In the first Logistics and Opposition, Alberto Toscano examines the anti-urbanist presuppositions of insurrectionary anarchism.

“For my purposes however, what is paramount is what this logistical view of post-Fordism tells us about the character of antagonism, and specifically of class struggle. Narcissistically mesmerised by hackers, interns and precarious academics, radical theorists of post-Fordism have ignored what Bologna calls ‘the multitude of globalisation’, that is all of those who work across the supply chain, in the manual and intellectual labour that makes highly complex integrated transnational systems of warehousing, transport and control possible. In this ‘second geography’ of logistical spaces, we also encounter the greatest ‘criticality’ of the system – though not, as in the proclamations of The Coming Insurrection , in the isolated and ephemeral act of sabotage, but in a working class which retains the residual power of interrupting the productive cycle – a power that offshoring, outsourcing, and downsising has in many respects stripped from the majority of ‘productive’ workers themselves.”

Further he argues that the inherent urban character of logistics as a mode of production suggests that anti-urbanist visions of post revolutionary space/time are in fact counter-productive. Drawing from a 2010 essay by Mike Davis, Toscano believes that our utopian future perhaps lies in cities themselves.

In the second What the RFID is That?, Brian Ashton zooms in on the microscopic technologies surveilling and shaping working lives. Although scientific management was a product of the late 19th century Ashton contends that contemporary capital’s ability to gather, archive and correlate information on the worker/consumer is simply the logical extension of that old idea. Whether at the human scale a la RFID chips, employer provided workplace badges, drug test, computer monitoring or at the larger scale a la Echelon or other government projects for data-mining all he concludes:

“As the welfare state model of social control is being dismantled, the need for other forms of control increases. The hegemonic structures are there to encourage us to interiorise the control mechanisms – the prison, the factory, the asylum and the school, for example. As sketched out in this article, capital and the state are using technologies like GPS and RFID to back up the already existing mechanisms of control”

Finally, in the third Anxious Resilience, Mark Neocleous explores how the neoliberal state’s production of generalised anxiety…produces subjects that fit perfectly with the needs of capital. Provactively, Mark wonders:

“I want to suggest that the management of anxiety has become a way of mediating the demands of security. It has done so within a broader logic of endless war. We have been told time and again that the War on Terror is a war like no other: this is a war without end, a permanent state of emergency, a peace which is also war. Because of this, the ideas of war and peace have been increasingly subsumed under the logic of police and security. Might we not think of the age of anxiety as a form of police power deployed for the security crisis of endless war?“

Even more interesting he goes on to make the arguement that the spread of the concept of resilience or  resiliency is “Central to this process“. Implying then that all the talk amongst design professionals in recent years of the need for resilient urbanism et al., may perhaps be a less progressive (politically at least) notion than as generally articulated.

Siné Mensuel: Is utopianism still on the agenda?

Raoul Vaneigem: Utopianism? From now on, that’s the hell of the past. We
have always been constrained to live in a place that is everywhere but,
in that place, we are nowhere. That’s the reality of our exile. It has
been imposed on us for thousands of years by an economy founded on the
exploitation of man by man.

Via Bruce Sterling (here)

Originally published in Building Design, 24 November 2011 as part of Owen Hatherly’s Urban Trawl: The City re-posted at Urban Trawl (here)

“Jefferson County made a very different decision than Rhode Island did,” Mr. Klee said. “Rhode Island put bondholders ahead of its citizens, and Jefferson County is not going to do that.”

He called the notion that a full faith and credit pledge was inviolate, and that a debtor must honor it even in bankruptcy, “a myth and a scare tactic.”

Via the NYT (here)

Good for them I say. Seems as if Jefferson County administrators/staff have their priorities weighted correctly. However, it does make one wonder what would happen if other municipalities or government bond issuers, took this approach? Might have some very serious long term consequences both in terms of restricting local government(s) in future efforts to raise money by issuing bonds and also in terms of bond markets and the stability of the larger financial system as a whole.

In terms of hip hop I listened/reflected alot on the following artists/records: Stankonia a classic that i listened to in my car for a good bit on CD and the hard-hitting (politically and lyrically) PL3DGE by fellow Atlantan Killer Mike. Also: Feast or Famine by Davinci (shout out East Bay!) a great set of tracks to run to, LIVELOVEA$AP by A$AP Rocky, Under the Influence by Domo Genesis (the only OFWGKTA affiliated release I have been able to get down to) and then Illusions of Grandeur my favorite (to-date) mix-tape from based God, Lil B, he of prolific releases.

While DaVinci’s work takes a more classicist, Bay area approach, it is a refreshingly distinct and just banging. Meanwhile the other three artists are united by an expansive (sonically) sense of what hip-hop can be. As well as being youthful in terms of energy, sense of boundaries and sub-genre mixing.This is particularly showcased by the fact that two of the three are at least partially “known” for rapping over the production work of Clams Casino. Whose Instrumentals record is a classic of crisp, icy yet synthy and lush, sample(ed) beats. A must own if/when back in stock on wax. And a solid album of the year in it’s own right.

Of course the penultimate hip-hop record of my year, that was a smash critical, artistic and I hope commercial success, featured the re-emergence of Ishmael Butler aka ‘Butterfly’ of Digable Planets fame, in the full length Black Up as Shabazz Palaces. Sub Pop records also put the whole album up as a streamable Youtube video (see below). Apparently they do that for many of their artists. Which in terms of the whole digital-music question, I mention only because I ended up buying the wax LP anyways and the move endeared them to me as it was an easy way for me to listen to the record now matter where I was.

In terms of rock n roll, as mentioned it wasn’t a strong year at least for new releases, yet still I had a few loves. None released, but all purchased, this year. The first being the excellent R.E.M. compilation And I Feel Fine: The Best of the IRS Years 1982-1987. Additionally, two oldies one on wax the other on CD, highlighted the excellent North West Coast doom/grunge rock scene of the 1990s. First the Screaming Trees Change Has Come EP on wax. Followed by Earth (the band) ‘s,  A Bureaucratic Desire For Extra-Capsular Extraction. Both interestingly enough have a song which features guest vocals by Kurt Cobain. Finally, although I didn’t listen to the album all that much, I was continuously intrigued (conceptually) by Celestial_Lineage from Wolves in the Throne Room. Especially after listening to a radio interview with one half of the band which discussed among other things: Shamanic blast beats, the Pacific Northwest, and taking responsibility for wildness.

My most anticipated future concert is now, the one assumes, inevitable Sonic Youth re-union tour. They never made it close enough to Gainesville for me to catch them, since I became a fan but whenever they (hopefully) do a reunion tour, it will, if it follows the standard model reach a large enough audience with enough regional stops to allow me to see them, finally. Or maybe I will by then be living in a major market. Either way the expected (?? and not yet confirmed) breakup of indie rock’s, Adam and Eve, uber art couple must be noted.

The local show/group that got me most excited was seeing the first official show of The Tricycle Chiefs, in the Bocamino Backyard. Partially because Gainesville’s local music scene has always faced a dearth of good hip-hop/rap artists. I am planning to try and make it to the upcoming second show on Jan 5th despite the fact it is on a Thursday. The music is good, so are the lyrics, plus I know two of them.

Of course I couldn’t write about popular music in 2011 without mentioning the perverse R&B of The Weeknd‘s, Abel Tesfaye. All three of the mixtapes put out under The Weeknd name were centers of discourse and the manner in which Tesfaye has managed his/the groups mystery/image is noteworthy. Chiefly due to the fact that while he has recently announced plans to re-release official (for pay) mastered versions, all the music is for now available free of charge. The music speaks for itself; dark and smooth, twisted and icy, retromania at its best but also so contemporary. The first of the trilogy House of Balloons is generally the more critically acclaimed and of the three was the one I listened to most (generally while working late or on a weekend) at my desk (an odd choice it may seem). However, the second and third are I think, to be more admired. The second for it’s even darker, post-party atmosphere and the third for it’s introduction a level of self-doubt along with the self-assurance and hedonism. As the Pitchfork review writes it “exudes a brazen, animalistic confidence…It’s a chillingly cyclical picture of decay and self-immolation marking the Weeknd’s greatest triumph“. Each of the albums grow in terms of self awareness, depth, production and vocal artistry.

Finally, I will end with a list of a few other albums which featured heavily on my Grooveshark play list this year. Some were old and just now discovered because of some mood or aesthetic appeal and others, new music which I haven’t purchased yet.

At least two of the records Avey Tare’s Down There and Forest Swords Dagger+Paths I  loved for their swampy, echo laden or otherwise hauntological aesthetic. Both were very percussive without being “beat music” per se. Kuedo’s Severant was similarly beat music without the traditional techno/beat sound. Instead the music sounded as many have pointed out, like a sonic future imagined in the 80s. Blade Runner meets grime maybe?

Last but not least the lone “African” or “world” music album of my last year was Group Doueh‘s, Guitar Music From the Western Sahara. A excellent example of dusty, rock n roll from the Western Sahara. In the vein of other Saharan desert blues artists like Tinariwen and Group Inerane.

He said that between 100 million and 500 million trees were lost. That figure does not include trees killed in wildfires that have scorched an estimated 4 million acres in Texas since the beginning of 2011.

As Bruce Sterling noted “These guys who burble stuff like “Mother Nature is amazingly resilient” are part of the problem. Mother Nature wasn’t resilient enough to defend her trees from this climate crisis.” When you talk of landscape scale changes of this magnitude, it seems as if articulating any response becomes difficult. Certainly any sort of designed intervention. What would one propose in response? I would suggest that we should explore the possibilities of post-successionary landscapes, considering that a generation has been removed from the local ecological. Are sequential, ecological processes of the sort suggested by the term successionary able to address problems of this magnitude quickly or effectively enough? What is the time scale for an appropriate response?

Finally, a note on resilience. In contrast to Bruce’s comment re: climate change and ecological resilience, I will note that that Texas Forest Service Sustainable Forestry chief, Burl Carraway is quoted in the above linked article, as suggesting that the problem doesn’t require a (human designed) response. Carraway in fact argues that what Mother Nature has damaged, Mother Nature can repair. Though his line of reasoning isn’t all that reassuring as it is predicated on an assumption, which may be proved false, “Assuming the rainfall levels get back to normal“…..

Ffffing crazy… and I can only imagine the rush.

Via Janchip

a recent artwork as garden titled Who to Believe? designed and assembled by Francois Abelanet. Courtesy of Flickr user groume

This concept of a unique, privileged vantage point provides the basis for Abelanet’s garden. But unlike Le Notre’s work, it discloses a world which is not predictable and logical, or under our control, but topsy-turvy and unpredictable. In essence, he has combined the techniques of Le Notre with an approach to representation normally found only in painting.

More at ARTiculations by Henry Adams

More on how an unlikely mix of media attention and marketing exploitation threatens to polarize an otherwise apolitical practice (urban exploration) in an op-ed by Bradley L. Garrett over at at DOMUS.

the Factoría Joven phot by Iwan Baan

Pedro Gadanho architect and writer, reviewed a playground project by Spanish practice Selgascano. Gadanho compares the project to Rafael Moneo’s Museum of Roman Art which opened in the same town 25 years earlier. The comparison is clarifying. He notes that the musuem “was made for tourists and visitors, offering ruins to interpretation in an adequately contextual environment; theFactoría Joven caters for local, disenchanted populations in the semi-industrial periferia, in an effort to prevent the city’s desertification. Rafael Moneo aspired to perpetuity, and dialogued with ancient, enduring construction techniques; José Selgas and Lucía Cano are interested in ordinariness, and engage with a built landscape that is determined by low-budget, off-the-shelf materials and practices like graffiti, skating, cycling or wall climbing.“

Carlo Ratti, Paola Antonelli, Adam Bly, Lucas Dietrich, Joseph Grima, Dan Hill, John Habraken, Alex Haw, John Maeda, Nicholas Negroponte, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Carlo Ratti, Casey Reas, Marco Santambrogio, Mark Shepard, Chiara Somajni and Bruce Sterling contributed to -a 21st-century manifesto of sorts-on the theme of open source architecture.

Domus also published multiple essays on the various spatio-political occupation and encampment movements that made the news this year. First Andrés Jaque on the indignados protests in Spain, then Joshua Simon on the tent republics of Tel Aviv and then greater Israel and finally Chris Cobb on Occupy Wall Street. All authors explore the protocols, strategies and meanings of these various efforts in relation towards the idea of reclaiming public space as the key trajectory of contemporary, urban(ism).

Site plan and plan of the two Tokyo stadiums: Kenzo Tange, architect with engineers Yoshikatsu Tsuboi and Uichi Inoue. via Domus

Finally, the above image comes from a “re-print” of an old essay Kenzo Tange for Tokyo, an first hand account written by the Japanese architect, soon after he finished the stadiums for the 1964 Olympic Games. Originally published in Domus 424-March 1965.

In it Tange described the relationship between the two stadia “But the true definition of their relationship with the context came about when we resolved the architecture of the ‘street’ with which would connect them. This is the long building having the function of a ‘street’ running, between the two stadiums. It is a long ‘corridor’ which collects all stadium-related services and offices and that has a restaurant and a training pool at the two ends.“

Editor’s Notes: Shout out E-40! Can’t believe that he didn’t spit… Also what the hell re: those green boots Lil Wayne is wearing. Can’t tell if they are leather or artificial material and that color is an interesting choice. Although, I did note they matched (color-wise) the watch he was wearing.