Design Observer :: Join the Discussion http://places.designobserver.com/feature/beyond-zuccotti-park-making-the-public/35658/ en-us Design Observer Group 2012-09-28T01:37:03-05:00 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0
It seems to me the question of what constitutes a contemporary public space is one of context and the ability to understand who you are talking to at what moment and for what purpose and framing this clearly and transparently. With regard to public space in the United States, the laws and constitution and precedent do make distinctions between POPS and public space and the fine line between these types of spaces moves back and forth depending upon the tenor of habitation and occupation. Designers of these spaces do need to be aware and anticipate these differences which are sometimes distinctions of nuance. But conscious and critical designers are not fooled or unaware. A street or park that is publicly owned can always be stretched into the service of discourse far more effectively than a POPS regardless of the flexibility of design or the urgency, by designers or otherwise, of political organizing in a POPS. The lesson seems to be we all have to be involved all the time if we wish to make the best design and the most sustainable future. In this last regard, the statement, "(t)he role of the designer within a Democracy is to earn a financial and symbolic profit from bolstering the differentiated realms of citizen, government and market. It is to ensure that nothing of any lasting significance actually changes", if not completely misunderstanding the impulse of designers, at least is disrespectful of the intelligence and commitment of many architects and designers to "improve" the world in the broadest aesthetic and political sense of the word. In this regard, for me at least, Mr. Hou's arguments seem far more relevant and ultimately constructive in the sense that it provides a path constructive and critical actions by both multitudes and publics.]]> http://places.designobserver.com/feature/beyond-zuccotti-park-making-the-public/35658/#comments 2012-09-28T01:37:03-05:00
The distinction between the multitude and 'the public' isn't mine, its Hardt and Negri's. I was using it as a counter archetype, not as a perfect model. Books like 'Gramsci is Dead' by Richard J.F. Day and particularly 'Direct Action: An Ethnography' by David Graeber, go into great detail about the problematic nature of power that persists within horizontally organising groups. They also elaborate on how the 'cynical, angry anarchist' works as a media stereotype that ignores the plethora of hopeful, empowering, inclusive, and productive work achieved by the diverse kinds of people who identify as anarchists. 'Autonomy, Solidarity, Possibility: The Colin Ward Reader' does a similar thing from a perspective of more direct relevance to designers.

I'm not quite sure how I am a 'privileged outsider' in this context, but I'm pretty sure that putting forward a critique and alternative reading doesn't automatic constitute 'not listening' to another perspective. I'm not saying mine is 'the' definitive reading, I'm suggesting that there are strategic and ideological limitations to using the civil society-government-market place triad.

I agree that Mr Hou was very polite and I was glad to read his response.]]> http://places.designobserver.com/feature/beyond-zuccotti-park-making-the-public/35658/#comments 2012-09-27T04:43:26-05:00 http://places.designobserver.com/feature/beyond-zuccotti-park-making-the-public/35658/#comments 2012-09-27T01:04:08-05:00 http://places.designobserver.com/feature/beyond-zuccotti-park-making-the-public/35658/#comments 2012-09-26T14:19:52-05:00 ]]> http://places.designobserver.com/feature/beyond-zuccotti-park-making-the-public/35658/#comments 2012-09-25T06:31:13-05:00
I also agree with many things you have said, which echo the central argument in Insurgent Public Space—a space that is redefined and produced by individuals and communities rather than hegemonic institutions. But rather than discarding the notion of “public” altogether, I am in favor of reclaiming, re-appropriating, and reinvigorating it. In short, if we accept the co-optation of the notion of public, an important battle may have already been lost.

I find it interesting that your comments here are very similar to the ones I encountered in Stockholm where I gave a talk there earlier this year. The notion of public there also evoked something very different from common reactions in North America. Perhaps we have lost so much (or never quite fully developed and practiced the concept) in North America, or the U.S. in particular, that we find the notion compelling in our current political context.
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By using the category of citizen, which in the writings of Gramsci is held in relative relation to government and marketplace, the author establishes the conditions of his own political failure. The citizen is restricted to its own realm (in theory maybe no, in reality absolutely, both in physical and psychological terms). Its can only act by means of mediated ‘publics’, and is forced to assume the legitimacy of both government and market. Within the logic of ‘the citizen’, public space (which, because of its policing I see as synonymous with state space) becomes a theatre and ‘the public’ a prop for staging a spectacle of ‘people’ power. The real loci of power, including the nexuses of back-room lobbying, normative conditioning, and hegemonic constructions, remains unilluminated.

A ‘public’ is an undifferentiated and controllable mass. They are produced by systems of mass mediation, including TV, radio, microphones, stadiums, advertising, rallies etc that centralise the construction and dispersal of knowledge. The ‘public’ is very much a designed product of hegemony. Examples include presidential campaigns and iPhone releases.

A multitude however is formed by people affiliating in groups that are small and personal, but connected in rhizomic fashion to other groups. At time this can become a huge mesh of affiliated connections. The result is a condition of decentralised but coordinated relations of communities working in the company of people they know and trust. Examples include the shutdown of the WTO meeting in Seattle 1999, and many aspects of the Occupy movement. This is also a designed phenomenon, facilitated by the internet, spokes councils, symbols, and spaces (often composed of dispersed but fluctuating circles of discussion).

Importantly, the specific equipment of publics and multitudes are not mutually exclusive. The internet is also a means of constructing publics, just as public space may be co-opted or reclaimed by communities (made into communal space). However, they do operate according to different logics and relational arrangements. An underlying difference between, say, public space and a communal space is that the arrangement of space by the former is produced by well meaning (but patronising) elites who work at the pleasure of the state-corporate alliance. Communal space, however, is produced through the dialogue and action of smaller groups of people actively seeking to maximise freedoms and access to power, rather than curtail them through ignorance, differentiation, force, or manipulation. To a large extent, the occupation Zuccotti Park and other (semi)public spaces around the world worked despite and against the logic of public space and towards the logic of communal space (e.g. the push to evict based on ‘hygiene’ concerns indicates that the appearance its use conflicted with the normative standard of gentrified, apolitical public space).

It is absolutely true that publics are, in part, a product of public spaces and a vehicle for Democracy. But a Democracy that relies on publics is arguably not very democratic. It survives on the expectation of hegemonic control, alienation from political power (through elected representatives), limiting the (limited) power to vote to realms where ‘public’ knowledge is most dependent (ruling a nation), rather than most direct (workplace democracy), prey on ignorance and selfish individualisation, and are prone to the corruption of media, universities, and other institutions of knowledge control.

Multitudes, however, tend to use direct and/or consensus based democracy as a principle part of everything they do. Political power is held by the individual and is only relaxed on the basis of consent. There is a will and responsibility to understand the diverse implications of an action, including how it will effect people who do not share you’re own experience of the world (other genders, ethnicities, sexualities etc).

The role of the designer within a Democracy is to earn a financial and symbolic profit from bolstering the differentiated realms of citizen, government and market. It is to ensure that nothing of any lasting significance actually changes.

The function of design (dispensing with ‘the’ designer) in a multitude based on affiliated communities, is to assist people in both understanding and directly enacting their responsibilities to themselves and others. Design itself can become something of genuine concern to everyone because it is made concretely accessible to everyone, not just an elite who rule by virtue of their privilege.]]> http://places.designobserver.com/feature/beyond-zuccotti-park-making-the-public/35658/#comments 2012-09-24T22:49:34-05:00