Wednesday 29 February 2012

The Lickless Dérive


Almost opposite Lickless Drive (off Low Lane in Horsforth, Leeds) there is a metal gate with large boulders in front of it, deterring any entry by car. If you pass through the partly-open gate and walk a few yards down the slope, this is what you'll find:


This liminal place looks like it is waiting for something to happen. The potential happening might be connected to the proposed Woodside Train Station which is meant to be located at nearby Woodside Quarry (although development seems to be on hold at the moment). In the meantime it is an interesting space with parts of buildings still remaining:


...and, the compulsory graffiti, some of which looks quite old, as even parts of the bricks have fallen off in places, the graffiti clearly pre-dating this.


This area is huge and is easy to see on google earth. I'm wondering if maybe these were industrial buildings of some sort, and were never actually homes. But it's hard to tell. This area, to the East of Low Lane, does have a lot of industrial-type buildings still, with a mill just up the road, now turned into offices. It's difficult to work out what this building originally was, as I was standing at the roof level of it.


I like the image below. The three broken walls echo the slope of the land behind them. It's interesting to see that the broken edges of the wall have been filled over with concrete.


This is what the OED says about the word 'liminal':
a.gen. Of or pertaining to the threshold or initial stage of a process. rare.
b.spec. in Psychol. Of or pertaining to a ‘limen’ or ‘threshold’.
Cultural Anthropol. Of, relating to, or characterized by liminality.
1967 V. W. Turner Forest of Symbols iii. 77 The liminal condition between two periods of active social life.

Saturday 25 February 2012

St George's Field: Traversing Transversality


Gary Genosko describes Guattari's transversality as “the tool used to open hitherto closed logics and hierarchies.” (2008: 54) In a section of his book Félix Guattari: An Abberrant Introduction entitled 'Extension', Genosko discusses urban space and walking. He explains that a “transversal territory” which operates within unconventional power structures “is the site of pure potentiality and marked by such valorized terms as 'transgress' – 'deviate' – 'defy' – 'cut across' – 'disorganize' – 'smooth space'.” (Genosko 2002: 57) He says that this mode of operating in space provides an alternative form of articulation, providing one with a different self to that which is expected by the dominant powers in the capitalistic city. (2002: 58)

The act of traversing is a good example of a physical act of transversality. In mountaineering, traversing is the term used to describe how one moves sideways across a rock face, as can be seen below. This photo - taken in 2011 with a Diana F+ - shows a student who is traversing the old wall of the cemetery which now forms part of the base of the Henry Price Halls of Residence on the northern border of the University of Leeds cemetery St George's Field. This wall is located under the Henry Price building and the beams of the building can be seen in the top of the images. It is made from the original bricks of the cemetery wall and follows the original line.


Traverse is described in the Oxford English Dictionary as: "to pass or journey across, over, or through; to pass through (a region) from side to side, or from end to end". However it is further described as a type of writing: "To trace [...] continuously without lifting the pen or pencil", as a way of negotiation life: "To 'go through' life (life, time or anything figured as extended space or region)" and a form of reading: "to read through or consider thoroughly". This act of traversing in the cemetery also satisfies Genosko's list of verbs above in cutting across and deviating from the usual paths through the space. It is also an act of defiance and while the notices on the outside of the cemetery only forbid ball games, it is possible that traversing may be considered a transgressive act also. While the traversing student may not intentionally be acting defiantly, he does challenge the use of the space and also provides a new route that is inspired by his own subjective desire to respond to the environment in an unconventional way: "Transversality in the group is a dimension opposite and complementary to the structures that generate pyramidal hierarchization and sterile ways of transmitting messages." (1984: 22)

For Guattari it is desire that enables creativity to be expressed and challenges the accepted, and dominant, logic of a given situation. Desire is the productive, and constructive, force of life: "I propose to denominate as desire all forms of the will to live, the will to create, the will to love, the will to invent another society, another perception of the world, and another value system." (Guattari 2008: 318) To the student it might not be apparent they are crawling along the walls of the old cemetery, merely the wall of a modern building. Nevertheless, the very act itself questions both the permissions and power attached to allowing, and preventing, certain behaviours in particular places, and also the underlying logos of the space in the sense that individuals have certain 'common sense' actions expected of them.

Desire finds a route via transversality, allowing it to be released from overriding social forms that attempt to regulate the subjectivity of the individual.

Links:
St George's Field Fallow Again: A Schizocartography
The Psychogeography of Other Spaces

References:
Genosko, Gary. 2002. Félix Guattari: An Aberrant Introduction (London and New York: Continuum).
Genosko, Gary. 2008. 'The Life and Work of Félix Guattari', The Three Ecologies, trans. by Ian Pinder and Paul Sutton (London and New York: Continuum) pp. 46-78.
Guattari, Félix. 1984. Molecular Revolution: Psychiatry and Politics, trans. by Rosemary Sheed (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books).
Guattari, Félix and Suely Rolnik. 2008. Molecular Revolution in Brazil, trans. by Karel Clapshow and Brian Holmes (Cambridge, Mass and London: The MIT Press).

Sunday 5 February 2012

Using Psychogeography to Discover the Hidden Consequences of Social Reproduction


In the opening to her essay on the regeneration project at Grand Central Station in New York during the 1990s, Cindi Katz states: "The hidden city is itself an outcome and a representation of what might be understood as 'postmodern geographical praxis', but so too is the project of its unhiding." (2001: 93) Commenting on the complexity of heteretopic spaces, and their implicit heterogeneity, she discusses the partitioning of space through "domination and privilege". (2001: 94) This is done by looking at particular neighbourhoods, the relationship 'the other' has with specific spaces, and the process of hiding (in public policy) and unhiding (in this case a deconstructive form of revealing produced by her own critique). Katz states: "it is clear that the spatial forms associated with increasingly globalized capitalist production are indeed masterful at hiding the consequences and contradictions of the associated social relations associated with it." ( 2001: 96) Comparisons can be made between postmodern geographical praxis and psychogeography in the way that "Psychogeography comprehen[ds] buildings through their use, their history, and their collective and associative generation of meaning and mood". (Sadler 2001: 160)


Katz explains how the process of privatizing space is at the heart of the neoliberalist project such that this raises important issues in relation to place and meaning. This is also remarked upon by Michel Foucault. When commenting on the "human site" he says that it is a function of our times that a certain type of knowledge is required when examining space, such that "knowing what relations of propinquity, what type of storage, circulation, marking, and classification of human elements should be adopted in a given situation in order to achieve a given end." (2001: 238) This becomes pertinent when applied to the process of capital accumulation inasmuch as when the "given end" is the project of acquiring space, then a knowledge of how processes such as "circulation" and "marking" operate become useful in altering the appearance of spaces such that they manifest in a new way, occluding their socio-historical origins. Guy Debord also remarks on aesthetics and urban semiotics in a similar way to both Katz and Foucault. He states: "What is false creates taste, and reinforces itself by knowingly eliminating any possible reference to the authentic." (1998: 50) He explains that "Today [...] the tendency to replace the real with the artificial is ubiquitous [...] Everything will be more beautiful than before, for the tourists' cameras." (1998: 51) In Katz's case study, removing the signs of homelessness was one of the priorities of the Grand Central Partnership. Postmodern geographical praxis is what is employed to reveal these types of heterotopic inconsistencies.


Links:


The North/South Divide: Spaces of Illusion and Compensation in Leeds
Cindi Katz
Grand Central Terminal

References:
Debord, Guy. 1998. Comments on the Society of the Spectacle (London and New York: Verso).
Foucault, Michel. 2001. 'Of Other Spaces', The Visual Culture Reader, ed. by Nicholas Mirzooeff (London and New York: Routledge). pp. 237-244.
Katz, Cindi. 2001. ''Hiding the Target: Social Reproduction in the Privatized Urban Environment'', Postmodern Geography: Theory and Praxis, ed. by Claudio Minca (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers). pp. 93-110.
Sadler, Simon. 2001. The Situationist City (Cambridge: The MIT Press).

Thursday 2 February 2012

The North/South Divide: Heterotopias of Illusion and Compensation in Leeds


Last week I was fortunate enough to be interviewed for an upcoming BBC Radio 4 programme on the North/South divide. So, on Thursday 26th of February the radio producer Mary Ward-Lowery and the insomniac writer-psychogeographer Ian Marchant came 'ooop norfff' to walk and talk with me in Leeds.

After researching Danny Dorling's work in this area, where the above map comes from, I decided to take them on a walk that looks at the north/south enclaves within these areas. For instance, a north/south divide actually within the north. I chose the border of Holbeck Urban Village and Holbeck 'proper'.

While I didn't take any photos on the walk, it is an area I have spent much time in before, so all the photos in this blog are of Holbeck in Leeds. The first photo below is from the, now, 'trendy' urban village, emerging as a post-yuppy space with modern flats for 'young professionals' and new-media companies. The other image is taken in the 'old' Holbeck itself, the streets where the people live while the redbrick terraces are being pulled down around them.


On the walk I decided to compare these adjacent areas with the similar, but much larger project at the Isle of Dogs in London, Canary Wharf. This area in Leeds does include Granary Wharf, so it's not that much of a stretch. London has its One Canada Square and we have our Bridgewater Place.

While I have lots to say about these postmodern urban village projects and how they effect the local community, what I would like to do is comment on this situation from the perspective of Michel Foucault and Cindi Katz. I won't include my deconstructive comments on borders and space that were part of the interview, as I think they could be included in the radio show, but will add to the border dichotomy by including some work I have done on space in the last week since the radio interview.


Katz explains how the process of privatizing space is at the heart of the neoliberalist project such that this raises important issues in relation to place and meaning. This is also remarked upon by Foucault. When commenting on the "human site" he says that it is a function of our times that a certain type of knowledge is required when examining space, such that "knowing what relations of propinquity, what type of storage, circulation, marking, and classification of human elements should be adopted in a given situation in order to achieve a given end." (2001: 238) This becomes pertinent when applied to the process of capital accumulation inasmuch as when the "given end" is the project of acquiring space, then a knowledge of how processes such as "circulation" and "marking" operate become useful in altering the appearance of spaces such that they manifest in a new way, occluding their socio-historical origins.


As Katz explains, this appears in the form of a "visible monumentality [that] is built on rendering invisible those who are on the losing end of the great and growing divide between rich and poor". (2001: 103) Foucault touches upon these binary states as they relate to heterotopias. He discusses how, in a deconstructive way, the act of creating a space forms partitions that define both sides of these boundaries: for example, defining an illusory space will reaffirm a real space, and, he continues: "Or [...] creat[ing] a space that is other, another real space, as perfect, as meticulous, as well arranged as ours is messy, ill constructed, and jumbled." (2001: 243) Foucault describes these two types of spaces as heterotopias of "illusion" (the former) and "compensation" (the latter). (ibid.) Which become particularly relevant in regards to the regeneration project in Holbeck.


Katz uses terms such as "reordering", "regulation" and "sanitation" when discussing the rhetoric attached to these projects. (2001: 102) She explains that this compensatory function has the effect of organising space and the lived experience, such that it fits into a specific agenda. (ibid.) The colonially occupied space of Holbeck is becoming a heterotopia of compensation, in the process of being marked by its new occupiers.

Links:
Spitfires on the Line
The North South Divide - Where is the Line?

References:
Foucault, Michel. 2001. 'Of Other Spaces', The Visual Culture Reader, ed. by Nicholas Mirzooeff (London and New York: Routledge). pp. 237-244.
Katz, Cindi. 2001. ''Hiding the Target: Social Reproduction in the Privatized Urban Environment'', Postmodern Geography: Theory and Praxis, ed. by Claudio Minca (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers). pp. 93-110.