Thursday, July 29, 2010

Re: [Yasmin_discussions] hybrid city as interface

Dear all

Very interesting points have been made in the discussion so far
and also a lot of worth mentioning links are enriching it.

I would like to expand a bit on Dimitris Papalexopoulos' email and his
phrase
regarding the passage from the public to the common. I find this point very
important - great bringing it up!

Some more food for thought:
Metropolis as the very "factory of the common" is one of the most important
chapters
according to my opinion of the latest book of Hardt and Negri, "Common
Wealth".

Describing the shift from the industrial to the biopolitical metropolis they
write:
"the city is not just a built environment consisting of buildings and
streets and subways and parks
and waste systems and communications cables but also a living dynamic of
cultural practices,
intellectual circuits, affective networks and social institutions. These
elements of the common
contained in the city are not only the prerequisite for biopolitical
production but also its result;
the city is the source of the common and the receptacle into which it
flows."
and also
"the politics of metropolis is the organisation of encounters. Its task is
to promote joyful encounters,
make them repeat and minimise infelicitous encounters"..

Possibly many of the yasminers must have read the book already.

Of course Negri and Hardt do not refer directly to our "hybrid city" points.
But as with their previous works, they do provide a
theoretical/philosophical context within which
different aspects of our contemporary society could be examined and
interpreted.
Practices and tactics of mapping, of creating and modifying our own city are
part of today's urban commons.
As are our disposal & interest for such processes, or our encounters and
daily interactions.
The space defined as "public" in a city becomes "common" through the
contemporary interfaces and our interventions.
The hybrid city tools and applications that we are critically discussing in
this list do offer access
to the formation and use of those commons. But while the power of
contribution lies to the hands of
their users/ participants, the ambiguous right of expropriation is also
present...


best regards
Daphne
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