσουν μέσα στις ψυχές των, με οίστρον καταφάσεως, όλα 
τα δένδρα της Εδέμ, με πλήρεις καρπούς και δίχως 
όφεις-μα τον Θεό, ή τους Θεούς-τελείως ελεύθερα να ανθίσουν. 
  Ναι, ναι (αμήν, αμήν λέγω υμίν),σας λέγω την αλήθειαν. 
Η Νέα Πόλις θα κτισθή και δεν θα είναι χθαμαλή σε 
βαλτοτόπια. Θα οικοδομηθή στα υψίπεδα της Οικουμένης, 
μα δεν θα ονομασθή Μπραζίλια, Σιών, Μόσχα, ή Νέα Υόρκη, 
αλλά θα ονομασθή η πόλις αυτή  Ο κ τ ά ν α . 
Και τώρα ο καθείς θα διερωτηθή ευλόγως: Μα τι θα πή Οκτάνα;  

............................. 

  Και τώρα (αμήν, αμήν) λέγω υμίν : 
  Οκτάνα, φίλοι μου, θα πή μεταίχμιον της Γης και του 
Ουρανού, όπου το ένα στο άλλο επεκτεινόμενο ένα τα δύο κάνει. 
  Οκτάνα θα πή πύρ, κίνησις, ενέργεια, λόγος σπέρμα. 
  Οκτάνα θα πη έρως ελεύθερος με όλας τας ηδονάς του. 
  Οκτάνα θα πή ανά πάσαν στιγμήν ποίησις, όμως όχι ως μέσον 
εκφράσεως μόνον, μα ακόμη ως λειτουργία του 
πνεύματος διηνεκής. 
  Οκτάνα θα πή η εντελέχεια εκείνη, που αυτό που είναι 
αδύνατον να γίνη αμέσως το κάνει εν τέλει δυνατόν, ακόμη και 
την χίμαιραν, ακόμη και την ουτοπίαν, ίσως μια μέρα και 
την αθανασίαν του σώματος και όχι μονάχα της ψυχής. 
  Οκτάνα θα πή το "εγώ"  "εσύ" να γίνεται (και αντιστρόφως 
το "εσύ"  "εγώ" ) εις μίαν εκτόξευσιν ιμερικήν, εις μίαν 
έξοδον λυτρωτικήν, εις μίαν ένωσιν θεοτικήν, εις μίαν 
μέθεξιν υπέρτατην, που ίσως αυτή να αποτελή την θείαν Χάριν, 
το θαύμα του εντός και εκτός εαυτού, κάθε φοράν που 
εν εκστάσει συντελείται. 
  Οκτάνα θα πή πάση θυσία διατήρησις της παιδικής ψυχής 
εις όλα τα στάδια της ωριμότητος, εις όλας τας 
εποχάς του βίου................. 
  Οκτάνα θα πή εν πλήρει αθωότητι Αδάμ, εν πλήρει 
βεβαιότητι Αδάμ-συν-Εύα. 

................................. 

  Οκτάνα θα πή απόλυτος ενότης πνεύματος και ύλης. 
  Οκτάνα θα πή παντού και πάντα εν ηδονή ζωή. 
  Οκτάνα θα πή δικαιοσύνη. 
  Οκτάνα θα πή αγάπη. 
  Οκτάνα θα πή παντού και πάντα καλωσύνη. 
  Οκτάνα θα πή η αγαλλίασις εκείνη που φέρνει στα χείλη 
την ψυχή και εις τα όργανα τα κατάλληλα με ορμήν το σπέρμα. 

.................................. 

  Οκτάνα θα πή ό,τι στους ουρανούς και επί της γης ηκούετο, 
κάθε φοράν που ως μέγας μαντατοφόρος, με έντασιν 
υπερκοσμίου τηλεβόα, ο Άγγελος Κυρίου εβόα. 

............................... 

                   
Aνδρέας Εμπειρίκος, Γλυφάδα,  20. 8. 1965


Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Twelve Highrise Buildings




Twelve Highrise Buildings for "Het Gooi," Hendrik Th. Wijdeveld, 1957. NAI Collection.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

The Golden Age


The 15-hour working week predicted by Keynes may soon be within our grasp – but are we ready for freedom from toil?
Text by John Quiggin, Aeon Magazine, 27 September.
Source: www.aeonmagazine.com

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

The Utopian Impulse: Buckminster Fuller and the Bay Area




The Bay Area attracts dreamers, progressives, nonconformists, and designers. Buckminster Fuller was all of these, and though he never lived in San Francisco, his ideas spawned many local experiments in the realms of technology, engineering, and sustainability—some more successful than others. The Whole Earth Catalog, The North Face, Pritzker Prize–winning architect Thom Mayne, and Calfiornia Governor Jerry Brown have all cited Fuller as a key influence on several projects.
"Late in his life Fuller selected 13 designs for which he obtained U.S. patents and featured them in a portfolio called Inventions: Twelve Around One, to be marketed to art collectors," notes SFMOMA Acting Department Head/Assistant Curator of Architecture and Design Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher, who organized the presentation. "In learning more about Fuller, I've come to realize that the works in the portfolio shouldn't be considered designs. I prefer to view them as opportunities to rethink a more comprehensive and efficient way of living. In hindsight, it's probably fortunate that none of these projects were commercially successful, as it could have distracted from Fuller's idealism. This exhibition attempts to situate him as visionary and to present his revolutionary world view."
The Utopian Impulse opens by introducing Fuller, primarily with prints from the Inventions: Twelve Around One portfolio (1981), as well as several key works on loan from the R. Buckminster Fuller Archive at Stanford University. The gallery includes projects dating from the late 1920s through the mid-1970s paired with his most well-known ideas from the portfolio, such as the 4D House (1928), a hexagonal autonomous dwelling meant to be optimally resource efficient and mass producible from factory-made kits that could be easily shipped anywhere and quickly assembled on site. Extending this optimization to transportation, Fuller's ultra-light three-wheeled Dymaxion Car (1933) featured unprecedented fuel efficiency and an aerodynamic, teardrop shape, which was determined in collaboration with boat designer Sterling Burgess. While these projects held promise in efficiency, fabrication techniques available at the time could not produce a viable design for mass production.
The exhibition also presents several of Fuller's big-picture ideas, including his World Game project, which he initiated in 1965. Conceived as a data-visualization system meant to facilitate global approaches in solving the world's problems, Fuller intended the piece to "make the world work, for 100 percent of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone."
The other half of the presentation looks at Bay Area endeavors inspired by Fuller's thinking, particularly those that employ his approach of commingling technology, ecology, and social responsibility to improve living systems. For instance, in the early 1970s Fuller's conceptions of simple, mobile dwellings emerged in the philosophies of several East Bay companies that were developing outdoor gear to coincide with the back-to-the-earth movement. Many tent designers had learned about Fuller's concept of "tensegrity," a made-up word intended to mean tension plus integrity. The North Face released the first "tensegrity" tent in 1976, called the Oval Intention, which is now credited with changing contemporary tent design.
Nodding to Fuller as a kindred spirit in large-scale change through storytelling and performative marketing, environmental activist David de Rothschild launched the Plastiki sailboat—a catamaran made entirely of recycled materials and kept afloat by some 12,500 plastic water bottles—and sailed it from San Francisco to Australia in 2010 as an awareness campaign for less waste and more recycling. Fuller's notion of social betterment through greater access to information weaves through projects including Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Catalog (1968–1972), which attempted to list all things needed for a self-sustainable lifestyle; and architect Nicholas de Monchaux's Local Code initiative, which uses geospatial analysis to collect real-time data on health, environmental, and crime activities in San Francisco's publicly owned unused spaces and then proposes temporary solutions for dire conditions.
As a commission for this presentation, San Francisco–based documentary filmmaker Sam Green will create a documentary on several projects related to Fuller and the Bay Area by researching Fuller's self-curated archive known as the Dymaxion Chronofile. The film will be presented in the galleries on a wall sculpture designed by Obscura Digital, a local firm that creates custom installations for media presentations.
While some projects in the exhibition reference Fuller directly, others, like Morphosis's design for San Francisco's Federal Building, have a more distant relationship to Fuller while still maintaining his ethos of "comprehensive design," which advocates for anticipatory design informed by intelligence from several sectors.
 "Fuller's eccentric views were informed by speculating on future technologies, not past history," says Fletcher. "Since he worked outside of business, academic, and scientific norms, he never quite fit in. Perhaps it was frustrating for him or maybe it was a calculated elusiveness. Either way, the view of Fuller as an outsider has emerged as an emblem for 'thinking differently,' which is a starting point for many Bay Area initiatives."

March 31 through July 29, 2012, The Utopian Impulse: Buckminster Fuller and the Bay Area San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)
Source: http://www.sfmoma.org

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Ουτοπια

Τα νέα αποκτήµατα της συλλογής του Νίκου Χρ. Παττίχη και της εφηµερίδας «Ο Φιλελεύθερος», της οποίας είναι εκδότης, µια από τις πιο σηµαντικές συλλογές σύγχρονης τέχνης στην Κύπρο, παρουσιάζονται στο Ίδρυµα Ευαγόρα και Καθλήν Λανίτη στη Λεµεσό από τις 22 Μαρτίου µέχρι τις 17 Μαΐου. Όπως υποδηλώνει και ο τίτλος της έκθεσης «Utopia», ενώ στην προηγούµενη έκθεση της συλλογής πριν µερικά χρόνια τα έργα αντικατόπτριζαν την ενασχόληση των καλλιτεχνών και το ενδιαφέρον του συλλέκτη για τη φιγούρα και την παραστατικότητα, σε αυτή τη νέα παρουσίαση της συλλογής, η οποία εµπλουτίστηκε στο µεταξύ µε περισσότερο από τριάντα έργα, καταγράφεται η πρόθεση των καλλιτεχνών να διαπραγµατευτούν στη δουλειά τους καίρια ζητήµατα της κοινωνικοπολιτικής πραγµατικότητας του τόπου και όχι µόνον.


Η μελαγχολία της αριστεράς, 2009
Ξύλο, ακρυλικό
5.25 μέτρα ύψος

Στην έκθεση Utopia συµµετέχουν: Αντωνίου Κλίτσα, Βελώνης Κωστής, Βενέτης Χρήστος, Γιωρκάτζης Αλέξανδρος, Eramian Peter, Ιωάννου Ελίνα, Καλλής Σωτήρης, Κυριάκου Φάνος, Κώστα Κυριακή, Λάπας Γιώργος, Λοϊζίδου Μαρία, Μιχαήλ Παναγιώτης, Νεοκλέους Δηµήτρης, Οικονόµου Ελένη, Παναγιώτου Χριστόδουλος, Περικλέους Βίκυ, Πεσλίκας Πόλυς, Σωκράτους Σωκράτης, Ταλιώτης Κωνσταντίνος, Τάπας Λευτέρης, Τουµάζου Μαρία, Τεµπριώτης Πανίκος, Χαραλαµπίδης Νίκος, Χριστοδουλίδης Σάββας.

Επιμελεια Εκθεσης : Έλενα Πάρπα, Μαρία Στάθη.
Ίδρυµα Ευαγόρα και Καθλήν Λανίτη, Λεµεσός, Κυπρος.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Η Δελφική Ουτοπία



Το «Δελφικό Κέντρο», ήταν ένα όραμα του Σικελιανού για την δημιουργία μιας αυτόνομης κοινότητας στους Δελφούς. Ένα πνευματικό κέντρο το οποίο θα προωθούσε την επαφή των επιστημόνων, των καλλιτεχνών και των πνευματικών ανθρώπων όλων των χωρών. Ένα κέντρο το οποίο θα μπορούσε να κατασκευαστεί μόνο στους Δελφούς, εκεί «στον ιερό χώρο των Αρχαίων Αμφικτιονιών».

Αυτό το όραμα του Σικελιανού, το οποίο ανέλαβε να σχεδιάσει ο Δημήτρης Πικιώνης, δίνοντας του τελικά μια μορφή η οποία παρέπεμπε σε έναν αρχαϊκό ή παραδοσιακό οικισμό, μας μιλάει αφενός για τη σχέση μοντερνισμού και αρχαιότητας και ειδικότερα για το πώς η αρχαιότητα επαναφέρεται συνειδητά στο προσκήνιο την μοντέρνα εποχή. Όπως ανέφερε ο Boissy το 1927 για τις Δελφικές Εορτές:
Το γεγονός τούτο αποτελεί δια την Ελλάδαν μαρτυρία της αναγεννήσεως της ευγενεστέρας αισθητικής.

Έτσι θα μπορούσε το παρελθόν να επανέρθει στην μοντέρνα εποχή ως κάτι το ζωντανό, ως ένα διαχρονικό αισθητικό πρότυπο το οποίο θα εδραίωνε τη συνέχεια ανάμεσα στην παράδοση και την πρωτοπορία. Το «Δελφικό Κέντρο» ως μία πρότυπη κοινότητα του μεσοπολέμου η οποία βαδίζει προς το μέλλον κοιτάζοντας πάντα πίσω της εκφράζει ακριβώς αυτό το όραμα ενός ιδεατού (υπεργήινου) μέλλοντος το οποίο πηγάζει από ένα εξιδανικευμένο μυθικό παρελθόν.

Αυτό το όραμα του Σικελιανού έμεινε όμως στα χαρτιά. Στα πολλά σχετικά κείμενα που έγραψε με πάθος ο ίδιος ο ποιητής, αλλά και στα αρκετά σκίτσα που μας άφησε ο Δημήτρης Πικιώνης, σκίτσα που βρίσκονται πολύ κοντά μας, μέσα σε αυτό εδώ το μουσείο.

Το «Δελφικό Κέντρο», έχει μείνει πλέον στη συνείδησή μας ως μια ουτοπία του ελληνικού μεσοπολεμικού μοντερνισμού. Και ως μια τέτοια ουτοπία θα επιχειρήσω να το δω σήμερα.

ΤΟ ΟΡΑΜΑ

Γνωστοί από τις ανασκαφές της Γαλλικής Σχολής, οι Δελφοί παρουσιάζονται, με τα λόγια του Theophile Homolle, ως ένας τόπος μεγαλείου, μυστηρίου, αποκάλυψης του θείου, παρουσίας των θεών. Κι όλα αυτά σε ενεστώτα χρόνο. Όχι κάτι που ήταν κάποτε, κάτι που υπήρχε στο παρελθόν, αλλά κάτι που είναι, εδώ και τώρα. Η αρχαία πολιτεία μάλιστα αναδύεται μέσα από το έδαφος, αφού πρώτα «καταπιεί» το Καστρί, τον σύγχρονο οικισμό, που δεν φαίνεται να έχει τίποτα το ιερό και το μαγευτικό. Το σημαντικό άρα είναι αυτό που είναι κάτω από το έδαφος, έρχεται από το παρελθόν για να αναβιώσει στο σήμερα.

Κρυμμένοι στην ενδοχώρα, απομονωμένοι από τους γύρω οικισμούς, οι Δελφοί δεσπόζουν πάνω στο βουνό. Με τα λόγια του Σικελιανού:

Ο Παρνασσός πλαισιώνεται πνευματικά απ’ τα Ιμαλάια, και απ’ οποιαδήποτε κορφή του οι μυημένοι αντικρίζουνε ακέριο τον ορίζοντα της Γης.

Όπως τα Ιμαλάια λοιπόν, έτσι και ένα ελληνικό βουνό, ο Παρνασσός υποδέχεται μια πολιτεία ιερή. Αντίστοιχα με τη σύνδεση Παρνασσός-Ιμαλάια γίνεται και η σύνδεση Δελφοί–Δελχί, αναδεικνύοντας έτσι μια πνευματική συγγένεια βασισμένη πάνω σε μια υποτιθέμενη κοινή γλωσσική καταγωγή.

Όπως και να έχει το μεταφυσικό περιεχόμενο είναι αυτό που κυριαρχεί. Ήδη το 1921 ο Σικελιανός γράφει στον Νίκο Καζαντζάκη σχετικά με ένα «κοσμικό μοναστήρι» που σχεδιάζει να οργανώσει, επαναφέροντας την ουτοπία του Campanella στη μοντέρνα εποχή.

Λίγα χρόνια μετά, το 1924, ο Σικελιανός θα εμφανιστεί πάνω στους Δελφούς ντυμένος «με το παχύ ένδυμα αρτίου ψευδοπροφήτου», όπως θα γράψει ο Τάκης Παπατσώνης, για να μιλήσει για το Δελφικό όραμα, για την προσπάθειά του να «μυήσει τον κόσμο σε μία νέα χαώδη θρησκεία».

Ποιά είναι όμως εκείνα τα χαρακτηριστικά που μας κάνουν να μιλάμε για ουτοπία; Σε μια πρώτη προσέγγιση το Δελφικό Κέντρο, όπως κάθε παραδοσιακή ουτοπία έχει μια εμμονή στην οριοθέτηση, την περιχαράκωση, τη διάκριση ανάμεσα στο μέσα και το έξω. Στον Thomas More είναι η μεγάλη τάφρος ανάμεσα στο νησί και την ενδοχώρα. Στο Δελφικό Κέντρο, το τοίχος και η πύλη που σχεδιάζει ο Πικιώνης σε διαφορετικές μορφές, εκφράζουν συμβολικά, άλλοτε εντονότερα και άλλοτε πιο διακριτικά, αυτό το όριο που εξασφαλίζει αυτονομία και αυτάρκεια.

Όπως κάθε σοβαρή ουτοπία, έτσι και το Δελφικό Κέντρο δεν μπορεί παρά να έχει και ένα ορισμένο πολιτικό υπόβαθρο. Ο Σικελιανός θα υιοθετήσει μια ξεκάθαρη ρητορική την οποία συναντάμε εκείνη την εποχή και αλλού στην Ευρώπη. Αντίθετος στον αστισμό και τον καπιταλισμό, / θλιβερά φαινόμενα μιας σημιτικής ιδεολογίας όπως γράφει, θα κηρύξει τους Δελφούς ως κέντρο εναντίον του κάθε είδους υλισμού. Θα ευαγγελιστεί την Αρεία «ηθική και διανοητικότητα» απ’ όπου πηγάζουν αξίες όπως ο αλτρουισμός, η γενναιότητα, η αλληλεγγύη. Θα επιτεθεί στην «αχαμνή σημιτική του Μαρξ θεωρία» και θα προτιμήσει το ηγετικό προφίλ του Λένιν, αλλά και το αναρχικό πνεύμα του Κροπότκιν.

Ωστόσο το Δελφικό Κέντρο δεν θα ακολουθήσει ένα ριζοσπαστικό κοινωνικό μοντέλο, ούτε θα προτείνει ένα νέο, καλύτερο πολιτικό σύστημα. Η αντίδραση στην αστική δημοκρατία και τον υλισμό δεν είναι μια ρήξη προς τα εμπρός, αλλά μία επαναφορά στη σιγουριά του πίσω, στην ολιγαρχία, την αριστοκρατία, ακόμα κι αν μιλάμε για την πνευματική αριστοκρατία των «εκλεκτών». Αυτή η στροφή η οποία υπαγορεύεται από τη νοσταλγία και εμφανίζεται ως πρωτοπορία, είναι κάτι που συναντάμε βέβαια συχνά σε ουτοπίες του μοντερνισμού. Σε αυτήν την περίπτωση το προσδοκώμενο δεν είναι αυτό που δεν έχει έρθει ακόμα, δεν είναι δηλαδή η αναζήτηση άλλων πιθανών εκβάσεων της πολιτικής και της ιστορίας όπως θα ήθελε ο Ernst Bloch, αλλά η αναπόληση αυτού που δεν υπάρχει πια. Όχι το pas encore, αλλά το αντίθετό του, το non plus.

Στον τομέα της οικονομίας και της παραγωγής το Δελφικό Κέντρο είναι εκείνη η περίπτωση όπου η μοντέρνα ουτοπία νοσταλγεί την προβιομηχανική κοινωνία. Βαδίζοντας πάνω σε μια λογική τύπου Morris ο Σικελιανός τονίζει την αξία της κοινοβιακής μη αλλοτριωμένης εργασίας και παρουσιάζει τα δικά του «νέα από το πουθενά». Θέτει ως προϋπόθεση της κατασκευής του ίδιου του Κέντρου την εθελοντική δουλειά των τοπικών μαστόρων, αλλά και «των αστέγων της Δελφικής περιοχής και των άλλων Ελλήνων, προσφύγων και μη». Έτσι «τα έξοδα για την ανέγερση αυτή των κτηρίων του συνοικισμού, της κοινότητας και του Δελφικού Κέντρου θα περιορίζονταν στο ελάχιστο, χάρη στην εθελοντική προσωπική εργασία χιλιάδων Ελλήνων».

Η Δελφική κοινότητα στο μυαλό του Σικελιανού θα μπορούσε επίσης να είναι αυτόνομη, να ζει από την εκμετάλλευση της δικής της γεωργικής και βιοτεχνικής παραγωγής. Σε αυτό το πλαίσιο είναι που εντάσσεται και η τέχνη. Η τέχνη όχι ως έργα για το μουσείο, αλλά ως διακοσμημένα αντικείμενα μιας χρηστικής λειτουργίας. Η τέχνη ως καθημερινή πρακτική, σε ένα αυτοτελές σύνολο, έναν αυτόνομο και αυτάρκη οικισμό, έναν κόσμο σταθερό και πλήρη. Τόσο πλήρη ώστε και η ίδια η τέχνη να μοιάζει περιττή.

Η ΠΡΑΓΜΑΤΙΚΟΤΗΤΑ

Όπως κι αν είχαν τα πράγματα όμως στο όραμα του Σικελιανού ή στα σχέδια του Πικιώνη, η πορεία από τη φαντασία στην πραγματικότητα δεν ήταν εύκολη. Από νωρίς είχε γίνει σε όλους σαφές ότι αυτή η κοινότητα, όσο τέλεια και αν λειτουργούσε, δεν θα μπορούσε να σταθεί στα δικά της πόδια χωρίς εξωτερική βοήθεια. Γι αυτό και ο Σικελιανός εναπόθετε τις περισσότερες ελπίδες του στον τουρισμό. Ο Σικελιανός εμφανίζονταν σίγουρος ότι οι Δελφοί μπορούν να γίνουν ένας προορισμός ιδιαίτερα σημαντικός. Πόσο σημαντικός; Στο μυαλό του Σικελιανού οι Δελφοί, έχοντας μια παγκόσμια εμβέλεια θα μπορέσουν άνετα να ξεπεράσουν σε επισκεψιμότητα το ταπεινό Salzburg. Οι ακτοπλοϊκές γραμμές θα συνέδεαν την Ιτέα με την κεντρική και βόρεια Ευρώπη και από τα δεκάδες υπερωκεάνια θα έφταναν εκατομμύρια τουρίστες. Το μέγεθος των Δελφών δεν μπορούσε να θεωρείται μειονέκτημα. Όπως σε κάθε ουτοπία, η μικρή κοινότητα είχε σημασία αντιστρόφως ανάλογη του μεγέθους της και εμβέλεια που ξεπερνούσε κατά πολύ τα γεωγραφικά της όρια.

Η προσδοκία των εσόδων που θα έφερνε ο τουρισμός ήταν και αυτή που ενθουσίαζε τον τύπο της εποχής. Θα δούνε οι ξένοι, γράφανε οι εφημερίδες, ότι δεν υπάρχουν μόνο οι Δελφοί και τα αρχαία αλλά και η Αράχοβα με το τσαρούχι, τη φλογέρα και το δημοτικό της τραγούδι. Κάπως έτσι είδε το θέμα και η πολιτεία που άρχισε να σκέφτεται ζεστά το ενδεχόμενο κατασκευής ενός μεγάλου ξενοδοχείου, ένα ενδεχόμενο που έμοιαζε να προχωράει κάποια στιγμή. Ο υπουργός συμφώνησε, ο οργανισμός τουρισμού το ενέκρινε, το οικόπεδο βρέθηκε και απαλλοτριώθηκε. Τότε όμως εμφανίστηκε ένα πρακτικό πρόβλημα. Το νερό της Κασταλίας πηγής δεν έφτανε για να καλύψει μεγάλες ξενοδοχειακές εγκαταστάσεις και η σκέψη για μεταφορά νερού απαιτούσε τεχνικά και οικονομικά μέσα τα οποία η πολιτεία δεν ήταν διατεθειμένη να δώσει. Ο τύπος δεν έκρυβε τις ανησυχίες του: λόγω της έλλειψης νερού, η Δελφική Ιδέα κινδύνευε να γίνει Ουτοπία.

Οι ανησυχίες επαληθεύτηκαν όταν η έλλειψη ενός τέτοιου ξενοδοχείου υποδοχής εμφανίστηκε με δραματικό τρόπο στις δεύτερες Δελφικές Εορτές. Τότε ήταν που κατά τη διάρκεια των παραστάσεων, μια βροχή έφτασε για να προκαλέσει το χάος και να κάνει το όνειρο εφιάλτη. Οι δρόμοι έκλεισαν, ο χώρος γέμισε λάσπη, τα πρόχειρα καταλύματα έμπαζαν από παντού. Καλοντυμένοι κύριοι έβριζαν και κυρίες με σπασμένα τακούνια μετάνιωναν για τον ερχομό τους στους Δελφούς. Όπως έγραψαν και οι εφημερίδες οι επισκέπτες:

Μεταννούσαν δια των ερχομό των εις τους Δελφούς ως εάν να είχαν κάμη την μεγαλειτέραν τρέλλαν της ζωής τους!

Ο Βενιζέλος πάλι ασχολούνταν με πιο επείγοντα προβλήματα. Ο αντιακριδικός αγώνας του φαινόταν σημαντικότερος. Προκειμένου να εξοντωθούν οι ακρίδες προτιμότερο θα ήταν να σταματήσουν οι Δελφικές Εορτές. Η επίσημη πολιτεία έμοιαζε να έχει άλλες προτεραιότητες. Το Δελφικό Κέντρο φλέρταρε πλέον επικίνδυνα με την Ουτοπία.

Όσο η Ελλάδα φαινόταν απρόθυμη και δυσκίνητη στην πορεία υλοποίησης του Δελφικού Κέντρου, τόσο ο Σικελιανός προσπαθούσε να κάνει το όραμά του μια διεθνή υπόθεση. Το 1928, σε μία ελληνογαλλική συνάντηση στο Παρίσι, ο Σικελιανός προτείνει, μια συμβολική κίνηση. Τη μεταφορά του ιερού πυρός από τον τάφο του άγνωστου στρατιώτη στο Παρίσι, στον ναό του Απόλλωνα στους Δελφούς. Οι συνδαιτυμόνες, ανάμεσα στους οποίους προσωπικότητες όπως ο Gabriel Boissy, ο Mario Mennier κ.α. ενθουσιάζονται στην ιδέα. Αυτοί που αντιδρούν όμως είναι ιταλοί δημοσιογράφοι οι οποίοι την θεώρησαν μια «γαλλική πνευματική προπαγάνδα», ένα ελληνογαλλικό μέτωπο ενάντια στην πρόσφατη ελληνοϊταλική συμμαχία.

Πιθανά εκείνη την περίοδο που βρίσκεται στο Παρίσι, το 1928, ο Σικελιανός είναι που έχει και την ιδέα για μια διεθνή έκθεση μοντέρνας τέχνης στους Δελφούς με έργα των Picasso, Braque, Derain, Léger κ.α. καθώς και η πρόσκληση στον Le Corbusier να έρθει να την διοργανώσει. Παράλληλα ο Σικελιανός συνεχίζει τις επαφές του με τους Γάλλους διανοούμενους ελπίζοντας σε ένα ακόμα οργανωμένο ταξίδι στους Δελφούς, χωρίς όμως να έχει το επιθυμητό αποτέλεσμα. Από την άλλη, ούτε η Εύα Πάλμερ καταφέρνει να βρει οικονομική υποστήριξη για το Δελφικό Κέντρο στην Αμερική. Αν και απευθύνεται σε πολλούς – από παλιούς γνωστούς μέχρι και το ίδρυμα Rockefeller - όλοι ακούν με ενδιαφέρον το σχέδιο για το Δελφικό Κέντρο κανένας όμως δεν έχει τη διάθεση να το ενισχύσει οικονομικά. Η Ουτοπία έρχεται ένα βήμα πιο κοντά.

Η ΟΥΤΟΠΙΑ ΠΟΥ ΕΓΙΝΕ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΑ

Στην εποχή του Μεσοπολέμου, το Δελφικό Κέντρο αποτέλεσε μία μοναδική περίπτωση για την Ελλάδα, ένα φιλόδοξο όραμα χωρίς προηγούμενο. Η Δελφική Ουτοπία εμφανίστηκε ως μία πρόταση για ένα νέο, μοντέρνο, πνευματικό κέντρο το οποίο θα αναβίωνε τις αισθητικές αρχές και αξίες του παρελθόντος.

Η Ελλάδα του 1920 και του 1930 όμως, δεν έβλεπε την αναβίωση της αρχαιότητας με την ιδιαίτερη ματιά του Σικελιανού ή του Πικιώνη, αλλά μόνο ως ευκαιρία οικονομικής ανάπτυξης μιας μικρής αποδυναμωμένης περιοχής μέσω του τουρισμού. Οι περισσότεροι πολιτικοί μπορεί να έμοιαζαν ενθουσιασμένοι με το Δελφικό όραμα, αλλά πίσω από αυτό έβλεπαν μάλλον τα χρήματα που θα εισέρχονταν στα ταμεία ή τους ψήφους από την τοπική κοινωνία. Μια κοινωνία η οποία σαν όραμα για το δικό της μέλλον πιθανά δεν είχε τις εικόνες με τις χλαμύδες και τα δόρατα των δελφικών εορτών, αλλά τις διαφημίσεις από τις ηλεκτρικές κουζίνες και τα ψυγεία που έβρισκε λίγο πιο δίπλα, στις ίδιες σελίδες των εφημερίδων της εποχής.

Εκεί ακριβώς είναι που εισάγεται στην όλη ιστορία μία αντίφαση. Ποιά; Μα ακριβώς το γεγονός ότι για να λειτουργήσει ο «αρχαϊκός κόσμος» του Δελφικού Κέντρου θα έπρεπε να υποστηριχθεί από πλήθος μοντέρνα έργα, δίκτυα και κατασκευές. Δρόμους, αυτοκίνητα, καράβια, λιμάνια, επικοινωνίες. Αυτό που θα επέτρεπε στο παρελθόν να αναβιώσει θα ήταν με άλλα λόγια η μοντέρνα εποχή. Για να υλοποιηθεί η Δελφική Ουτοπία και να γίνει πραγματικότητα, το Δελφικό Κέντρο θα έπρεπε να πάψει να είναι ουτοπία και να γίνει ιστορία.

Αν όμως υπάρχει κάτι που δεν μπορεί να γίνει η ουτοπία αυτό είναι ιστορία. Τουλάχιστον η μοντέρνα ουτοπία η οποία εμφανίζεται ως κατεξοχήν αντι-ιστορική, ως ένας κόσμος ο οποίος είναι έξω από την ιστορία. Έτσι και το Δελφικό Κέντρο, ως μοντέρνα ουτοπία, αναφέρεται σε μια ονειρική συνθήκη, σε μία ιδανική εποχή όπου στην πολιτική δεν υπάρχει η σύγκρουση και στην κοινωνία δεν υπάρχει ο μόχθος. Σε μια εποχή δηλαδή όπου, θα έχει πλέον επέλθει το τέλος της ιστορίας.

Στην αρχετυπική ουτοπία του More, ο Ούτοπος ιδρύει και φτιάχνει μια πολιτεία εκ του μηδενός, χωρίς καμιά αναφορά σε καταγωγή, προγόνους και παρελθόν. Στην περίπτωση του Δελφικού Κέντρου έχουμε το ακριβώς αντίθετο. Μια ουτοπία η οποία φτιάχνεται ακριβώς πάνω σε αυτό που ήδη υπάρχει ή μάλλον από αυτό που ήδη υπάρχει, από αποσπάσματα και μέρη του πραγματικού και συμβολικού του σώματος. Μήπως λοιπόν, θα έπρεπε να είμαστε πιο προσεκτικοί όταν χαρακτηρίζουμε το Δελφικό Κέντρο ως Ουτοπία; Ίσως. Η αλήθεια είναι ότι αυτήν τη λέξη ο Σικελιανός και ο Πικιώνης δεν την χρησιμοποίησαν ποτέ.

Κωστας Τσιαμπαος

Εισηγηση απο το συνεδριο "Παρίσι - Αθήνα 1919-1939. Το διπλό ταξίδι" με θέμα τις καλλιτεχνικές και πνευματικές σχέσεις Ελλάδας-Γαλλίας μεταξύ 1919-1939. Μουσειο Μπενακη, 20 Ιανουαρίου.
Source:kostastsiambaos.blogspot.com/

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Honduras shrugged

Two start-ups want to try out libertarian ideas in the country’s new special development regions

DISGUSTED by an increasingly invasive state, America’s most capable entrepreneurs retreat to Galt’s Gulch, a libertarian commune. That was the theme of Ayn Rand’s magnum opus, “Atlas Shrugged”, a sacred text for libertarians ever since it was published in 1957. Actually creating such an enclave has been the dream of many fans of small government (or of none at all). Several have had a try at it, but their efforts have always ended in disaster .

Now, for the first time, libertarians have a real chance to implement their ideas. In addition to a big special development region, the Honduran government intends to approve two smaller zones. And two libertarian-leaning start-ups have already signed a preliminary memorandum of understanding with the Honduran government to develop them.

One firm goes by the name of Future Cities Development Corporation. It was co-founded by Patri Friedman, a grandson of Milton Friedman, a Nobel laureate in economics, and until recently executive director of the Seasteading Institute, a group producing research on how to build ocean-based communes. The other is called Grupo Ciudades Libres (Free Cities Group) and is the brainchild of Michael Strong and Kevin Lyons, two entrepreneurs and libertarian activists.

Both share a purpose: to build “free cities”. Last April all three spoke at a conference organised by Universidad Francisco Marroquín, a libertarian outfit in Guatemala. In September they and Giancarlo Ibárgüen, the university’s president, launched the Free Cities Institute, a think-tank, to foster the cause.

As so often with enthusiasts, divisions within the cause run deep. The two firms hail from different parts of the libertarian spectrum. Mr Friedman is an outspoken critic of democracy. It is “ill-suited for a libertarian state”, he wrote in an essay in 2009—because it is “rigged against libertarians” (they would always lose) and inefficient. Rather than giving its citizens a voice, he argues, they should be free to exit; cities should compete for them by offering the best services.

The second firm’s backers appear to be less radical. A founder of several charter schools, Mr Strong is now the force behind FLOW, a movement that claims to combine libertarian thinking “with love, compassion, social and environmental consciousness”, says its website. He too prefers exit over voice (meaning that he thinks that leaving and joining are better constraints on executive power than the ballot box). But he also believes that democratic consent is needed in certain areas, such as criminal justice. His goal in Honduras is less to implement libertarian ideals than to reduce poverty and to speed up economic development.

Some in the Honduran government have libertarian leanings, which is one reason why the authorities have moved so quickly. But when the master developers for the new zones are selected next year, strong political credentials will not be enough—and may even prove to be a drawback. Mr Friedman is stressing a difference between his political beliefs and his firm. “Ideology makes bad business,” he says, adding that Future Cities Development wants to focus on the needs of the people who live in the city.

Yet the biggest hurdle for the libertarian start-ups may be that the transparency commission, which will oversee the development regions, is unlikely to give them free rein. The “constitutional statute” for the development zones, which the Honduran national congress passed in August, does not leave much wiggle room in key areas, not least when it comes to democracy: ultimately their citizens will vote.

Both firms, however, have links to prominent libertarians with deep pockets. Mr Strong is close to John Mackey, the co-founder and chief executive of Whole Foods, a high-end supermarket chain—though Mr Strong says that Mr Mackey already has too many other things on his plate. Mr Friedman’s contacts seem more promising: the Seasteading Institute received lots of cash from Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley billionaire who founded the internet payment service PayPal and was an early investor in Facebook, the world’s biggest social network.

Mr Thiel’s ambitions go far beyond scouting out the next big thing in technology. “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible,” he wrote in an essay in 2009. This is why libertarians should find an escape from politics, he added. “Because there are no truly free places left in our world, I suspect that the mode of escape must involve some sort of new and hitherto untried process that leads us to some undiscovered country.” Back then he had the ocean or space in mind. Honduras would certainly be more convenient.

Source : economist.com, 10 Dec, 2011

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

En svensk utopist

Nils Herman Quiding wrote a "rational" vision of a Swedish utopia based on the principle of equality and solidarity which in turn would constitute the basis of a society of prosperity. Here is a presentation of his oeuvre by Gustaf Henriksson. En svensk "utopist" : Nils Herman Quiding ("Nils Nilsson, arbetskarl") i belysning af hans egna skrifter bearbetade och i sammandrag populärt framstälda Holmberg, Gustaf Henriksson (författare) Björck & Börjesson och Tiden (Två utgåvor samma år med olika omslag men samma inlaga), 235 s.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

The Last Word

Daniel BellDaniel Bell reflects on Friends, Foes, Influences, Ideologies, the State of the Novel, the State of the Union, and the Old Neighborhood.
This interview was conducted on September 21, 2010, a few months before Daniel Bell’s death, at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.



I. Adversaries

Who was your adversary when you were writing The End of Ideology and The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism?

I’m not sure there’s a single person. It was more against a whole current of writers, against whole ideological ways of thinking.

It goes very far back, to a crucial personal episode which defined my life when I was in City College. I had joined the Young People’s Socialist League at the age of 13. It’s crazy, but there it is. And I did so for very basic reasons: my father died when I was an infant; my mother raised me; she worked in a factory. There were two seasons in the year — busy and slack. When it was slack, my mother would be home to take care of me. In the busy season, I was in an orphanage. The orphanage was supported by the Jewish community. There were these personal ties that were important.

I grew up on the Lower East Side, which juts out into the river. Before the highways came, there were these long piers. They still remain on the West Side, these long piers. And they had these so-called “Hoovervilles” on the piers, which were tin shacks, and people living there. Everything was in the open. You could see people fornicating, fighting, everything. There were big garbage scowls which turned up, and we’d jump on the top of these to see if there were bits of food. At 11 o’clock at night we’d go to the West Side markets and we’d break open crates, and run away.

Everything was marked out by turf and ethnicity. The Italians were here, the Ukrainian kids were there, the Polish kids were there, the Jewish kids here. And there was “turf.” Before E.O. Wilson, it was about “turf.” We really believed in biological determinism, with every group having its place. There’d be fights. And — this was particularly true of the Polish kids — they’d take potatoes, and put in the potatoes these double-edged razor blades, and throw them at you. A hail of potatoes with razor blades being thrown at you! What you’d do then is you took the top of the garbage cans, and those were our shields. And then our brave socialist women would go on top of the building and throw down hot water to get the kids scattered. And that was life, life on the Lower East Side.

People talk about “rent checks” and such now. About how poor people are because they don’t have enough to get their rent check. In those days, you didn’t have anything like a rent check! We lived in backyard tenements.

So I looked around, and I said to myself: what’s going on here? Twenty percent of the country was unemployed. At that time, there was no social security, there was no government aid of any kind. No unemployment insurance, no old age pensions, nothing. As a kid of thirteen, I figured capitalism was doomed. And so, through a couple of friends, we all became socialists.

Like a number of my young comrades, we in the Young People’s Socialist League were moving towards the Trotskyists. But I had some anarchist cousins who lived in the Mohegan colony which was near Peekskill, and there was a man named Rudolf Rocker, an anarchist. Even though he was gentile, he learned Yiddish. He was the editor of a magazine called the Freie Arbeiter Stimme, the Free Voice of Labor, and my cousin took me to see him. Rocker said to me: “Look, whatever you do, don’t join the Trotskyists.” I said: “Why?” He gave me a book by Alexander Berkman, called The Bolshevik Myth.

Berkman had been deported during the Palmer raids, during World War I. Anarchists went to Russia eagerly because, as they saw it, the anarchists had made the revolution. This wasn’t completely true, but at that time the country was still being led by the Soviets, or workers’ councils. And this is what the anarchists had always wanted: spontaneous movements by workers and peasants. So they went with great expectations.

But by 1921 sailors at Kronstadt were saying: “Look, you promised us free elections. What’s going on here?” And Trotsky said: “This is mutiny.” And that’s that. The sailors said: “We’re the ones who made the revolution in Kronstadt.” And he said: “Stop. I’ll shoot you down.” And Berkman tells this story, day by day.

He was in Kronstadt. He wrote about how he heard shouting, how he heard shots firing. “Trotsky has shot down the Kronstadt sailors! Thousands of bodies, thousands lie in the streets.” The very next day, Trotsky gave a lecture celebrating the Paris Commune. So I could never become a Trotskyist.

And yet I find myself being labeled at the end of my life as an “ex-Trotskyist.” But I was never an ex-Trotskyist — because I was never a Trotskyist!


But when you talked to Irving Howe, or people who were Trotskyites, were you unable to convince them?

We debated. We debated!

There was a group called the Shachtmanites, in City College. It was underground. The Shermanites were a group of radicals besides Irving Howe: [they] included Philip Selznick, the Berkeley academic who died just recently; there was also Irving Kristol. Marty Lipset was there — he took the name Mark Eden. And there was Marty Diamond. He was an extraordinary man who died young, who became a leading Straussian, probably the leading Straussian in American thought. And there was a man named Peter Rossi, and he took a Jewish name, Rosenthal.

There were these debates. I had read a book before the others had, by Robert Michels, called Political Parties. Michels had been a student of Weber and he wrote a famous book which Lipset used in his book on Union Democracy, about the bureaucratic tendency in every organization. That no organization is immune to the bureaucratic tendency. And it targeted the Social Democratic leadership. The Iron Law of Oligarchy. So I would debate Irving Howe, I would say — we would adopt this tone — “And you think, Comrade Sherman, that James P. Cannon is immune to the Iron Law of Oligarchy?” These were my rhetorical smashes against Howe.

Howe was a Commissar at that time. A real Commissar. His real name was Horenstein. My name was Belotsky, originally. And Howe took as his Party name Hugh Ivan. Hugh for the gentleman that he wanted to be … and Ivan for the Muzhik that he was. (Laughs.) Then when he married Arien Mack, he became humanized. Unfortunately, he was later cuckholded and that almost destroyed him.


II. A Liberal Utopian

Are you a utopian?

In a way, I consider myself a utopian. There’s a book I’ve started to write — I’m not sure I’m ever going to finish it — about the historical tension between messianism and utopianism. And it is an attack on messianism. Because I would argue that too many problems of the last two thousand years or so are due to messianism. A messiah has a great vision, usually of redemption. Messianism requires following a leader. It requires pulling everybody into the scheme of a leader. Whereas utopianism basically consists in co-opting people to build things together. There is no overall, overarching scheme.

But the historical difficulty of utopianism is precisely that it doesn’t have a messiah, or a similarly overarching, emotionally powerful actor. So that the tension between utopianism and messianism is frequently to the unfair advantage of the messianic. I believe more and more that if we can have utopian movements we’ll do better than if we have messianic movements.

Is there a place for utopianism in a liberal society?

I think utopianism is a necessary framework. People want some ideals. And that’s why in the book I’m planning the only antagonist to utopianism is messianism. Take the example of what I suspect would be one of the worst examples of messianism — the Jonestown episode, where 700 people simply drank a drug that killed them, at the command of Mr. Jones. The point about messianism is that it always leads to a system of command: you have to follow the messiah. Utopianism has no such system of command. It has only a cooperative imperative: to build.

The problem with utopianism, historically, is that it has a tinge of going back to some presumed ideal. There’s a source of utopianism which is somewhat beautiful in its way, but pulls it back — back to arcadia. Historically, the tension has been between utopianism and arcadia. What I want to do is to say: I don’t want to go from arcadia against messianism. I’d rather have utopianism. So there’s a triangulation there.

But the nineteenth-century utopians — men like Fourier — were not backward-oriented utopians. Were they somehow different?

It depends. Fourier was a madman. A real madman. A brilliant genius of a madman.

The best utopian was Saint-Simon. He had these schemes, these triangular schemes. You know how they Saint-Simonians would get dressed? They dressed with the buttons on the back of their suits. That way, you couldn’t dress yourself. You needed someone to help you. So that’s a wonderful situation, where you are creating communities because you can’t get dressed without them.

What did you take from the Saint-Simonians?

Theories of development. If you look at the theories of development, there are two streams which have never been worked out completely. One is the idea of capitalism, which comes from Marx. The other is industrialism.

The whole stream of “industrial society” begins with Saint-Simon, and from there you have Auguste Comte; then you have the positivism which develops from that, and then in modern times you have Raymond Aron, and finally someone like myself, following from Aron. Instead of capitalism, which in its own way is based upon notions of exploitation, and industrialism, which is based on the idea of technology, one can think of the development of society; of a positive scheme. It is only in the last 50 years or so that the theme of “industrialism” has come forward, and it is largely through the efforts of Aron.



I’m curious to hear you say this, because I don’t see you fitting in with this French line. There’s a deep Weberian pessimism in your work, and a sense of history that seems to owe more to Vico than to these enthusiastic Frenchmen.

That’s completely true. I think you are right that Weber is the lynchpin of my ideas. But no ideas are ever simply lineal. You always have a variety of influences. In a way, the other sort of pole is Durkheim, because Durkheim at bottom had a religious foundation.

III Literature and Politics

We haven’t talked about literature.

Well, I haven’t really kept up with contemporary novels.

But there’s a bunch in your office upstairs.

No one writes today about the larger element of society. Not Paul Auster, not any of the others. Everything is a falling away from the whole emphasis of social realism. But this is a pulling away.

Take this new book of Franzen’s. At the most it is about the family, and the hidden tensions within a family.

It is interesting that with the collapse of the psychological movement you get more emphasis on psychology. But no one talks about society anymore. Instead they talk about human rights. Because human rights then covers everything. The problem with human rights is that it doesn’t have boundaries.

Isn’t that Hannah Arendt’s criticism?

Hannah is a more complicated element. I knew her very well, particularly during the year I spent at Chicago. But I would say that Hannah’s book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, was wrong. Very few societies have ever been totalitarian, at least for long. You can’t simply smash everything. There’s always something left. No society can ever live that way.

The one thing the theory of totalitarianism never confronted is the family. People live by the family, and there’s no mention of families in The Origins of Totalitarianism. So that the idea that you smash a society… — but she changed her mind, interestingly enough, during the Hungarian Revolution. If you look at the introduction to the reissue of the book, you’ll see she changed her mind.


You speak very affectionately about communities and families, in particular of the ones you grew up in. Were you ever attracted to the communitarians?

Well, not in the way communitarians have developed. When I think of communitarianism, I think of two people. I think of Amitai Etzioni and Michael Sandel. As I used to say to Michael: “The trouble with your view is that I’m a Jew. And your communitarianism never mentions the right of Jews to be Jews.”

We’re a community, and yet the communitarian movement exists with respect to a national polity. And by existing in relation to a national polity, it tends to put aside the particularity of real communities, like the Jewish community. So communitarianism to me has always seemed an abstract option. And to the extent that it is a doctrine, it is related to a national polity, so that… — to some extent this reflects my anarchist background, that I want to diminish the national polity. Abolish it as a polity, not as an economy. I’ve written, as you probably know, that I’m a socialist in economics, a liberal in politics, and a conservative in culture.

And you’ve never had any trouble reconciling those?

Not in the least! I’m against the idea of totality, which is a whole Marxist concept. I believe there are different logics in the different realms. The economy is, more or less, a system in which interdependence is established through the different variables of supply and demand. The polity is not a system, it is an order, held together by coercion and consent. Culture has two dimensions. One is the dimension of forms that exist, and the other is the dimension of meanings.

Two things broke me away from Marxism. One is the fact that if you look at the great historic religions, going back to what Jaspers called the Axial Age, the cores are still recognizable today — Judaism, Christianity, Confucianism. Economies have disappeared, political empires have crumbled, yet the greatest religions remain. The question is: how can this be, if the mode of production determines the superstructure? How come they remain? So to me, the very nature of these great historic religions is a repudiation of Marxism.

The second is the idea of substructure and superstructure — the idea that the substructure determines the superstructure. Well, that’s silly. Look at Germany from the eighteenth century to the present. You have a Wilhelmine Empire, a Federal Republic, you have a Nazi period, you have the new Federal Republic — yet the substructure is basically still capitalist. Now how can that be? How, on a Marxist view, can you have a single substructure and yet such a variety of superstructures?


Ok, so the realms may be autonomous. But do you not think they are intimately related? In Cultural Contradictions, you write of how America’s crumbling cultural values threaten the economic realm.

Let me go back for a minute because this is crucial. If there’s no single dimension that runs across these different realms, then what is so special about them? I’m a socialist in economics because I believe that every human being has a right — if you want to put it that way — to a decent living standard. It goes back to Aristotle. If a man is not a member of the polity, he is either a beast or a God. So that there ought to be a “right” to give everybody a decent standard of living. Being a member of the society gives rise to a claim on the economy.

I’m a liberal in politics because I believe in merit. And I therefore believe that one’s position in society ought to be determined on the basis of merit.

In culture, I’m a conservative because I believe in judgment, forms, and meanings.

So that’s why I can assume a certain logical coherence to the idea of being a socialist in economics, a liberal in politics, and a conservative in culture.


But in Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism you precisely describe a contradiction between an economy that requires people to work and to save, and a cultural ethic that tells people to enjoy leisure, and to consume.

Well, here there is a contradiction between production and consumption. Go back to the original theories of Weber. Capitalism requires delayed gratification, savings, not going into debt, saving up for tomorrow. Whereas a modern society is a consumer society.

The beginning of the story of capitalism in the last century is a story of the 1920s. It was invented by a man named Paul Mazer. It is called the installment plan. Instead of saving up for it, you can get it now and pay later. This is an invitation to expand the market.

So there are always these little contradictions. Nothing is ever seamless. That’s one of the problems with the Catholic Church — it believes everything is seamless.


Do you think that in some ways the present financial crisis has vindicated your theory? Public and private debt in the United States are now three times GDP …

The financial crisis violates the most fundamental theorem of Weber: the only time that you go into debt is if you buy land in order to buy a house. But you can’t go into debt for other things. So that this tension of savings versus debt has always been there.

In this country, for the last 10-15 years or more, there’s been almost no savings. You go into debt. The debt was leveraged, because the notion was that house prices would always go up. One of the problems with the foreclosure thing today is that no one knows how many people speculated and flipped. If 10 per cent of people bought a house on speculation, with the idea of flipping it, they are stuck. And that’s a typical thing, if you try to deal with the issue of foreclosures: these people were buying just to flip it. So why the hell should you save them? No one had the courage to say: “Let’s see how many people bought extra houses to flip them.”

But the real question is: how can people, very smart people at Goldman Sachs and others, go on with the idea that you can leverage a whole society? They are living by leverage, and not realizing that there is a simple law in statistics: that we have a growth pattern that is an S curve. It goes up, and then you reach a midpoint, when it begins to come down. All these people are mathematical. So they’d have to say: “Hey, how can this thing keep going up?”

The answer, I suspect, is that enough people behind the scenes are saying: “That’s how I’ll make my money, at their expense. I’ll get out in time!” But they themselves then got trapped.

I have a former father-in-law, through a previous marriage, who wanted me to come into the family business. His name is Benjamin Graham. Benjamin Graham, you probably know, was the founder of value analysis. He said: “I have a bright young man here, named Warren Buffett. I’ll pair you with Warren Buffett!” And I said, Ben, the problem is, I have no stomach for the “timing,” and that’s crucial in this business. Well, anyhow, I worked for Ben, and I made some money with it. I do understand the markets.


IV. Past and Future

You used to serve on the Commission on the Year 2000. Some of that work came through in The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, which was really futurology: looking forward and trying to predict where society will be in 20 or 30 years.

There’s a misunderstanding to some extent, which is probably my fault. The Commission on the Year 2000, when I was involved in organizing it, was never really interested in the future. There is something called the Encyclopedia of the Future, which came out of a group in Washington, for which I wrote a long essay, attacking the idea of the future.


You mean attacking futurology?

Attacking futurology, yes, and in particular attacking Alvin Toffler, and what I called “future shlock.” (Laughs.)

There are two problems with futurology. One is that no one can do prediction. Why? Because predictions are point events, and you never know the internal dynamics. I think of my erstwhile colleague Zbigniew Brzezinski, with whom I taught at Columbia. During a debate on television he was asked: “Professor Brzezinski, are you a Kremlinologist?” And he said: “Well, if you like, though it is an ugly word.” “So you are someone who studies the Soviet Union? If so, Professor Brzezinski, how come you failed to predict the ouster of Khrushchev?” And Zbig said: “Tell me: if Khrushchev couldn’t predict his own ouster, how do you expect me to do it?!”

So you can’t predict. What you can do is deal with structural change. If you move from an agricultural to an industrial economy then there are obvious changes you have to make in the educational system, and various other places. That’s why I make a distinction between prediction and forecasting.

The other problem is that we weren’t interested in the future, per se. We were interested in the fact that once you make a decision it becomes binding and lays out the lines for the next time period. If you build a city, and build it on a grid pattern, then it becomes a constraint on how you build in the future. Whether you build in a circular pattern or a grid pattern affects the lives of people in the future. So we’re not only interested in forecasting the future, but in saying: let’s pay attention to how we make decisions now, because they are going to affect our legacy in the future.


What do you make of the confrontation between rival forms of capitalism, between state—directed capitalism in China, and whatever it is we have in the West?

Well, the story of the West begins in 1453.


The fall of Constantinople?

Yes, the fall of Constantinople. Good for you. (Laughter.)

What the fall of Constantinople meant was a shift to the Atlantic littoral. Holland, England, Spain, and Portugal became the main actors.

Now, there are certain kinds of large-scale, cyclical elements. In the nineteenth century, to the extent that there is any single indicator, and it is a difficult one, it would be steel. England based its industrial revolution on steel, and on the availability of coal. Eventually the United States overtook Britain on steel, and we became dominant. And then Japan, and Korea, who were able to undercut us on price. The only way you can avoid that, the way the Italians avoided some of it, is to move to specialized and niche production, as opposed to mass production. The Italians lost out on textiles, but then they began to specialize in a niche market, as did Benetton and others.

When the Russians managed to increase their productivity it was for the same reason the Chinese are now increasing their productivity: the movement of people off the land and into cities. The urbanization process. The Chinese have these huge internal migrant populations. Now, of course, the Chinese are beginning to get worried about countries like Vietnam undercutting them in turn.

So these large-scale shifts are taking place, and we’ve lost out almost completely. What we have to do is either go into niche production, or find new areas. I think in the next 20-30 years, maybe longer, space will be a major area, undersea resources, biology, some elements of basic research.

I think the U.S. is in a difficult position. The recent recession is a blip. It is a consequence of overleveraging, speculation and so on — but it doesn’t really have anything to do with the fundamental structural problems confronting this society.



The recession was a blip?

It might not have been a blip. The financial system is responsible for shifting money into resources. It overdid that, and failed. The question is whether you can really recreate a viable financial system. But all of that is secondary.

The real issue for leadership is that very few people pay attention to fundamental structural changes. We can identify fundamental structural changes, and that is the only defense we have against cyclical changes.

But in this country now, unfortunately, nobody really looks at trying to find out what the historic precedents and trends might tell us. There is no sense of history in these matters.

Daniel Bell was a sociologist and Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. He served as managing editor of The New Leader (1941–1945), labor editor of Fortune (1948–1958) and later co-editor (with Irving Kristol) of The Public Interest (1965–1973). Among his best-known books are The End of Ideology (1960), The Coming of a Post-Industrial Society (1973), and The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976). His book, The Reforming of General Education: The Columbia Experience in Its National Setting, has recently been republished by Transaction with a new introduction.
Roberto Foa is a PhD Candidate at Harvard University.
Thomas Meaney is an editor of The Utopian

Source: www.the-utopian.org, February 10th, 2011.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Giraffe and Anti-Giraffe: Charles Fourier’s Artistic Thinking

1. After the War

The writings of Charles Fourier (1772–1837) are a glorious fuck you to all that exists. Yet they are neither punk’s provocation nor the apodictic objectivity of Marxian dialectics, but an enculage of civilization through the filigree work of total world reinvention.

Marx complained that Fourier’s utopia was all in his mind, that he was obliged to construct a new society “with elements supplied by his brain” because capitalist production was underdeveloped when he wrote.1 But it is perhaps this appeal to reason rather than history that makes Fourier’s imagination so radical. Even today, it has not been bought and sold: there is still nothing that surpasses Fourier’s projected state of absolute Harmony.

For André Breton, who claimed Fourier for Surrealism in his poem Ode á Charles Fourier (1947), only minds as febrile and immoral as Fourier’s could possess the “extreme freshness” necessary to re-imagine the world in the aftermath of destruction: “Fourier they’ve scoffed but one day they’ll have to try your remedy whether they like it or not …”2 Breton was the first to consult Fourier after World War II, echoing the time when Fourier himself was writing in the early nineteenth century, in a Europe that had similarly collapsed in wars. There was not much available in his historical present that one could appeal to.


Laurent Pelletier, The dreamt Phalanstère of Charles Fourier, 1868. Watercolor on paper.

According to Fourier, the world is cosmically out of whack. He blamed the arrogance of the philosophers and the charlatanism of priests for having systematically repressed the passions, leaving humankind stuck in an incoherent civilized state for 2300 years. Faced with this universal misery, Fourier heralds the triumphant reign of a Harmonian cosmic order based in his science of Passional Attraction—the primordial, ubiquitous force that connects the whole in social series.3 According to this order, government must be based on a consultation of the passions since they essentially characterize the human being and its community. Conversely, a repression of the passions will result in hypocritical social institutions like marriage and the nuclear family, from which Fourier argued that women must be freed—and in fact, Fourier took the proto-feminist view that the measure of happiness was the degree of independence of women in society.

In Harmony, communal living will be the order of the day and will be organized in micro-societies called Phalansteries, founded on collective sensuousness and industry. According to Fourier’s group theory, each Phalanstery would be populated by 1620 people—one male and one female for each of the 810 temperaments Fourier recognized. This combination would enable infinite social, aesthetic, and sexual encounters, through which humankind would regain its equilibrium. It is “schlaraffisch eingerichtet” (Benjamin; “furnished like an El Dorado”), and even pleasures—hunting, fishing, gardening, playing music and theatre, staging operas—are to be rewarded. The children organize themselves in Little Hordes where they raise each other and contribute to the everyday life of the Phalanstery. The social series of temperaments, generations, and divisions of labor describe subgroups and passionate inclinations that work in complex ways across the collectivity, resulting in a communal euphoria, a constant social high. In Fourier’s famous phrase, “the passions are proportional to the destinies.” Forget about genital love: society is erogenous, and Fourier’s scorn for the doubt of the Cartesian subject is endless.4


The Familiestère Godin was constructed between 1856-1859, by the industrial entrepreneur, Jean-Baptiste-André Godin inspired by the ideas of Fourier and Saint-Simon. As a social experiment, work facilities were linked to a communal settlement, equipped with all the necessary amenities: residential buildings, a pool, cooperative stores, a garden, a nursery, schools and a theatre (the temple of the Familistère community). This experiment lasted in cooperative form until 1968.

Harmony will bring about vast improvements, genetically and socially. In keeping with the redemption of its Harmonian birthright, humankind will mutate and over nine generations will reach an average height of seven feet and a life expectancy of 144 years. There will be plenitude on all levels. The Earth’s original five moons will be restored and its polar tilt corrected, and the oceans will have lemonade flavoring as the poles become ice-free by 1828. Constantinople is set to be the world capital and planet Earth will be crowned by a permanent aurora borealis. Fourier, a theoretical hedonist if there ever was one, also develops an entire gastrosophie that involves the gratification of all of our 810 senses (again 810!), trumping the common understanding that there are only five. Likewise, food is a cosmic vision, a “psychedelic gastronomy!” as the editor of the first Danish translation exults.5

If all this sounds far out, then consider Fourier’s margin of error: all his calculi, he writes in Theory of the Four Movements (1808), are subject to the exception of a fraction of an eighth or a ninth:

This is always to be understood, even when I do no mention it. For instance, if I say as a general thesis, civilised man is very miserable, this means that seven-eights, or eight-ninths of them are reduced to a state of misery and privation, and that only one-eighth escapes the general misfortune and enjoys a lot that can be envied.6

This margin of error can perhaps also be applied to Fourier’s own brand of radical Enlightenment thinking: if he argues in favor of the emancipation of slaves and women, his anti-Semitism, his prejudiced view of the Chinese, and his hatred of the English show the darker sides of his thinking.

Fourier cannot be taken seriously. This is exactly the power of his text against any esprit de sérieux. With his blatant inventions and inconsistencies, his writings are ridiculous, too much. Roland Barthes called Fourier’s science “overmuch,” and considered his work as a kind of literary practice. “Never was a discourse happier,” wrote Barthes, for it describes a new social order articulated on excess, bedazzlement, and, in Fourier’s own words, the “need to protect everything we call vice.”7 Barthes writes with fascination on Fourier’s “vomiting of politics” in a “vast madness which does not end, but which permutates.”8 As Adorno summed it up, “if it can be said about anybody, then these lines apply to Fourier: ‘a fool leaves the world, and it remains stupid’”9 Benjamin, more politely, took a Nietzschean angle: “Fourier is more of an inventor than a savant.”10

2. Love of Lesbians and the Sound of Absolutely Positive Truth

Fourier’s happy discourse also relates to a systematization and practical application of his radical imagination. He was neither a mysticist nor a reformist or a revolutionary. Contrary to his reception by Marx and other socialist thinkers, he did not consider himself a utopian. Harmony does not demand work and sacrifice, but is rather the inevitable outcome of scientifically-adjusted human behavior. His controversial views on the permissive, innovative character of sexual practices—including homosexual, polygamous, extra-marital, manic, and “omnigamous”—were thus a purely scientific appreciation of one way of moving toward new social structures. (Fourier himself was prone to an ambivalent extra-mania he termed “Sapphienisme” whereby he was a lover and protector of lesbians and promoted their wellbeing. He assessed to be among about 26,400 companions worldwide with similar ideas.)

In this sense, the aim of science is simply to harness Passional Attraction as a cosmic source of energy and to bring mankind within the ordered domain of Passional Gravitation. Thus, Fourier’s socialism is not what ought to be (the essence of Marxian socialism, according to Marcuse), but what will be—naturally, rationally, and without revolution—as soon as our passions are realized socially; as soon as we are tuned in correctly, as it were, to a social space that in Fourier is reconfigured and proportioned harmonically.

The optimism of Enlightenment philosophers was often legitimized by utilitarian application. Truth—that in Fourier is “absolutely positive” (Blanchot)—was the practical task of helping humanity to become humanity, through the eradication of illness, poverty, ignorance, and so forth. The Phalanstery thus provided the ground for the commonsensical applicability of Fourier’s argument. Moreover, utilitarianism rejects the ranking of (moral) value according to a priori criteria in favor of the equal validity of each person’s own search for happiness and pleasure. Fourier, to be sure, accepts and celebrates the subjective multi-directionality of vanity, passion, and inclination. To him, one must embrace the delights of contrast, competition, and rivalry on the level of the individual and social series: in Harmony, Industrial Armies roam the world and compete in aesthetic battles to build large-scale engineering projects, cook the most delicious pie, or stage the most impressive opera. Thus Fourier’s anti-conformist God resides over a Combined Order whose permanent social revelation consists in variety and complexity—difference in age, fortune, ability, temperament. In the 1960s, the hippies would sum up such undogmatic tolerance with the slogan “do your own thing.” Let the pleasure principle rule. Don’t moralize, don’t pathologize.

Of course, Fourier also had a theory for the history of the entire world. His cosmogony is a theory of the “ages of happiness,” which explains the progress and decay of civilization in ascending and descending vibrations, together comprising eighty thousand years and thirty-two social metamorphoses, after which humankind will cease to exist. The ascending and descending vibrations serve to “pattern” movements between different stages of individual and historical being, corresponding to the progression from youth to decrepitude in the human life span. The musical analogy is elaborated in the way Fourier organizes the subject’s passions and senses as a keyboard with thirty-two keys. Like the passions are a keyboard, for example, so is the Sun surrounded by a claviature of planets arranged in octaves; thus social change on Earth will influence the entire solar system and affect the planetary orbits positively. This ties in Fourier’s theories with the ancient Pythagorean and Renaissance beliefs in an affinity between natural law and divine law, between the harmony of the passions and the harmony of the spheres.11


Engraving of A Perfumer's Dress

In 1814, Fourier discovers the Aromal Fluid, a medium for the great chain of being, a connection between the Earth and the rest of the universe.12 The Aromal Fluid (or Aromal Movement) is a “system for the distribution of known or unknown aromas, which control men and animals, form the seeds of winds and epidemics, govern the sexual relations of the planets and provide the seeds of created species.”13 He notes that, “if everything is connected in the system of the universe, there must exist a means of communicating between creatures of the other world and this.” This means of communication is the Aromal Fluid, the supersensible exhalation of the planets. It is an exemplary vital matter: a single, all-pervasive, imperceptible substance—a bit like capital in our present cosmogony, we can say; a universal middleman.

In Fourier’s cosmic order, the world is folded in upon itself in analogies mirroring the principles that constitute it (with octaves, harmonies, planetary orbits, and so on). It has no messianic horizon because it is held together by divine, mathematical laws—geometrical principles that contain parcels of all states of being, including their respective polarities and all ambivalent and transitional forms, and that are only complete in the totality of their variety and infinite multiplicity. Every moment in a geometric time-space corresponds to myriad events that are distributed across a plane defined by cycles, scales, and symmetries.

In the few remarks that he made on Fourier, Maurice Blanchot deconstructs the status of desire in the former’s system. To Blanchot, the “strange gift” of Passional Attraction is a “passion without desire.”14 Where desire is that of an individual subject, of a sovereign “I” that affirms the law that it destroys in the consumption of a transgressive desire, a passion without desire—measured, non-erotic, yet obliging the entire universe to modify itself—never coincides with pleasure, even if pleasure is one of its moments. Blanchot’s reading implies that cosmic happiness goes beyond the individual human subject: instead, Passional Attraction becomes a tendency that rises into the non-time of 80,000 years of ascending and descending vibrations toward universal harmony and sympathetic fusion within the given order of the cosmic household.15 Fourier’s harmonial vibration is the cosmic timbre of a higher pattern to which the soul is already attuned.


Max Ernst, Une semaine de bonté, 1936. Graphic novel.

3. Fourier as a Way of Life

Fourier’s vision for communal living, liberated sexuality, and cosmic harmony resonated with countercultural, “tribal” emancipation and holistic utopian projects of the 1960s, such as Buckminster Fuller’s “spaceship earth” and Martin Luther King’s “beloved community.”16 After his writings were republished in France in 1966–68, commentaries and new translations sprang up across Europe and his work was almost obligatorily referenced in critical writing at the time, as well as and in architecture, with the Phalanstery being an inspiration for Le Corbusier’s Unité d’habitation (1947­–52). In art and counterculture, Fourier's work had an at least a spectral presence, as in Constant’s New Babylon, the mandatory daily exchange of sex partners in Otto Mühl’s Aktionsanalytische Organisation, or in the name of the Danish student and youth organization Det Ny Samfund (“New Society”). In general, Fourier’s conjoint theorization of labor and love dovetailed with the many post-World War II attempts at thinking Marx and Freud together.

As Fourier’s teachings had been sporadically realized in communes in Europe, North America, and South America in the nineteenth century, so was there also the psychedelic Phalanstery. As members of the San Francisco commune Togetherness explained to Dominique Desanti in the late sixties, “We are Fourierists.”17 Asked whether they have actually read Fourier they reply, “we’ve been told.” Theirs is “Un Fourier par ouï-dire,” infused with elements of Gandhism, concocted in a mix of memory and invention that in itself is quite Fourierian. Still, the members of the commune remain faithful to Fourierian pillars of faith such as the inclusion of children in production, the division of the working day into two-hour shifts, and the integration of male and female tasks. Visitors have told the members of Togetherness that Fourier condoned the use of drugs as an adjuvant or stimulant, and they sell the handicraft of the commune in the Haight-Asbury district: “ex-hippie-capital turned into necropolis, where the bourgeois come to watch the post-hippies, drugged to the point of drifting away, voluntary onlookers, the foam of a broken wave.”18 While Fourier’s nineteenth-century followers tended to underplay or even censor his emphasis on the unrestrained development of desire, it seems that his resurgence in sixties’ collectivism was focused on exactly the Dionysian aspects of his socialism. Accordingly, Togetherness was built on the rule of love, and its denizens embraced Passional Attraction in an amour diffus that included lesbian and gay relationships, and in which orgies, instituted by Fourier as a superior form of love, is an act of principle. In Desanti’s micropolitical turn of phrase, the drop-outs of Togetherness have found “their universal love, a total tolerance of minoritarian and singular tendencies.”19

By 1969, Togetherness suffers a meteoric decline and is dissolved by its members. The former communards choose social revolt as their next endeavor, in factions of post-Proudhonism, post-Marxism, post-Leninism, or “para-Maoism.” Even in its collapse, Fourierism generates difference. Short-lived as it was, the example of Togetherness during the Summer of Love seems to refute Benjamin’s claim that “only in the summery middle of the nineteenth century, only under its sun, can one conceive of Fourier’s fantasy materialized.”20 Writing in 1969, Roland Barthes predicted the decline of the Fourierist commune,

Could we imagine a way of living that was, if not revolutionary, at least unobstructed? No one since Fourier has produced this image: no figure has yet been able to surmount and go beyond the militant and the hippy. The militant continue to live like a petty bourgeois, and the hippy like an inverted bourgeois; between these two, nothing. The political critique and the cultural critique don’t seem to be able to coincide.21

Similarly, to Herbert Marcuse it is also close but no cigar with Charles Fourier. In his Eros and Civilization (1955) Marcuse notes that, “Fourier comes closer than any other utopian socialist to elucidating the dependence of freedom on non-repressive sublimation.”22 But the nature of Fourier’s idea is based on the repressive elements of “a giant organization and administration,” which for Marcuse risks fascism, for the working communities of the Phalanstery “anticipate ‘strength through joy’ rather than freedom, the beautification of mass culture rather than its abolition.” To accuse Fourier of aestheticizing politics seems to rationalize his work through the historical knowledge of a totalitarian modernity. In the mid-twentieth century, however, it was no doubt inevitable to comment on the fascist connotations of the Phalanstère. (Or maybe it was simply a question of irreconcilable temperaments between Marcuse, the well-intentioned utopianist schoolteacher and Fourier the “delirious cashier,” as Flaubert called him.)

Also other post-World War II thinkers were uncertain as to whether Fourier’s imaginative intoxication could be reclaimed for critical purposes. While his work was eagerly referenced, it remained exotic if not intractable; thus Kenneth White asks whether Fourierism is of “any interest to us in the present historical conjecture, or whether it is to be placed, once and for all, as a particularly grotesque item, for dilettante admiration and curiosity, on the shelf of political antiquities.”23 Fourier never quite fit history, yet his happy discourse is a specter that seems to trans-illuminate any given historical moment as an x-ray of that which is not, but exists anyway because it can be imagined.

Fourier wasn’t read only as a “vomiting of politics,” but also as a regurgitation of psychoanalysis. His philosophy was in a sense already anti-Oedipal, corresponding to Deleuze and Guattari’s assertion that desires don’t belong to the realm of the imaginary, and are never transformed through desexualization or sublimation. Once sexuality is conceived as a force of production in its own right (the unconscious as a worker), it escapes restriction into narrow cells of family, couple, person, object. “Sexuality is everywhere,” Deleuze and Guattari wrote, recalling Fourier’s “vibrations and flows” to evoke how libidinal energy proceeds directly to the entire social field:

For the prime evidence points to the fact that desire does not take as its object persons or things, but the entire surroundings that it traverses, the vibrations and flows of every sort to which it is joined, introducing therein breaks and captures—an always nomadic and migrant desire, characterized first of all by its “gigantism”: no one has shown this more clearly than Charles Fourier.24

As a result, and as per Fourier, “we always make love with worlds”—which is, in fact, a good definition of artistic thinking: to make love with worlds—nothing less.


Franscisco Goya, The Witches' Sabbath, 1797-98. Oil on canvas.
4. Giraffe, Reindeer, Dog

Planetary lovemaking makes us recognize strange signs in civilization. According to Fourier, the hieroglyph of truth is the giraffe:

The hieroglyph of truth in the animal kingdom is the giraffe. Since the characteristic of truth is to surmount error, the animal that represents it must be able to raise his head higher than all the others: this the giraffe can do, as it browses on branches 18 feet above the ground. It is, in the words of one ancient author, “a most fine animal, gentle and agreeable to the eye.” Truth is also most fine, but as it is incapable of harmonizing with our customs, its hieroglyph, the giraffe, must be incapable of helping humans in their work; thus God has reduced it to insignificance by giving it an irregular gait which shakes up and damages any burden it might be called upon to bear. As a result we prefer to leave it to inaction, just as nobody will employ a truthful man, whose character runs counter to all accepted customs and desires.25

Fourier reasons that just like truth is only beautiful when it is inactive, so the giraffe is only admirable when it is at rest. With this analogy he proves that God created nothing without a purpose—even the giraffe, which is supremely useless. Thus, if one wishes to know what purposes it will serve in societies other than Civilization, one can study this problem in the “counter-giraffe,” the reindeer. A creature that only lives in hostile climates, the reindeer is “an animal which provides us with every service imaginable: you will see that God has excluded it from those social climates, from which truth will also be excluded for as long as Civilization lasts.”26 Fourier continues,

And when the societary order has enabled us to become adept at the use of truth and the virtues which are excluded from our lives at present, a new creation will provide us, in the anti-giraffe, with a great and magnificent servant whose qualities will far surpass the good qualities of the reindeer, which so excites our envy and arouses our anger at nature for having deprived us of it.27

Fourier’s delirious parable will get us nowhere near objectivity and consensus, yet it in its irreducibility it circumscribes the absence of truth. As we wait for this fantastic animal—the anti-giraffe—to arrive, we can delectate its profoundly aesthetic incongruence with all that exists, its devastating power of counter-actualization. If one wants a social aesthetic, then this is it: all that Fourier’s philosophical system talks about is the social, yet it can never be socialized, never become one with society, never become operational or ameliorative. Power will never be able to use Fourier to heal the miseries it has created. More than 200 years after Fourier wrote his first book, at a time when art is encroached by economy like never before, this fact alone seems more important than ever for the thinking and the making of art.

If we were to consider Fourier’s text a blueprint for a new life-world then we will, melancholically, get sucked back into the Real that we can never master. Just think of the personal misery of Charles, who each day at noon waited for the patron who would sponsor the realization of one of his Phalansteries, but who never arrived; who dreamt of gastronomic orgies but ate bad food his entire life; who was found dead kneeling by his bed in his old frock-coat… Instead, if contemporary life appeals to none of your 810 senses, one can take a hit of the perverse systematic of Fourier’s Harmony to invigorate sensing and speculation. “It was all in the mind,” said Marx of Fourier—but so is any other theory, institution, and discourse that reproduces the world. Most of all, reading Fourier today is a perfect anachrony to capital’s pre-emption of the future through calculated responses in the present. Even (or especially) capital will never catch up to this. It is a text that tops off all the absurdities that we are being served, by economy and politics alike, revealing them not as false and theatrical, but as gnomic and forlorn—incapable of touching Fourier’s divine and unapologetic bullshit that makes you defenseless, lifts you up and sets you free.

Adorno and Horkheimer write that in the culture industry, imagination goes to the dogs. Not so in Fourier. Here we always make love with worlds.

×

Notes
1 Marx quoted from Kenneth White, Introduction to Ode to Charles Fourier by André Breton, trans. Kenneth White (London: Cape Goliard/Grossman, 1969).

2 André Breton: Selections, ed. Mark Polizzotti (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 32.

3 In Fourier there are twelve passions common to everybody. The five “luxurious” passions (that correspond to the five senses) tend toward luxury, pleasure, the formation of groups and affective ties. The four cardinal, affective passions—friendship, ambition, love and “familism”—concern relationships with others; and finally the three “distributive or mechanizing” passions, the Cabalist, the Butterfly, and the Composite that have to do with calculation and organization of pleasurable work. The twelve passions combine in a thirteenth super-passion, Unityism, that rules the Destinies for all time. This is the “inclination of the individual to harmonize everything around him and of the whole human race … it is a boundless philanthropy, a universal well-being,” the comprehension of the whole. Charles Fourier, The Theory of the Four Movements, eds. Gareth Stedman Jones, Ian Patterson (1808; Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 1996), 81.

4 Walter Benjamin, “Fourier,” (c.1940), in Das Passagen-Werk (Berlin: Suhrkamp), 792.

5 Michael Helm, introduction to Stammefællesskabet by Charles Fourier (Copenhagen: Borgen, 1972).

6 Fourier, Theory of the Four Movements, 34.

7 Fourier, Theory of the Four Movements, 72. To Barthes, Fourier is a “logothet,” the founder of a new discourse whose social inventions are facts of writing. Roland Barthes, Sade Fourier Loyola (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1971), 83.

8 Barthes, Sade Fourier Loyola, 88.

9 Theodor Adorno, forward to Theorie der vier Bewegungen und der allgemeinen Bestimmungen by Charles Fourier, trans. Gertrud von Holzhausen (Frankfurt am Main: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1966), 5.

10 Benjamin, Das Passagen-Werk, 775.

11 For Joscelyn Godwin, Fourier’s cosmogony is “as traditional as could be” viewed from the point of a Pythagorean tradition. See Joscelyn Godwin, The Harmony of the Spheres. A Sourcebook of the Pythagorean Tradition in Music (Rochester, VA: Inner Traditions, 1993), 357. Unlike Godwin, Benjamin holds that “Man muss sich klar machen, dass Fouriers Harmonien auf keiner der überkommenen Zahlenmysterien beruhren, wie dem pythagoräischen oder dem keplerschen. Sie sind gar aus ihm selber herausgesponnen und sie geben der Harmonie etwas Unnahbares und Bewahrtes: sie umgeben die harmoniens gleichsam mit Stacheldraht. Le bonheur du phalanstère es tun bonheur barbelé.” (Das Passagen-Werk, 785–6).

12 Fourier’s Theory of The Four Movements covers the social (or passionate), animal (or instinctive), organic and material movements.

13 Fourier, Theory of The Four Movements, 16.

14 Maurice Blanchot, “En guise d’introduction” Topique, 4–5 (October, 1970), 8.

15 Barthes talks about the domesticity of utopia: “The area of need is Politics, the area of Desire is what Fourier calls Domestics. Fourier has chosen Domestics over Politics, he has constructed a domestic utopia (but can a utopia be otherwise? Can a utopia be political? Isn’t politics: every language less one, that of Desire? … Politics is what forecloses desire, save to achieve it in the form of neurosis: political neurosis or, more exactly: the neurosis of politicizing.” Barthes, Sade Fourier Loyola, 85.

16 Linda Sargent Wood discusses holistic world views in the postwar era and how their influence peaked in the sixties; apart from Fuller and King, she discusses Rachel Carson, Teilhard de Chardin, and the Esalen Institute. Linda Sargent Wood, A More Perfect Union. Holistic World Views and the Transformation of American Culture after World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

17 “Ex-capitale hippie devenue nécropole oú les bourgeois viennent contempler des post-hippies, drogués á la dérive, figurants volontaires, écume d’une vague brisée” Dominique Desanti, “San Francisco: Des hippies pour Fourier,” Topique, 4–5 (October, 1970), 209.

18 “Leur Love universel, une tolerance totale des tendances minoritaires et des singularités” Ibid., 210.

19 Ibid., 209.

20 Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, ed. Rolf Tiedemann, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999), 638.

21 Roland Barthes, “A Case of Cultural Criticism,” in The Language of Fashion, trans. Andy Stafford, ed. Michael Carter (Oxford: Berg, 2006), 113.

22 This and the following quotes from Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization (Boston: Beacon Press, 1956), 217–218.

23 White, Introduction to Ode to Charles Fourier by André Breton

24 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), 293 and 292.

25 Fourier, Theory of The Four Movements, 283.

26 Ibid., 284.

27 Ibid., 284.

Text by
Lars Bang Larsen
e-flux Journal#26,6 /11