WHAT TO DO: Complaint Chorus

Governors Island period map

Zucotti park eviction

Photos from the zucotti park eviction Nov. 15 -- (Bloomberg v. The people of OWS)

Hi All,

I've just been trying to log into Blackboard unsuccessfully for an hour. It came to my attention that some of the readings are missing from Blackboard - I should say they've disappeared since I personally loaded them! Anyway, as soon as I have access I will post the readings again. Meanwhile, for tomorrow, we're going to continue with the presentations. We'll go back to the OWS presentation and then Keri will present her reflections on fieldwork and finally we'll wrap up with observations on methodology. We'll discuss the schedule of readings and presentations tomorrow. See you all soon!

Best,

Vyjayanthi

‎++//OCCUPY_WALL_STREET_MASH_UP\\++

http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/38922/the-smithsonian-and-new-york-historical-society-race-to-preserve-occupy-wall-streets-art-and-artifacts

politics of air

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/05/world/asia/the-privileges-of-chinas-elite-include-purified-air.html?_r=1&hp

Sophia B Bosselmann -- Easterling quotations

Zoe Rosenberg -- Amazing noticeables

Simone People as Infrastructure

“The individual operations of the drug trade must be integrated in such a way that complicity and cooperation become the prevailing practices. Within each domain, each operator has a specific place and is expected to demonstrate unquestioning loyalty. This is the case even though the illicit nature and practical realities of the trade constantly generate opportunities for participants to seek greater profits and authority outside the syndicate hierarchies.” (Pg. 421)

“Government officials trick citizens with countless pronouncements of progress while finding new and improved ways of shaking them down. Parents trick their children with promises of constant nurturing—if only they would sell themselves here or there, as maids, touts, whores, or guardians. And children trick their parents with promises of support into old age—if only they would sell the land, the house in exchange for fake papers, airline tickets, or a consignment of goods that just fell off the truck.” (Pg. 424)

Gandy Cyborg Urbanization or Rethinking Urbanism

“The cyborg to be a cybernetic creation, a hybrid of machine and organism, then urban infrastructures can be conceptualized as a series of interconnecting life-support systems. The modern home, for example, has become a complex exoskeleton for the human body with its provision of water, warmth, light and other essential needs. The home can be conceived as ‘prosthesis and prophylactic’ in which modernist distinctions between nature and culture, and between the organic and the inorganic, become blurred. And beyond the boundaries of the home itself we find a vast interlinked system of networks, pipes and wires that enable the modern city to function. These interstitial spaces of connectivity within individual buildings extend through urban space to produce a multi-layered structure of extraordinary complexity and utility.” (Pg. 28)

“The evolution of human-technological systems is a reflexive process in which the shaping of space begins to reflect modern aspirations for mobility, privacy, salubrity and other characteristic features of the emerging cyborg city” (Pg. 38)

“Urban infrastructures are not only material manifestations of political power but they are also systems of representation that lend urban space its cultural meaning. We can conceive of urban infrastructures as modes of cognition as well as processes underpinning the restructuring of urban space. The development of the cyborg metaphor has coincided with the re-emergence of urban infrastructure as a discursive field permeated by crisis, uncertainty and political contestation.” (Pg. 39)

Varnelis Los Angeles, Infrastructural City

"Braham divided Los Angeles into four ecologies, each with its own flora and fauna. Three of these were distinctly geographical: Sufurbia encompassed the beach communities and was where the laid back life ruled the residents and their architecture; the Foothills were dominated by privileged communities such as Bel Air or the Hollywood Hills; the Plains of Id consisted of the vast stretches of the city that were pure products of Non-Plan, a landscape of exuberant self-expression coupled with cheerful banality. Tying these geographic zones together was the fourth ecology, Autopia, the freeways. These vast concrete bands were the final great infrastructure that gave shape to the city, the last and most audacious effort to implement the plan and the very thing that ultimately killed it by producing massive homeowner backlash.” (Pg. 13)

Easterling El Ejido

“A concentration of workers in a vast agricultural factory is capable of resisting. Housing has also been a classic means of enfranchising the worker. Principled protest and political activism call for the alteration of laws and for the adherence to labor and human rights standards… the worker is not organized, but organized against. The concentration of workers in the fields is a kind of containment.” (Pg. 49)

Rao How to Read a Bomb

“Using the very connectivity afforded by the infrastructural network itself—the underlying systemic bases that form the con- ditions of possibility of modern urban planning and indeed contemporary urban life — the coordinated, simultaneous attack turns connectivity into collapse.” (Pg. 572)

“This manner of bombing, which is becoming increasingly prevalent, dispenses with the locality altogether by using the connectivity afforded by networked infrastructure to create a unified target.” (Pg. 582)

Weizman The Politics of Verticality

“Scores of scattered buildings and small villages were not named or erased from the maps, thus never recognized as settlements or local authorities, and were therefore never serviced by basic infrastructure, nor taken into consideration within any master plan.” (Pg. 2)

“Traditional international borders are political tools dividing the land on plans and maps; their geometric form, following principles of property laws, could be described as vertical planes extending from the center of the earth to the height of the sky. The departure from a planar division of a territory to the creation of three-dimensional boundaries across sovereign bulks defines anew the relationship between sovereignty and space.” (Pg. 5)

“Sewage is used as a political weapon when dislocated from the under to the over ground. When shit invisibly occupies a position underground it is merely sewage – running through a technically complex system of public plumbing. But let it only break loose over the surface and sewage becomes shit again. The latitudinal co-ordinates affirm the nature of the substance. When sewage overflows and private shit, from under the ground, invades the public realm of the street, it becomes simultaneously a private hazard and a public asset – to be used as a tool at the hand of the authorities.” (Pg. 6)

Questions Regarding Simone's Text

Simone's text articulates how cultures of risk and speculation in post-industrial capitalism inform the infrastructural development of global cities and how these developments influence networks of people within such cities. What implications do these ideas of speculation, temporariness and uncertainty have when thinking about social identity/social categories? Historically useful, primary markers of identity and allegiance are becoming less tangible. What kinds of questions should we be asking to account for these new uncertainties?

Discussion questions for Graham’s “The City Economy”

1. What are the two concerns that Graham begins the article with?

2. What are the relationships between the global and the local that are pointed to within these two concerns? What are the tensions?

3. What is the localization vs. globalization debate? How does it shape our understanding of cities?

4. What impact do concepts and analytical approaches regarding globalization or localization have on concrete city economies? What is Graham’s critique of these analytical approaches?

5. What is the role of institutions that Graham points to?

Quote out of Gandy's "cyborg urbanization" piece:

"The very idea of the network is trapped within an epistemological myopia that privileges issues of quantification and scale over the everyday practices that actually enable our analysis to function. An emphasis on cyborg urbanization extends our analysis of flows, structures, and relations beyond so called 'global cities' to a diversity of ordinary or neglected urban spaces. The cyborg city is, in other words, closer to an interpretative analytical framework that can connect analysis with the cultural and ideological realm of everyday lief and include those 'unconventional' urban landscapes that have emerged outside the core metropolitan regions of the world economy and where incongruities and displacements are an even more pervasive feature of the urban experience" (pg 36)

Hi all,

See link for guest blog entries about OWS for MADRE by yours truly.

Potentially Bad Weather

(WATCH FIRST READ AFTER)

This video exploration deals with issues of clarity, program, and the unknown. Footage used in this piece was taken from three tours of Zucotti park, two during the day and one at night. This work also relates a systemic global network (possessing an unifying "unknown") to an intricate biological system. (in the sense that it is a dense network of cells/ organisms) all operating on individual or local leves but serving a greater purpose unknown.

Fog, a reoccurring image in this work, obscures clarity. The unknowns of both financial mechanisms and the OWS program is made muddy by "bad weather".

We have to see "bad weather" as among the most uncontrollable things; However, as something that is systemically connected to us. All things are. We can't control the weather, but it can completely ruin our day. We can mitigate it with lawyers or raincoats but there is nothing we can do about It's presence.

O.

3 pages 1 ½ space

Due next Thursday October 27, 2011

Methods of observation

What we are observing

How are placement changes our methodology?

Experience of doing fieldwork:

How your participation changes the evidence that you gather

How the evidence you gather informs your research question.

The Wide Spread Craze thats Sweeping the Nation...

(Click on the picture to be catapulted in to the wild world of saucy wonder)

"These ain't your grandma's sauces!"™ "Just dip the rag in the sauce, suck it and dip it again."™

ConEdSANTO© 2113

Coming Weeks II

Hi All,

First of all, I hope to see all of you in class tomorrow for the Mumbai film. For many of you who have missed 3 or more classes, missing these sessions will be cause of a warning from the Advising Office. So don't blow it off just because it is a film. We will also have time to discuss how fieldwork is going and touch base on any other issues that are bothering you all. Below is the updated discussant schedule with dates:

Any questions? Feel free to email me,

Vyjayanthi

1. Simone Discussion - Oscar (October 25th)

2. Varnelis Discussion - Marissa (October 25th)

3. Matthew Gandy - Cyborg Urbanization Discussion - no discussant

4. Keller Easterling + Simone Discussion - Sophia (October 25th)

5. Gandy - Rethinking Urban Metabolism - Elyse (October 25th)

6. Weizman and Rao - Norhan (October 27th)

7. Simone City Life - Elias (November 1st)

8. Graham - The City Economy - Carolina (November 1st)

9. Wilson - Bangkok - Marissa (November 3rd)

& Nainan on Mumbai - Keri (November 3rd)

10. Neuwirth, Davis and Perleman - Norhan and Zoe (November 15th)

11. Ghanam on Cairo - Dimitry (November 29th)

12. Appadurai and Bayat - Elias and Sophia (December 1st)

13. Hansen and Verkaaik - Caitlyn (December 6th)

14. Balibar, Graham and Smith - Arkady and Daniella (December 8th)

Does validation from the liberal establishment nullify the aims of these protests?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/us/politics/wall-street-protests-gain-support-from-leading-democrats.html?_r=2&hp
For those interested in the Occupy Wall St agenda(s), this question might be important. It seems like there is a danger that some of the critical messages of the protest might be co-opted and caught in the tides of populist jargon. It seems as though the major objective for protesters is not to advocate for the extension of Dodd-Frank legislation but to inspire far more radical criticisms of our social, political and economic landscape. I'm curious.

Coming Weeks

Dear All,

Below is a schedule of Discussants (beginning with Johannesburg - before that we had Marissa and Carolina leading discussions - check for your discussion session). We have two sessions without discussants. I'd like one of you to sign up for those. This week on Oct 11th (tomorrow), let us recap the discussions of Johannesburg (Caitlyn) and Graham (Elyse). On the 13th, we should meet in the Sheila Johnson Gallery (2 W. 13th Street) and listen to Victoria Marshall and Brian McGrath on mega-cities and climate change - this is a very very important emerging field so it would be good to incorporate this in our discussions. On 18th and 20th we have films scheduled and on the 25th and the 27th we have 2 more discussion sessions - for those sessions, we will combine the following:

October 25th: Varnelis, the two Gandy pieces, Keller Easterling and the first Simone piece (people as infrastructure - the second Simone piece will be a recommended reading) & Oct 27: Weizman and Rao

November 1 and 3 will be as per the syllabus. November 8 and 10 - presentations. A separate note on Fieldwork and other assignments.

Assignment #2: Turn it in anytime in the next two weeks (last date - October 18th).

Fieldwork - You should be prepared for a brief discussion tomorrow (October 11) on your fieldwork - field sites and methodology. So far I have the following groups:

1. East River Fishing/Bronx - Elias and Daniella

2. Urban Farms - Caitlyn, Marissa and ???

3. Occupy Wall Street - Oscar, Norhan and Carolina

4. Keri - The Scrapyard

5. Arkady - The Hole?

6. Sophia, Elyse, Zoe and Dimitry - I do no have you down for anything (Sophia and Zoe, if I missed you in class apologies, just let me know tomorrow what your project is).

We'll recap on the fieldwork project tomorrow. We've had a lot of discussion on what is infrastructure etc. Now its time to go out and do the research. Remember you have roughly 4 weeks left for your presentations.

Best,

Vyjayanthi

Discussant Lists:

1. Johannesburg discussion - Caitlyn

2. Graham, Disrupted Cities Discussion - Elyse

3. Simone Discussion - Oscar

4. Varnelis Discussion - Marissa

5. Matthew Gandy - Cyborg Urbanization Discussion - no discussant

6. Keller Easterling + Simone Discussion - Sophia

7. Gandy - Rethinking Urban Metabolism - Elyse

8. Weizman and Rao - Norhan

9. Simone City Life - Elias

10. Graham - The City Economy - Carolina

11. Wilson - Bangkok - Marissa

& Nainan on Mumbai - Keri

12. Neuwirth, Davis and Perleman - Norhan and Zoe

13. Ghanam on Cairo - no discussant

14. Appadurai and Bayat - Elias and Sophia

15. Hansen and Verkaaik - no discussant

16. Balibar, Graham and Smith - Arkady and Daniella

The hole

The hole the movie

Occupy Wall Street

Hi All,

My first post! Very exciting indeed. It was nice to see some of you on the walk down to Foley Square. Looking forward to continuing the discussion in class about infrastructure.

Best,

Vyjayanthi

The imagined city

Copy and paste Link (http://blackboard.newschool.edu/bbcswebdav/courses/ULEC.2620.A.Fa11.)