between inside and out porosity and the appropriation of urban space By Kelly Warman London, 2002
Plates............................ 3 Acknowledgements....... Acknowledgements....... 4 Introduction....................5
Part One City Disturbance 1 . Interpenetrative Practice
10
2 . Porous Practice
13
3 . Spectating the Everyman
16
4 . Aimless Aim
19
5 . Diverting Production
23
6 . Intoxication or Revolution?
25
Part Two Architectural Mayhem 7 . Reclaiming the House
30
8 . Double Binding Dialectics
33
9 . Homely Protest?
35
10. Opening a State of Enclosure Enclosure 37 11. Passively Active
40
Part Three In Conclusion 12. Situating the Individual
45
13. Who’s Choice?
46
Bibliography
48
2
Plates............................ 3 Acknowledgements....... Acknowledgements....... 4 Introduction....................5
Part One City Disturbance 1 . Interpenetrative Practice
10
2 . Porous Practice
13
3 . Spectating the Everyman
16
4 . Aimless Aim
19
5 . Diverting Production
23
6 . Intoxication or Revolution?
25
Part Two Architectural Mayhem 7 . Reclaiming the House
30
8 . Double Binding Dialectics
33
9 . Homely Protest?
35
10. Opening a State of Enclosure Enclosure 37 11. Passively Active
40
Part Three In Conclusion 12. Situating the Individual
45
13. Who’s Choice?
46
Bibliography
48
2
Plates 1. Teching Hsieh walking during Outdoor Piece . http://www.oneyear-performance.com/intro.html 2. Francis Alys walking through the gardens of the Casa de Serralves. Serralves . http://www.euronet.nl/users/kazil/advart02.html 3. Francis Alys, ibid. 4. Rachel Whiteread’s House. House . http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/news_comment/artistsinprofile/w hiteread.shtml 5. Gordon Matta-Clark’s Splitting. http://www.ku.edu/~sma/smahom http://www.ku.ed u/~sma/smahome/collection/pmattac e/collection/pmattaclarkl.htm larkl.htm 6. Rachel Whiteread’s House, ibid. 7. Gordon Matta-Clark’s Splitting , from inside, ibid.
3
Acknowledgments
For informing me of Tehching Hsieh and his elusive one year projects I would like to thank Roddy Hunter and his lecture series in the first year of my degree. To Roger Bourke for his intensive tutorial
sessions
on
my
practice,
which
poses
the
equivelent
questions but within the realms of practice. To Dell Olsen for her continued unpicking/unpackin unpicking/unpacking g of inside inside and outside outside throughout the writing of the paper. To Steven Eastwood for his unrelentless support both theoretically and emotionally, in his ability to spot a needle in haystack of words. I would also like to thank Merhan Nasseri who has been living in Charles De Gaulle airport for eleven years, for showing me that the inventive appropriation of public space amplifies the unheard shout.
4
Introduction
“ The days of society are numbered; its reasons and its merits have weighed in the balance and found wanting; its inhabitants are divided into two parties, one of which wants this society to disappear.” Guy Debord1
The
divides
experience,
of
social
such
as
space
into
demarcated
public/private,
categories
of
production/consumption,
labour/leisure that are sanctioned by the state, are the terrain of a multitude of creative and inventive appropriational acts by the individual. This appropriation is characterised by the realms of everyday doing and by the realms of culture. The totality of these fixed divides
occupies monumental status within western society
but as a result of this the individual will always seek the dissolution of these binaries. Here I set out to retrieve the singularity of appropriation that challenges the totality of a system which actually mutilates the idea of individuality. So I ask these questions once some examples of the latter have been established: Is the framing of creative appropriation only bound to the realms of culture, to artistic practice? Or is this frame temporal, shifting between the realms of culture and the realms of everyday doing?
1
Debord, Guy The Society of the Spectacle trans. Michel Prigent and Lucy Forsyth (London: Chronos Publications 1979) p. 23
5
The first section of this paper looks at, primarily, two areas of urban space appropriation, the one of the artist and the one of the nonartist. By appropriation I mean, to claim, to take something from it’s original context and to make it ones own, to usurp. This can be carried
out
ideologically
or
physically.
The
two
artists
I
will
concentrate on in relation to this appropriation are Tehching Hsieh and Francis Alys, both of whom have walked the city within their practice. The non-artists are the Neapolitans Walter Benjamin describes in his essay on Naples and the homeless people on the streets of New York where Hsieh walked during his work. Through Tehching Hsieh’s work, specifically
One Year Outdoor
Piece, (where the artist spent an entire year outside) I will ask the question: where does artistic practice stop and everyday life begin? I will explore this ambiguity of actions, of social position, of motivation and lastly of intent. I will examine the bleed between non-artist and artist using Walter Benjamin’s notion of porosity which is first used in his essay on Naples. This notion of porosity will also allow me to compare the artist’s appropriation of the city with the Neapolitans and the Homeless. I will discuss the latter varying economical, political and social motivations for doing so. I will look briefly at Karl Marx to frame and expand upon the divides which take place within social space, those of public and private, labour and leisure, production and consumption. Once these divides
6
are established it will enable me to apply Benjamin’s porosity to the bleed that occurs between these binaries. The second of the two artists is Francis Alys. Without specifically focussing upon one particular piece I will explore the methodology he employs to create work, a method which largely consists of walking the city streets. I will propose that Alys challenges the dialectic of production and consumption. To do this I will investigate the nineteenth century figure of the flaneur, establishing his modes of production and consumption. In placing these two together - that of the flaneur and Alys - I will then introduce the
Situationist
Internationale to discuss modernist revolutionary ideas on urban space appropriation . The second section of the paper will look at another two artists who have used structure to appropriate social space, Rachel Whiteread and Gordon Matta-Clark. I will be specifically concentrating on Whiteread’s House, where the artist cast the inside of an derelict house
and
Matta-Clarke’s
Splitting ,
where
he
cut
an
entire
abandoned house in half. I will look at whether House extends this notion of porosity into the realms of the physical structure, briefly drawing upon Gaston Bachelard’s metaphysical investigation into the division of inside and outside to also look at the reading of House.
7
uncanny
I
will
look
at
how
Matta-Clarke
challenges
the
constructs
of
architectural structure by desecrating it and how he interrogates the remit of urban renewal by recycling and re-using buildings. I will use Michel de Certeau’s application of the greek work metis (ways of operating) to talk through Matta-Clark's tactical reclamation of urban architecture.
8
Part One City Disturbance
9
1. Interpenetrative Practice
“Our era is fundamentally characterised by the lagging of revolutionary political action behind the development of modern possibilities of production which call for a superior organisation of the world.” Guy Debord2
In 1978, Taiwanese artist Tehching Hsieh illegally emigrated from Taiwan to America. Nine years later in 1987, artist Francis Alys emigrated from Belgium to Mexico. Each independently made work in their new found homes and both challenged the assumptions of artistic practice and production whilst culturally displaced. Equally, they interrogated the boundaries of everyday ‘doing’ by employing the methodology of simplicity. In bringing these two artists together, this paper seeks to answer some important questions regarding the interpenetration between artistic practice and everyday life.
For
both practitioners this interpenetration occurs whilst walking the city. Both subvert an ordinary daily routine by appropriating the street. Each one intrudes upon capitalist notion of constructed binary divides of social space, such as labour and leisure, public and
private,
production
and
consumption.
Tehching
Hsieh
in
particular critiques the prefabricated and totalitarian systems that impose organised living space by denying their necessity.
2
ed. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood ‘ Guy Debord Writings from the Situationist Internationa:Art and Modern Life’ Art in Theory: 1900 - 1990 An Anthology of Changing Ideas (USA: Blackwell 1993) pp. 693700
10
In 1981, shortly after he emigrated, Hsieh started his one year long work informally known as Outdoor Piece, on the streets of
Lower
Manhattan, New York. This was one in a series of one year pieces that stretched from 1978 to 1986. simple
Outdoor Piece involved the
itinerary of staying outside for one year, during which time
he was not allowed
to step foot inside any type of roofed
installation or structure. All of Hsieh’s one year works have involved a set of rationales that he must adhere to. In his first know informally as Cage Piece, Hsieh spent an entire year locked in a cage in his home, he documented this work by marking the wall inside the cage and taking a photo of himself everyday. Although very particular in their constraints Hsieh never explicitly states the rationales for the works, he presents questions without answers. The documenting of each piece is specific to the nature of the situation he places himself in, for Outdoor Piece he recorded where he ate and slept on a map and also mark where he had walked. This work presents a particular ambiguity regarding the role and social position
of
the
artist.
The
differentiation
between
artist
and
everyman - assumed to be obligatory within common practice - is less distinct. This manifests itself in basic questions one asks when addressing the work, such as: where did he sleep? Did he fulfil the task at hand?
How did he manage to acquire food?
11
Did he see
friends?
These simple questions refer to the context of the
everyday (the daily) and are typically asked when addressing the situation of a homeless person. To expand upon these initial enquires into the dialectic of everyday subversion I am going to refer, throughout, to the notion of ‘ porosity’ , a term which was coined by Walter Benjamin in his critique of Naples, Italy in 1924. Benjamin uses the term porosity as a way of framing his perceptual experience of the social and architectural space of Naples, although porosity also
occurs
in
the
Neapolitans
own
experience
and
utilisation of their city. During this paper I will refer to both the latter and the former experience of this phenomenon.
1. Tehching Hsieh walking during Outdoor Piece.
12
2. Porous Practice Porosity is the point of interface between two binaries, where the two
demarcated
positions
exchange
and
become
porous.
The
porosity occurs in Naples during the shift between delineated architectural structure and it’s interchange with social space. This results in an acute level of interpenetration between one thing and the next. It is no longer clear where one building is in the stages of dilapidation
and
the
next
is
in
progress.
Buildings
are
also
simultaneously animated into the popular theatre, as Neapolitan street life demands a passion for improvisation. The home too, rather than being the unit of private affairs, spills onto the streets, intermingling with the market place:
“As porous is this stone is the architecture. Building and action interpenetrate in the courtyards, arcades and stairways.... Poverty has brought about a stretching of frontiers that mirrors the most radiant freedom of thought. There is no hour, often no place, for sleeping and eating.”
3
It is important to note that the porosity in Naples had come about through
intense levels of poverty, where social and architectural
space was utilised for improvisation and opportunity. Every building and public space was appropriated for monetary purposes; nothing could avoid this prospect of financial gain. Benjamin’s account of
3
Benjamin, Walter ‘Naples’ One Way Street and Other Writings (london and New York: Verso 1979) pp. 167-176
13
Naples poetically describes how any superfluous space or time must be used at all costs to acquire the money to live. Swindling and wretchedness of poverty reaches new heights in what he calls ‘a playful love of trade’: marketing ones own home, renting out ones own bed, selling music, toys, ice cream, cigarettes, toothpaste etc. Applying this perceptive and experiential framework of porosity to Outdoor Piece, it becomes clear that the interchange does not only occur through Hsieh’s ambiguous actions but also through his social and economic standing as an artist. The Neapolitans appropriated their social and architectural space from necessity, a person forced into the position of homelessness also does the same through impoverishment. Is
porosity born from the economical need to
appropriate ones environment? If so does Outdoor Piece comment upon this need? Homelessness forces a person into the position where they must condition their environment for functional purposes, removing
places
and
things
from
their
original
context
and
manipulating them, for example, turning doorways into beds, using cardboard boxes for blankets, claiming dry sheltered public places as ones own. Although increasingly based on speculation, Hsieh’s position logically would have been much the same, appropriating the urban space. During the work Hsieh was arrested by the police for vagrancy. Braking all of his stipulations he was pulled indoors into a police cell and detained for 15 hours. The public walking the streets
14
of New York were not aware of Outdoor Piece . Here the role of the artist providing critique as observer no longer exists (or is at least invisible) within the realms of culture, but rather the artist is drawn into a participatory role, within which their work and practice is implicated in the realms of ‘doing’ and ‘everyday living’. In this circumstance the fields of culture loose distinction from the daily struggles of life and are not clear or autonomous in definition. An ‘in-between’ space that works co-dependently arises, a space within which porosity transpires. Outdoor Piece specifically challenges the constructs of non-contextual, gallery based, artistic practice and production. If during a piece of work the artist is as liable for arrest as a public member the distinction determining the moment of artistic practice is equivocal. It is problematic to say that once Hsieh enters a roofed structure he is no longer making the work, as the constructs which were openly critiqued in
Outdoor Piece were
adhered to, thus rendering the work questionable.
15
3. Spectating the Everyman Hsieh had, one presumes, artistic intention - to produce a work questioning the value of architectural structure and challenging (predominately western) society's presupposition of organised living. He therefore, logically, had a function, a purpose which is born from critique, motivating his homelessness. What function or critique do the normally homeless have from the perspective of the system and society which is built on capital? One cannot merely reduce people to the lowest common denominator of function and non-function, but if Hsieh is differentiated in any way by this system then it is possibly on these grounds, simplistic or otherwise. On a comparable level the Neapolitans
usurpation
was
based
on
spatial
anarchy,
made
possible through the lack of established capitalist state bifurcation. Seizing the opportunity for intervention they partook in a ‘joyful play’ of labour, existing in both the areas of leisure and labour, a creative and inventive necessity, a continuum on a daily basis. Outdoor Piece was Hsieh’s everyday but for only one year. This integral factor of allocated time on a rudimentary level is the distinguishing element between the three examples: the Neapolitans, Hsieh and the
homeless.
Conceivably,
Hsieh
was
making
a
political
commentary upon a situation where the homeless are not afforded choice.
By
allocating
himself
the
16
choice
to
be
homeless,
he
becomes a representative which thus creates a status (through stipulation) to show preference where others cannot. Does this reading of the work engender Hsieh with the prestige of a social hero, the one amongst many or a member of the intelligent minority who comments upon the anonymous mass of the everyman?
The
notion of everyman is often proclaimed within literature as a representative, but of the mass, the general public . The notion of the
everyman
is
subject
to
collective
generalisation,
a
body
generically referred to as the other , which is contrasted with the individual, the one. This is examined in Michel de Certeau’s writings in The Practice of Everyday Life , he addresses the idea of everyman as nobody :
“...he is trapped in common fate. Called Everyman (a name that betrays the absence of a name), this anti-hero is thus also Nobody, Nemo, just as the French Chacun becomes Personne, or the German Jedermann Niemand. He is always the other, without his own responsibilities or particular properties...”4
The anonymous everyman is used as a metaphor for the concept of the puerile majority, denying the written public the opportunity to be individualised
within
their
own
properties.
Perhaps
Benjamin’s
observations in terms of the everyman were limited by an idealised
4
de Certeau, Michel ‘Part 1, A Very Ordinary Culture’ ‘Chapter 1, A Common Place: Ordinary Language’ The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press 1984) pp. 1-5
17
and romanticised perspective of poverty amongst the public of Naples. Poetically and lyrically Benjamin critiques from the confines of
spectatorship
(and
class),
culturally
observing
the
streets,
watching and translating the wretchedness and deprivation of a people
that
were
not
supported
financially,
politically
or
economically. John Urry, analysing Benjamin as speculative reader of the city, points out in his book Consuming Places that reading:
“its not a matter of intellectual observation but rather a reading that involves ones fantasy, dreams and wish-processes.’”5
Benjamin’s readings were therefore a combination of sub-conscious and conscious perception. Reading is as much concerned with what you’re observing as it is what you bring to the observation according to both Benjamin and Urry’s analysis. The city then acts as a receptacle of these projections. Urry would appear to interpret reading as common practice for all, an activity frequently indulged in by the everyman . It would rationally transpire that
individuals
partake in their own critique of the city, by projecting their own subconscious onto the city and therefore reading it. Thus the activity is not only available for the intellectual minority of writers, artists and thinkers.
5
Urry, John, Consuming Places ( London: Routledge 1995)
18
4. Aimless Aim In choosing to be homeless Hsieh calls to mind the C19th figure of the flaneur. For Benjamin. The flaneur (limitedly gendered male through extensive previous literature 6 ) is the subject of Benjamin’s scrutiny and of investigation in his unfinished collection Passengerwerk (Arcades Project). Benjamin notes the flaneur’s capability to be the original detective of the streets, deriving pleasure through navigation. The flaneur does not
follow obligatory rules, he walks
the city in a distracted and unpremeditated way. Flanerie is by it’s very nature inventive - what de Certeau calls ‘the art of doing’
7
.
This interrupts the choreographed routine flow of people, between shops, to and from work motivated in commanding a purpose. The Flaneur has no direction, no intention, he ascertains intent through the act of walking itself.
6
For the purposes of this paper this issue of the gender of the flaneur and the gender of space is not challenged. However, Pierre Bourdieu points out in the Kabyle House or The World Reversed [1970] : “It is understandable that all biological activities sleeping, eating, procreating, should be banished from the external universe and confined to the house, the sanctuary of privacy and secrets of nature, the world of woman, who is assigned to the management of nature and excluded from public life. In contrast to man’s work, which is performed outdoors.” He states that within this fixed divide of social space, the hidden of the house, the private realm is the concealed sector of society, the female interiority of the domestic. The notion of the flaneur has been investigated, applied and expanded upon across the span of the C20th. He has been subjected to a reworking and updating beyond his original conception in the C19th. In this paper I specifically use the earlier model of the flaneur to discuss some of the implications of walking in the city. During this time he was wholly of outside/public personage. The relationship with Bourdieu’s ‘male outside’ is comparable as the flaneur is the he of outside space, in the working, productive realm of the capitalist state. 7 de Certeau, Michel ‘General Introduction’ The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press 1984) pp. xviii - xxii
19
“The Flaneur in the chorus of [his] idle footsteps has a feel for passages and for thresholds.....He actually discovers and invents passages, even when he recognises them as points of rupture in the city’s fabric"8
A Flaneur has no need to run, the leisurely pace at which he observes the city is the depiction of his leisurely posture, his time is superfluously inessential. Comparatively different from that of the Neapolitans, he observes the streets and is thus more associated with Benjamin's position as a writer. This presents an interesting dialectic regarding the matter of Hsieh function as artist and commentator. The flaneur is a metaphorical figure enabling discursive dialogue whilst looking at the order of social and economic drives for critiquing the urban. He lets the spectacle of the crowd act upon him until it is intoxicating. There is a fetishised relationship between watching the crowd and this intoxication. What is most interesting about the
flaneur is his
autonomous and personal process, emphasising and preserving the separateness of the individual. He chooses his fate freely treating the city’s streets as his home, the crowd as his refuge (although the flaneur is not in the financial or social position of needing to find refuge in the streets). The flaneur retrieves the ‘one’ from the
8
Stavrides, Stavros Navigating the Metropolitan Space: Walking as a Form of Negotiation with Otherness (Journal of Psychogeographical Research and Urban Research: http://www.psychogeography.co.uk ) pp 4 Stavrides, S quoting de Certeau, M The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkley: University of California Press 1984) pp. 97
20
masses
by
engaging
in
his
specific
spatial
practice.
This
is
essentially entrenched in scopophilia the flaneur likes to be seen as much as he likes to watch. In attempting to frame his role one might say that he is a connoisseur of observation in navigating the city, where the aimless stroll is the aim. Contestably, one could pose that the
aimless
and
inventive
pathways
of
the
flaneur defy
the
structured rationalism of the city and also disrupt the inherent drive of
production
and
function,
by
the
practice
purposeless (although the C19th notion of the embody
revolutionary
ideologies,
a
of
the
somewhat
flaneur does not
discrepancy
that
perhaps
distinguishes him from Hsieh). To reassess and essentially modify the flaneur would make his position comparatively closer to that of the radical revolutionary. In order to closely examine this re-definition of the flaneur I will now return to look at the artist Francis Alys in relation to this notion. Alys coins himself as a compulsive wanderer, in the loser/the winner series in ‘98 , he walked from one end of Stockholm to the other wearing a bright blue woollen jumper which he snagged at the onset of the walk, leaving a trail of blue wool behind him. This element of the work Alys calls paseos, meaning stroll. As a part of these works he walked dragging a little magnetic dog mounted on wheels in Mexico City, ‘91. Then in Havana he wore magnetic shoes and walked the working-class area of Pinheiros, Sao Paulo whilst
21
holding a punctured can of paint which marked the street behind him. Without focusing on one specific piece I will look at Alys’ methodology as a mechanism for eliciting questions that expand on the notion of urban space appropriation. I will also use t his mechanism
to
explore
how
Alys
challenges
productivity. Alys' strolls, like the flaneur, are
the
culture
of
tactical in their
application, although they also are a way of drifting, navigating where the navigation without clear intent becomes the intent. His motivation is to waste time. His consistently methodological strolls critically
challenge
productivity,
this
therefore
culture subverting
of
productivity
the
by
denying
production/consumption
dialectic. Alys’ strolls propose a particular question which comments upon society’s imposed order and how society rewards beneficial and worthwhile activity: it is expected of the artist to produce to have a significant function in society through production. Strolling by its very nature halts forms of capitalist production and labour by the individual, an activity customarily confined to the designated times of leisure. By employing an ordinarily leisure based activity, Alys interrogates the delineated composite of recreational time that is only measured in comparison to labour time. In removing what is expected
of
the
artist
he
interrogates
the
very
sum
of
that
expectation. To understand these concepts more clearly it is useful
22
to briefly look at Marx’s social philosophy on the fundamental conditions of capitalist production.
2. Francis Alys walking through the gardens of the Casa de Serralves .
5. Diverting Production Marx stated that capitalist production is separated into two areas, on the one hand the owners of money who have the means of production and therefore the means of subsistence. On the other, free labourers; the sellers of their own labour, which Marx terms as labour-power . The owners of production buy the labourers labourpower,
therefore
the
capitalist
owns
not
only
the
product
of
production but also the labourer her/himself. The organisation of labour-power, Marx states, is the basis of capitalist production and therefore consumption. This organisation concentrates the means of production into a few hands who then buy the individuals workpower from them. In exchange for this the individual receives livelihood but only enough to enable him/her to work and consume what he/she produces. Integrally, Marx maintains that the structure
23
of society (whose foundations are capitalism) and the state are not two separate things; the state is the structure of society. Therefore the structure of (western) society is largely created upon designated activity for designated times, this enforces the power of the state who owns the time of it’s labours, by owning their individual labourpower. Alys' work opens avenues for diverting this reciprocal and cyclical
relationship
detourning
the
between
traditional
the
forms
owner and of
artistic
the
labourer
production
by
through
essentially wasting time. In 1997 Alys was invited to create a piece for the annual InSite show who's
two host cities were,Tijuana and San Diego. For the piece
Alys decided to travel from one to the other, deliberately choosing a route which avoided crossing the boarders dividing America and Mexico. This resulted in a world tour which took him to Mexico City, Panama City, Santiago, Auckland, Sydney, Singapore, Bangkok, Rangoon, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul, Anchorage, Vancouver and Los Angeles. Over thirty five days Alys stayed in contact with the InSite
curator
via
e-mail.
Documentation
of
the
journey
was
presented as an archive open to the public in the CICUT library in Tijuana 9 . What is most interesting about this particular piece was that InSite essentially commissioned an all-expenses-paid world tour for the artist. By organising this trip not only did Alys parody the
9
Basualdo, Carlos ‘Head to toes: Francis Alys’ paths of resistance.’ Artforum trans. Vincent Martin (Artforum International Magazine, Inc. April 1999)
24
contractual relationship between the artist and the institution but he also comments upon the ownership of the institution over the artist by withholding the production of an artist’s commodity. The work is in opposition to the artist who is owned and confined to the gallery.
3. Francis Alys, ibid.
6. Intoxication or Revolution? The modernist notion of the flaneur can be up-dated through this critique of a production and consumption dialectic. The flaneur's fetishised relationship with the crowd is based upon watching the crowd's
own
intoxicating
consumption.
He
feels
absorbed
in
spectating people in their daily consumption of commodities all the social types and
within the social context. He seeks any form of
commodity circulation found in the modern marketplace. The flaneur consumes
the
spectacle
of
the
crowd,
therefore
this
‘image
consumption’ becomes his commodity, as Benjamin emphasises:
25
“The flaneur is someone abandoned in the crowd. In this he shares the situation of the commodity.....The intoxication to which the flaneur surrenders is the intoxication of the commodity around which surges the stream of customers.” 10
Here, after reviewing Benjamin's quote I propose a fragmentation of the modernist notion of the flaneur into two conflicting territories. The origin of Alys’ anti-productivity strolls can be directly related to flanerie, the drifter, the aimless stroller, the observer of the streets. Without being drawn into a participatory role the flaneur defied imposed notions of productivity through walking the urban without clear intent,
obtaining motivation through the act of strolling itself.
The flaneur's urban practice has been embodied and expanded upon by Hsieh and Alys but with their own addition of revolutionary ideologies. As noted before the
flaneur's aimless spectatorship
denies the inherent productivity of the capitalist society. It is here that the fragmentation occurs, in his relationship with the society he spectates. By abandoning himself to intoxication he thereby obeys all modes of consumption, perpetuating the inherent drives of a capitalist condition. To
elaborate
on
the
notion
of
Hsieh
ideologies it is useful to look at the
and
Alys'
revolutionary
strategies employed by the
Situationist International , France 1957. There were twelve bulletins
10
Frisby, David ‘The flaneur in Social Theory’ The Flaneur (London and New York: Routledge 1994) pp. 82106, pg 86
26
issued which covered the movement’s principals; tactics for creative and
political
‘spectacle’,
engagement
in
an
urban
‘detournement’ and
situation
the
including
‘ derive’ (which
the
literally
translates as ‘drifting’). For the purposes of this paper I am going to concentrate on the derive. Described by Guy Debord, one of the movements key writers, as a tactic of “transient passage through varied ambiences” 11. This tactic requires playful but constructive cognisance of any psycho-geographical effects 12. The derive is the strategic way of abandoning the rationalised incentive for walking (of getting from a to b per se ) and allowing oneself to be receptive to chance encounters and particularities of the terrain. Alys' strolls consistently
employ
this
methodology
to
formulate
work .
The
ideology behind his work is parallel to that of the derive, as it uses the notion of ‘drifting’ as a productive mechanism for commentary. The SI devised a series of tactical ways to reveal capitalist society’s empty form of productivity. The movement strove to shift the meaning of productivity to that of inventive radicalism, within which modern
society
is
revolutionised
totalitarianism. Debord noted that 11
by
collectively
critiquing
capitalist society is without
SI 1958 ‘Definitions’ The Situationist International Text Library trans. a.h.s. boy http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/7 12 Psychogeography can be explained as the perusal of precise effects on the mood and behaviour of an individual from geographical sites. This takes place whilst on a derive in attempting to articulate the experience of the city/urban through the noting it’s psychogeography. One gives attention to the psychogeography of passageways, exit points, entry points whilst walking the city, which may determine a course of action. Experimental derives are done without the aid of maps, photographs or charts, but can rely purely on the element of chance. The derive is described from the table of definitions drawn by the SI in 1958 as: “Derive: An experimental mode of behaviour linked to the conditions of urban society: a technique for hastily passing through varied environments. Also used, more particularly, to designate the duration of a prolonged exercise of such an experiment.” (ibid.)
27
culture,
he stated that all meaning is channelled into leisure and
recreational activities, transferring all modalities of pleasure and meaning into the system of consumption. For this reason economic poverty is not the only poverty in a capitalist society to affect a community . Debord proposed that through the lack of productive revolutionary politics and artistic intervention society is culturally destitute. The primary focus of the SI was to claim back the urban streets, to re-demarcate and re-delineate. They embodied romantic revolutionary ideologies that sought to cut through the rationalism of the modern urban space. Although Alys’ strolls are of a more cynical nature, methodologically they adopt some of these tactics, but their motivation and critique is fragmented. Alys strolls are parodic in their critique. They do not adopt the intoxicating consumption of the flaneur, yet they do not strive for revolutionary modernist utopia either. Alys’ strolls sit in-between these motivations, they inventively challenge but are also sardonically aimless.
28
Part Two Architectural Mayhem
29
7. Reclaiming the House
“The outside is a peculiar place, both paradoxical and perverse. It is paradoxical insofar as it can only ever make sense, have a place, in reference to what it is not and never be---an inside, a within, an interior.” --- Elizabeth Grosz13
On November 23rd 1993 two decisions were made, one, that British artist Rachel Whiteread would win the Turner Prize, and two, the work
that
helped
her
win
it
would
be
demolished.
House,
Whiteread’s only (to date) public work, was completed on October the 25th 1993, one year later in January ‘94 it was taken down at the order of Bow Neighbourhood Council. The condemned victorian terraced house of 193 Grove road Bow, East London, was the last of it’s kind, either side the other houses had long since gon e. Whiteread obtained a short hold lease on the abandoned property and proceeded to clear it out and cast the inside of it with concrete, knocking down the exterior house walls, to reveal the bleak, grey concrete structure underneath. In September 1974, American artist Gordon Matta-Clark sliced a condemned suburban family house on 322 Humphrey Street in half. Splitting was one in a series of interventions produced under the title of Cuttings that Matta-Clark made during the period of 1971 to 1976. The house, still containing
13
Grosz, Elizabeth ‘Introduction’ Architecture from the Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space (USA: MIT Press 2001) pp xvi
30
the detritus from it’s previous owners, was cut in half - a one inch slice passed though every structural surface inside and outside. Half of the split house was then bevelled down to extend the one inch slice further, the four top corners of the structure where then removed, exposing a fraction of the inside. Then in September, 1974, the house was demolished and removed. On a comparative level both pieces of work operate in an apparently similar way: two condemned
houses,
two
artists
re-using
with
a
result
that
discursively transforms the structure. Both are challenging the remit of architecture by defamiliarizing the ‘house’, both mutate a and
definable
structure.
But
within
these
obviously
fixed
para llel
discourses and methods,are revealed, political points of rupture that I would like to discuss.
4. Rachel Whiteread’s House
Whiteread’s
house
on
193
Grove
5. Gordon Matta-Clark ‘s Splitting
rd,
was
cleared
of
all
it’s
belongings: carpets, left over furniture etc. Fittings were removed so as the casting could prevail. A team of builders secured the house from within so as they could begin spraying the inside walls with concrete. They sprayed layer upon layer until the concrete was
31
stable enough to hold itself. The outside walls were then removed and House stood upright. Commissioned by Artangel funding body and Beck’s beer, this was Whiteread’s only public work to date. All that is left of House now is the extensive photographic and video diary documentation. During it’s time the structure caused great controversy and debate, attracting much attention from the media as well as the local community. House addresses similar issues that were discussed in section one, such as the challenge of binary divides of public and private space. Although, does House actually seek
to
interpenetrate
this
divide,
does
it
appropriat e
the
architectural structure, is it another extension of this notion of porosity?
6. House
32
House was a solid edifice, a definable concrete building, which from a distance appeared as any other typical victorian terraced house. House stimulated a feeling of existential claustrophobia, of viewing, simultaneously, the inside and the outside, where the public and private
shockingly
coincide.
Embedded
within
it’s
conc rete
bleakness were small domestic details, subtle patterns that unveiled themselves lifted from the wallpaper of it’s past occupants. The work was a closed form that was impenetrable, standing on the edge of Victoria Park, a solidified memorial to what was once there, a petrified past existing in the present. Many writing about and viewing House have talked of having an uncanny experience of it. Discussing the experience of uncanny will enable me to answer the questionable element of House’s porosity and also establish this experience of claustrophobia within it.
8. Double Binding Dialectics
“The uncanny is that class of the frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar.” Sigmund Freud ‘The Uncanny’ Art and Literature 14
14
Freud, Sigmund ‘The Uncanny’ Art and Literature trans. James Strachey ed. Albert Dickson (London and New York: Penguin 1990) pp. 339-376
33
House is a familiar building which is disruptively re-made, locking the viewer in it’s own past. What is familiar is not only the iconography of the house, but also it’s representation of a home , of being at home. A familiar, comfortable and intimate environment, a private space which is concealed. Freud deducts that what is hidden is also unknown and secretive which constitutes the emotions of anxiety within the uncanny . The private space can therefore be double binding in that it is familiar but also uneasy. The literal translation of uncanny into German is unhiemlich, which in English translates as unhomely . Whiteread’s House renounces the homely of a home. It subverts the generic representation of a home that is comfortable and familiar by making it cold and impenetrable. Unlike the porosity in Naples the private space does not interpenetrate with the public, instead it cancels out the private space, negating the opportunity for movement in-between both. It does not allow for passageways to take place, to transist between places. Instead House solidifies time, it stops all forms of flow and circulation by filling in space. The structure depicts the cessation of any form of progression, it seeks not only to bind outside and inside together, it also confines and mutes space.
House represents a place of
entrapment, a place of conflict. Gaston Bachelard closely looks at the object of the ‘door’, to metaphysically and also metaphorically discuss the entrapment inside ones own being. He notes that the
34
‘door’ simultaneously gives rise to feelings of hesitation, temptation, desire, but embodied within it’s physical threshold also are feelings of security and welcome. The ‘door’ is rooted in the profound unconscious and conscious emotions of freedom but also security. Metaphorically Bachelard proposes that the ‘door’ is the threshold between the inside and outside of the body:
“In French, one should always think twice before speaking of l’etre-la. Entrapped in being, we shall always have to come out of it. And then when we are hardly outside of being, we always have to go back into it.”15
House entraps the viewer within the domestic, halting space and time. The structure of House is not porous, the concrete is fixed and defined, there is no space, literally, within it for negotiation.
9. Homely Protest ? In filling-in the domestic
homely space
House
challenges the
marketing construct of home , which is that of luxury, warmth and comfort by defamiliarizing it. Elements of this can be seen in the current rise of home commodities and lifestyle choices 16 . Claire
15
Bachelard, Gaston ‘The Dialectics of Outside and Inside’ The Poetics of Space (Boston: Beacon 1969) pp. 213-214 16
These Home commodities come in the increase of TV shows such as “Home Front”, “Changing Rooms” and the consumer growth area of “Homes and Interior” magazines.
35
Doherty the curator of the ‘98 Claustrophobia exhibition at the Ikon gallery points out:
“...Socially and economically, Britain is still coming to terms with the legacy of Thatcherism, particularly of the impact of “right-to-buy incentives”, the shifts in domestic policy are not about to result in a socialist embracement of anti-consumerism.” 17
House denies the warmth of home, under-estimated through over familiarity. Does House speak for those who live without the warmth and privacy that a home can provide, the poverty stricken, the homeless? Materially House coincides with the concrete breeze block of the poverty ridden high rise, the grey bleakness of tower flats, subsequently House could be read as a tangible reminder of the steady destruction of London's affordable housing.
House
challenges home as commodity, of the private space which can be produced/consumed and the falsified notion that it is accessible to all. Although House may appear to champion these issues formally and materially, it is interesting to note the position of the artist in relation to these discourses. House is not Whiteread’s first cast, prior and post
House the
objects/spaces cast were often of the things contained within the house
itself:
mattresses,
baths,
17
hot
water
bottles.
Ordinarily
Doherty, Claire ‘Claustrophobia: We’re not in Kansas anymore’ Claustrophobia (Birmingham: Ikon Gallery 1998) p. 11
36
exhibited within the context of the gallery (the Tate, Chisenhale, Ikon), her work begs to ask questions of the site of memory and it’s relationship to objects. She re-uses familiar things to
uncannily
congeal spatial division, to trace the embodied past memory of an object but more importantly to render nostalgia actual and physical within the object of casting. House is the ultimate cast in a series of casts that specifically look at the private, secretive and hidden aspect of the home. Although House differs in it’s contextualisation, in the proximity of the public space and the politics of the place it stood. Especially the housing shortage in that area an issue which House undoubtedly addresses but perhaps only through default.
10. Opening a State of Enclosure Matta-Clark’s Splitting however is politically motivated but in a diverse praxis, the split of the house is the method for opening up passageways, by exposing the architecture's internal mechanisms. Splitting expands on the structure whilst also politically commenting against it. Matta-Clark works with the negative space of a building, of what is unseen by cutting in half he creates a new space, an inbetween that is negotiable and ephemeral. He states, whilst talking against organised living space:
37
“Buildings are fixed entities in the minds of most people. The notion of the mutable space is taboo, especially in ones own home. People live in their space with a temerity that is frightening.”
18
The simple intervention of splicing a suburban family house in half literally sheds light on the subject of the domesticated private cocoon.
It
actively
challenges
architecture. Matta-Clark appropriates
architectural
rationalised
approaches
de/re-structures his urban
space
by
to
environment, he detourning 19
its
constructs. He reveals the functions and mechanisms that physically perpetuate
the
rigid
divide
of
public/private,
inside/outsi de,
rendering buildings no longer secretive .
7. inside Splitting
18
http://www.fat-cat.co.uk/splitart/split.html Matta-Clarke, Gordon Cutting Together: Gordon Matta-Clark
19
Detournement is another situationist terminology, which is to introduce past or present artistic production into a superior environmental construction, often a form of propaganda which witnesses the depletion of superiority of these constructs. see ‘Definitions’.
38
For this matter the one inch slice down the middle of the house is converted, geographically, into a new space, an in-between space. Elizabeth Grosz in Architecture from the Outside specifically looks at the in-between space. Grosz notes that it is the space that ‘brings matter into being’, without being a material itself, it is a space that is related to other spaces but has no place of it’s own. It is without fundamental form or nature, yet it is that which facilitates and enables because of this fact. Grosz talks of the in-between as a place of “fraying and of subversion, where things become undone” 20. Matta-Clark's precise incisions through the building create not only a conceptual in-between but also physical one. The space of the split is the space of discursive co-dependent negotiation, which is comparable to the notion of porosity. It is
proposed by Grosz that
such negotiation cancels out binary opposites through a porous relation to one and other, buildings become interpenetrationable. There is relatively little documentation of Splitting , Matta-Clark’s anti-commercial ethos was implicit within his material interventions as it was the documenting of them. Splitting was deliberately made to be a temporary structure, to preserve the structure would only support
the
premeditated
institution method
of
he
was
commenting
dematerialisation
was
against . a
This
politicised
appropriation of the redundant building. Retrieving the wasted for
20
Grosz, Elizabeth ‘In-between: The Natural in Architecture and Culture’ Architecture from the Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space (USA: MIT Press 2001) p. 91
39
re-use, for re-consideration, he reclaimed the superfluous shell by challenging the structural integrity of architecture mocking the totalitarian severity of the ‘square box’ house:
“By undoing a building, there are many aspects of the social conditions against which I am gesturing....to open a state of enclosure which has been pre-conditioned not only by physical necessity but by the industry that profligates suburban and urban boxes as a context for ensuring a passive, isolated consumer - a virtually captive audience.” 21
Matta-Clark defiantly contests of the capitalist society’s notion of urban renewal, replacing older buildings for modern buildings. He defied the culture of consumption and wastage in recycling the lost abandoned consumption
structure. on
the
Gesturing individual,
against
the
especially
it’s
effects
of
controlling
mass and
pacifying psychology. His ethos affirmed that containment induces the deterioration of the quality of social space and therefore the levels of creativity, intervention and of personal appropriation.
11. Passively Active Matta-Clark took a deliberate stance of defiant anti-consumerisation, the only option in challenging this system was to revolt against it, to desecrate and defy in the everyday. He did not attempt to work
21
http://www.fat-cat.co.uk/splitart/split.html Matta-Clark, Gordon Cutting Together: Gordon Matta-Clark
40
within this system to detourn or subvert it (as illustrated with Alys), he acted upon with unconventional methods. Unlike Whiteread, Matta-Clark did not receive a commission to obtain a lease on the property for Splitting , instead without prior permission he worked out of sight in a covert operation. Matta-Clark adopted the Situationist modality of inventive revolutionary, which seeks to emancipate society from the constraints of a totalitarian state. This activity of creatively acting against, is critiqued by de Certeau when he talks of the Greek word metis, translated as ‘ways of operating’. De Certeau notes that metis is tactical in character, everyday ways of operating so as the ‘weak’ can be victorious over the ‘strong’, in using ‘clever tricks’ or ‘hunters cunning’. Stavros Stavrides writes that metis
is
the inventive competence of the everyday individual, of the greek sailor navigating through the open sea. He observes the particular type of intelligence required of metis:
“ This kind of wisdom, multifarious and inventive as the wisdom of an experienced navigator should be, It is not the wisdom of philosophers, but an everyday intelligence, appropriating every means available in order to cope with changeful situations.” 22
He
goes
on
to
describe
that
metis
intelligence
should
be
multifaceted, resourceful and cunning. To be as inventive as the circumstances may demand. 22
De Certeau talks of how consumers
ibid. see Stavros Stavrides
41
use metis in tactical consumption as a means of appropriating the system from within it. What is important for de Certeau differs with Matta-Clark,
on
the
one
hand
Matta-Clark
states
that
the
organisation of society profligates a passive consumer, on the other de Certeau writes that what must be considered is what the consumer makes of what they consume, what they do with it. MattaClark acts against what he believes is the consumer who is purely a receiver , the author of their environment who has been pacified into losing their authorship over it. Whereas de Certeau agues that there is a totalitarian framing of consumption which fails to witness the tactical
and
clandestine
usurpation
which
is
only
called
“consumption”. This is everyday life as practice within which one appropriates their language, reading, cooking, dwelling. De Certeau uses the example of La Perreque an everyday tactic of diversion, the worker’s own work disguised as her/his employers, using the materials or the time at work for ones own means.
An opportunity
for the worker/labourer to usurp the time that has been bought from her/him by the owner of productivity during work time. Matta-Clark's standing on the matter of pacifying consumption varies from de Certeau’s, the critique of the
ordinary person’s active role in
emancipation from the confines of the state/system lie in polarity: the consumer who must become active and the consumer who is already
invisibly active.
Comparably,
42
Matta-Clark
adopts
an
inventive everyday intelligence, being resourceful and clandestine in his approach, one could say that he uses a ‘way of operating’, a metis,
within his practice. Although still remaining ideologically
outside of owner/producer/consumer dynamic to protest against it. Can Metis therefore be applied to the practice of the Neapolitans and
the
homeless
or
are
these
two
examples
housed
within
particular extremities and are not a representative of the ‘ ordinary man’ for whom de Certeau writes?
43
Part Three In Conclusion
44
12. Situating the Individual Through the advent of a society ordered by means of production, the need for rational, efficient and ordered social space arose. This was parallel to the division of social time (which followed the industrial revolution) into designated times for working and recreation (the Marx
model
public/private
of
capitalist
space
is
production).
established
The
through
physical the
divide
defined
of and
demarcated structure of buildings, but this has also partly been effected by the fixed model of time division. The system/state exists in the realms of outside, of public, outside of the home, sanctioned by the order of a political economy governed by capitalism, which infiltrates the private of the home. The domain of the public/private delegates social and personal duties, refereeing ones actions. This is a rational and logical strategy which orders society by means of the employment of personal codes of conduct, in coordinance with the state. The totality of this system actually mutilates the idea of individuality, so how does one situate the individual amongst this dominant order of society? The Neapolitans proved that existing within an economic state of poverty the individual is not denied the inventive and innovative activity of appropriation. They hold up as a model for tactical usurpation which is in defiance of the constructs of society. The homeless also prove by existing without physical home one is not bound only by the constructs of organised living
45
space. Even though their critique - which is arguably unintentional is not framed and therefore not heard by a system that will only listen to a critique that exists within a cultural frame.
These are a
paradoxical mass of individuals, as Benjamin proved, who show ingenious ways of enabling the singular among the many. This renewed status of the individual as tactical operator retrieves the singularity of personal appropriation and as de Certeau notes also into an individual form of tactical consumption.
13. Who’s Choice ? By stipulating one year outdoors, Tehching Hsieh demarcated his own space, he appropriated social space by denying it’s constraints, by negating the
need for one half of the divide (that of the
private/inside). In doing so he proclaimed himself a representative of usurpation, also of intervention but one which was already taking place on a daily basis, that of homelessness. The liberties of having choice to remain homeless for one year ultimately bind the work to the art institution, even though the work challenges it’s constraints. By determining the point of closure, by terminating homelessness at a particular point, Hsieh calls into question the artists role by mimicking a situation that is an actuality for some people. Hsieh’s set of rules may have involved a greater severity than that of a homeless person - to never step foot inside - which invites the
46
reading that Hsieh’s intention was to be
more homeless than
homeless, a position which does not necessarily challenge the art institution
but
rather
champions
it
by
working
with
grandiose
gesture. The point determining artistic practice is the moment at which an individual (or society) chooses to frame their forms of appropriation within the cultural realm. What exists outside of that frame is then perceived within the realms of everyday doing and living. Often individuals are not afforded this choice and this is in itself a product of a delineated system, which those who are provided choice in turn critique. Regardless of the choice their are similar methods of usurpation whether one is an artist or not. What distinguishes artist from everyman is not only framing but the motivational aspects behind them. The derivative of this intent and also it’s framing is the dividing line between the different forms of appropriation even though intentionally or not their result may be the same which is the porosity of social space and social roles.
The appropriation by the
artist should not be viewed in place of the appropriation by others, instead - by taking a situationist perspective - the responsibility lies with
everyone
to
actively
critique
and
appropriate
the
social
dominant order, whether that lies in the tactical diversion of time, in slicing buildings in half, in living without a roof, in wasting time, or in filling-up empty space.
47
Bibliography Primary Books. Benjamin, Walter One Way Street and Other Writings trans. Edmund Jephcott and Kingsley Shorter. (London and New York: Verso 1985) ed. Ben Highmore York: Routledge 2002)
The Everyday Life Reader (London and New
Buck-Morss, Susan The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and The Arcades Project (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: The MIT Press 1991) de Certeau, Michel The Practice of Everyday Life trans. Steven Rendall. (Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press 1984) Freud, Sigmund 14. Art and Literature trans. James Strachey ed. Albert Dickson (London and New York: Penguin Books 1990) ed. James Lingwood Press Ltd. 1995)
Rachel Whiteread: House (London: Phaidon
ed. Keith Tester Routledge 1994)
The
Flaneur
(London
and
New
York:
Marx, Karl Marx: Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy ed. Bottomore and Rubel trans. T. B. Bottomore (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd 1975)
Primary Articles, Journals, Newspapers. Basualdo, Carlos ‘Head to toes’: Francis Alys’s paths of resistence. (artist) Artforum trans. Vincent Martin (Artforum International Magazine, Inc April 1999) Baker, George ‘At the Limits of Sculpture (Object to Be Destroyed: The Work of Gordon Matta-Clarke)’ Art Journal (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press 2000) pp. 99 Feuvre, Le Lisa April 2002) pp. 12-15
‘The W-Hole Story’ Art Monthly (Art Monthly:
48
Gookin, Kirby ‘TEHCHING HSIEH : Jack Tilton / Anna Kustera Gallery’ (Brief Article) Artforum (Artforum International Magazine, Inc: April, 2001) Johnston, Jill ‘Tehching Hsieh: Art’s Willing Captive.’ Art in America (Brant Publications, Inc: Sept 2001) Koplos, Janet ‘Gordon Matta-Clarke at P.S. 1.’ America (Brant Publications, Inc: Jan 1999)
Art in
Mitchel, Dee Charles ‘Francis Alys at Lisson.’ Art in America (Brant Publications, Inc: May 2000) Perchuk, Andrew ‘GORDON MATTA-CLARKE’ (Artforum International Magazine, Inc: Jan 2000)
Artforum
Withers, Rachel ‘Francis International Magazine, Inc: March 2000)
(Artforum
Alys’
Artforum
Primary Internet Sites. http://www.fat-cat.co.uk/splitart/split.html Lee, Pamela M and Fuller, Matthew Cutting Together: Gordon Matta-Clarke http://www.psychogeography.co.uk/v1_n1/navigating_the_metropolitan_space.ht m Stavrides, Stavros ‘Navigating the Metropolitan Space: walking as a form of negotiation with otherness’ Journal of Psychogeographical and Urban Research (Volume 1. Autumn 2001)
http://www.one-year-performance.com/intro.html Shaviro, Steven Performing Life: The Work of Tehching Hsieh
Secondary Books. Auge, Marc Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity (London and New York: Verso 1995) Bachelard, Gaston
The Poetics of Space (Boston: Beacon 1969)
Edited by Bammer, Angelika Displacements: Cultural Identities in Question (Indiana University Press 1994) ed. Claire Doherty Claustrophobia: (Birmingham: Ikon Gallery 1998)
49
The
Ikon
Gallery
ed. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood Art in Theory: 1900 - 1990 An Anthology of Changing Ideas (USA: Blackwell 1993) Caygill, Howard Walter Benjamin: The Colour of Experience (London and New York and Canada: Routledge 1998) Ford, Simon The Realiszation and Suppression of the Situationist International: An Annotated Bibliography 1972 - 1992 (Edinburgh and San Francisco: AK Press 1995) ed. Francis Scarfe Baudelaire trans. Francis Scarfe (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd 1968) ed. Friedrich Meschede Rachel Whiteread: Gouachen Gouaches (Stuttgart, Germany: Cantz Verlag 1993)
Grosz, Elizabeth Architecture from the Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space (USA: The MIT Press 2001) ed. Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Source Book of Artists’ Writings (Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press 1996) Matta-Clarke, Gordon Press 1974)
Splitting (New York: 98 Greene Street Loft
ed. Paul Schimmel Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object 1949 - 1979 (USA: Thames and Hudson 1998) Peto, James Antechamber: (London: Whitechapel Art Gallery 1997) Urry, John Routledge 1995)
Whitechapel
Art
Gallery
Consuming Places (London and New York:
Wolin, Richard Walter Benjamin: Aesthetic of Redemption (Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press 1994)
50
Secondary Internet Sites. http://www2.gasou.edu/facstaff/dougt/goth.html ‘ Freud’s uncanny)’ Glossary of Literary Gothic Terms
Unhiemlich
(the
http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/AHR/archive/Issue-June-2000/indyk.html Indyk, Ivor ‘The Critic and the Public Culture: for example, Walter Benjamin’ Australian Humanities Review The Flanuer http://art. derby.ac.uk/~g.peaker/arcades/Flaneur.html http://www.notbored.org/new-babylon.html Nieuwenhuis, Constant Babylon 1974: A Nomadic Town
New
http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/7 SI 1958 ‘Definitions’ The Situationist International Text Library trans. a.h.s. boy http://www.notbored.org/commentaires.html Debord, Guy
Video Sources. Wright, Elizabeth and Comay, Rebecca and Cioffi, Frank Encountering the Uncanny: Uncanny Conceptions Philosophical Forum (Institute of Contemporary Arts Video) Whiteread, Rachel
House (Artangel Video)
51
52
53
54
