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playing
with function
Alice
Scott
I
enter the empty room it
seems large my footsteps
echo I hear the traffic
outside I follow my legs
to the window I look down
I take a photograph scattered
chairs and debris it is
still light Audience
follow/ her outside, into music/darkness. Silence except road beyond
garden. Traffic
audible from main road beyond. (1)
I'm trying to take a photograph but the light has gone
no electricity I light a
cigarette I'm cold
we walk together across the bridge, through a small door, up the
stairs that lead nowhere
we stop a flight before nowhere and go home
I enter the empty room Easily
she stepped into the told story that lay before her eyes on the path
she followed away from the window. There was only one door to
the house and to get to it from the back you had to walk all
the way around the front of 124, past the storeroom, past the
coldhouse, the privy, the shed, on around to the porch. And
to get to the part of the story she like best, she had to start way
back: hear the birds in the thick woods, the crunch of leaves
underfoot; see her mother making her way up into the hills
where no houses were likely to be. How Sethe was walking on two feet
meant for standing still........But she could not, would not,
stop, for when she did the little antelope rammed her horns
and pawed the ground of her womb with impatient hooves. (2)
my recollection of staying in Milan during the New Year of 1999/2000
comes to me only in memories, rememories and images (in the mind and
on photographic paper) Places,
places are still there. If a house burns down, it is gone,
but the place - the picture of it - stays, and not just in my
rememory, but out there in the world. What I remember is a picture
floating around out there in my head. I mean, even if I don't
think it, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or
saw, is still out there. Right in the place where it happened. (3)
Metropolix; an old block of flats where squatters live and
travellers can stay
Pergola; a group of buildings around a courtyard where squatters
live, work and run a music venue
'Bulk'; a huge building, a workshop for artists, musicians and
performers
[in the book. Beloved, by Toni Morrison, which] centres
around the house, [124], the characters and the story is revealed
the characters are not portrayed as individuals; their experiences,
emotions and memories are collective
[the book] retains no sense of the linear passing of time; time is
continuous, there are no distinctions between past, present and
future there is no
apparent distinction between life and death, dreams and reality,
past and present, self and other, interior and exterior
the author, through the use of word association and spatial and
natural metaphors gradually unravels the tangles of intertwined
perceptions of the lives of the characters
my memories form the construction of this essay
I cannot account for the accuracy of my memories as they may now be
tainted with the memories of others (rememories) or altered through
time (romanticised/rationalised)
my memories are constantly evolving
in order to explore how these buildings are inhabited I recollect my
perceptions it is
through my body that I perceive
does my body only see with its eyes? (4)
Maurice Merleau-Ponty argues that, opposed to linear causality,
perception is formed through a process of synaethesia
that is, that each attribute, each property, of the perceived
(colour, smell, tactility, sound and so on) converge and intertwine
to create the perceived
each implies the other, they are inseparable, the quality, light,
colour, depth which are there before us, are there only because they
awaken in us an echo in our body and because the body welcomes them.
( 5)
Leibniz 'monadology'
his theories challenged conventional modes of thought given from
Newton, introducing ideas that the world is made up of relations,
rather than causes and effects
the 'monad' or soul mirrors the world surrounding it and is an
integral part of it The Monad has no windows (6)
I bathe; no windowpanes - the cold makes me quick
I sit in the bath, I cannot lie
the bath is not long enough
I hear the traffic outside
Traffic audible from the main road beyond
the window that has no glass
Leibniz's notion of the self or the soul is not Cartesian; it is not
separated from the world in it's own realm
it does not have windows in which to view the world beyond
it is an integral part of the world there is no window, no
threshold, no duality
there is nothing separating our perception of the world and the
perceived; we are beings in the world
the body is not the origin, it is merely the receptacle of gathered
perceptions
there is a circle.... (7)
the qualities or modes of things or vectors and mixed and never
really exist each upon their own they are intertwined and perceived
simultaneously within the self
more important than the individual elements is the interaction, this
intertwining there
is no origin, no middle, no end, there is a circle...
there is a circle of the touched and the touching, the touched
takes hold of the touching; there is a circle of the visible
and the seeing, the seeing is not without visible existence;
there is even an inscription of the touching in the visible, of the
seeing in the tangible - and the converse.... ( 8)
there is no origin, no middle, no end
in the squat each individual is at once the cause for the
whole and is caused by the whole, and what is called existence is a
vast body made up of an infinity of individuals all
sustaining each other and defining each other (9)
we stop a flight before nowhere and go home
one room; five people - our breathe keeps us warm
I am Beloved and she is mine. I see her take flowers away from
leaves she
puts them in a round basket the leaves are not for her there is
no place where I stop her face is my own and I want to be
there in the place where her face is and to be looking at it too
a hot thing All
of it is now it is always now (10)
I perceive things in a certain way because I remember
I associate my perceptions
contain preconceived notions Nor does this blind adherence to the
world, this prejudice in favour of being, occur only at the
beginning of my life. It endows every subsequent perception, of
space with its meaning, and it is resumed at every
instant...a communication with the world more ancient than
thought (11) each step
is not a conscious event my body contains a set of reflexes operate
in a habitualised way, unconscious of everyday thoughts and actions
my body responds automatically
I follow my legs to the window; each step is not a conscious event There
is another subject beneath me, for whom a world exists before
/ am here, and who marks out my space in it (12)
the squat, the building, is very much a part of the present; it is
born out of immediacy and spontaneity
it is very much a part of the future; the fact of its imminent
closure moulds the necessity of its immediate and intense presence
it is very much a part of the past; in the squat the past can be
visually perceived; in the crumbling concrete, the broken windows,
the empty rooms although
the event is in the present, the building, through the materials,
allows us to remember the passing of time
the building's structure may 'frame' the present due to its walls,
its doors, but paradoxically, the way in which one might describe
the building as an experience embodies notions of the passing of
time; I enter the empty room
there is nothing but a cupboard
within lies a pair of shoes
I take a photograph I
follow my legs to the window
I look down; the garden contains debris
scattered chairs but no people
I take a photograph I remember the performance All of it is now
it is always now (13)
in our room there are remnants of previous occupants
I leave unwanted possessions
/ am not in space and time. nor do I conceive space and time; I
belong to them, my body combines with them and includes them (14)
my body, the self, is both a part of the world (it is transcendent)
and of the soul (and therefore is immanent) my body is therefore
both active and passive in the world, or in the surrounding space
My body is a thing among things; it is caught in the
fabric of the world (15)
the squat is created by a group of people collectively, it is not
owned the only thing I can
truly possess is the memory
the squatted building is only owned in as much as the individual
contributes to its existence and retains the memory
it exists in the memories of the people who create it
it exists it no longer
exists I remember
my recollection of staying in Milan during the New Year of 1999/2000
comes to me only in memories, rememories and images (in the mind and
on photographic paper) I
photograph I take images away with me
the image takes me back
there is a circle I trying
to take a photograph but the light has gone
this implication of one in the other, this contradiction into one
perceptual act of a whole process, constitutes the originality of
depth. It is the dimension in which things or elements of
things envelop each other, whereas breadth and height are the dimensions
in which they are juxtaposed (16)
I hear the traffic outside
Traffic audible from main road beyond
I follow my legs to the window, but I cannot see it; my perception
is ecstatic - my intertwining perceptions move flesh like to where
my body is not (17) I
remember that while Descartes' notion of perception implies a
threshold between the seer and the seen, Leibniz's monad is
perceived in the world just as it is perceiving there is no
window
an image, a painting, a photograph, is a 'window onto the
world'? Cezanne's feeling after painting Mont St. Victoire for many
years was that he could not be sure if he was painting the mountain
or the mountain was painting him (18)
paintings they are the
inside of the outside and the outside of the inside (19)
there is a circle of the visible and the seeing (20)
the relationship between the seer and the seen is blurred and there
is a loosening of the boundaries between interior and exterior
I remember Leibniz's monad which is indivisible; it is their
interaction which is important
she entered the book she entered the pages of the book as a vagrant
steals into an empty house, or a deserted garden (21)
empty deserted
full with smells, colours, emotions, memories, sounds
images of emptiness, neglect, abandonment, images bursting with
potential, aching for creation the squat remains hidden from
society; it is not recognised by the state
the squat is created by society
contradiction
the squat is constantly being created and recreated, but remains
within the realm of the invisible, the unrecognised; it is loaded
with every conceivable potential
squats operate in the cracks in between; in between permanence and
temporariness, in between work and play, in between home and a place
to visit, in between public and private, familiar and strange,
interior and exterior, past and future, self and other
there is no determinism
the squat's creation lies between self and other
it is not solely about the individual
it is not static it is
constantly evolving 124
was spiteful 124
was loud 124 was
quiet (22) the house
contains the past, the present and the future
it reflects the mood of the emotions of its inhabitants
it is constantly in a state of flux
when the inhabitants of 124 refuse to remember their memories they
are isolated, at conflict with the world outside their house
when they begin to face and address their memories, 124 becomes a
space with no division from the outside the house becomes a medium
between the inhabitants and the world outside
it is not a separate object
I enter the empty room I reappropriate it
each person who enters it reappropriates it, adjusts it to their
needs, perceives it differently
I move the bed round I
take down a poster off the wall it reveals a crack the crack
becomes the decor I relight a half-burned
candle with matches thoughtfully left behind
I sleep and dream of home
we move a desk from downstairs into the room
the room becomes a studio
I walk through the makeshift door into the kitchen, the place for
the intimate midnight feasting now filled with more than one hundred
people appearing and disappearing amongst the smoky of haze of food,
music, laughter, language we are visiting living
being working
the garden of Bulk is transformed into a theatre space for one
evening audience follow
her outside into music/darkness
a room in Pergola is a music studio for one month
a room in Metropolix becomes our home for two weeks the spaces are
reused the objects are
repossessed, recreated, transformed into something they are not
hundreds of odd and worn-out shoes hang above the entrance I enter
the empty room there is
nothing but a cupboard within lies a pair of shoes
I take a photograph I imagine the occupants
of the old shoes I imagine
the previous occupants of the building
in my imagination I
create the building
I recreate the building
the initial design of the building is disrupted, altered, shifted -
a staircase leads nowhere, it is not attached to an upper level, it
is devoid of its conventional function
doors are removed, blurring the distinction between interior and
exterior the
bathrooms have no glass in the windows
roofs in certain places are apparently missing
I am cold, the rain pours down the building is transient
the building is incapable of providing wholly reliable shelter the
squat is not denying conventional spatiality, it is not a statement,
it is not a manifesto spatially compartmentalised activities
(sleeping, eating, bathing) and conventional architectural features
(roofs, stairs, walls) are blurred through the necessity, desire,
ignorance, intention, stupidity, initiative, creativity of the
creators space is
broad, teeming with possibilities, positions, intersections,
passages, detours, u-turns, dead-ends, one-way streets too many possibilities
indeed (23)
I imagine my
imagination creates new relationships
the building is minimally altered from its original form but it is
through the people that inhabit it that it is created the body
creates, perceives and is a part of the surrounding space
the squat lies beyond conventional notions of space as it has no
restrictions, no rules, no pre-ordered organisation
it is there to be used and perceived at will
no-one is merely an onlooker it is an extension of the body that is
present within it it
is embodied within the self and is carried beyond its existence
it exists and is transformed
It is architecture as fragile as the body that inhabits it
the squatted building is not designed to be squatted
the medium of interactions the interactions
between the body and space between space and the surrounding world
woven into the fabric of the world
my perception of a place is an infinity of time and space
inside of the outside and the outside of the inside make fluid what
appears to be static (we are not static, our perceptions are not
static) our
imagination creates fluid relationships
this space-time is unlimited rejecting
stagnation of specific responses
opposing mono-functionality
the accidental density of interpretation
no moment of completion
January 2000; Bulk receive official notice for its closure
hundreds of people, those who had formed and had been a part to the
space (and those who had not), set fire to the building
the space still remains in the memories of the people who were a
part of it the building is now a part of
time the space still exists within time
time past and time future
the squatters immediately move on to appropriate their next building
overlaying past on top of past there is no completion
there is a circle Places,
places are still there. If a house burns down, its gone, but
the place... stays, and not just in my rememory, but out there in
the world (24)
endnotes
1. Rotozaza Due. performed
June 1999
2. Beloved, by Toni Morrison. p.29-30; in this passage,
Denver remembers her mother Sethe's memories of her own birth.
3. ibid.,p.36
4. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception
5. ibid.
6. Lebniz, Gottfried. The Monadolgy.
7. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. "The Intertwining The Chiasm' The
Visible and the Invisible.
8. ibid.
9. ibid.
10. Beloved p.24
11. Merleau-Ponty. Phenomenology of Perception, p. 154
12. ibid. (my emphasis)
13. Beloved.p.214
14. Merleau-Ponty. Phenomenology of Perception.
15. Merleau-Ponty. 'Eye and Mind'. The Primacy of Perception
16. Merleau-Ponty. Phenomenology of Perception, p.254-5
17. This interpretation of depth challenges Euclidian notions of
dimensionality. Space no longer is purely objective. 'Depth' for
Merleau-Ponty is where overlapping elements are intertwined and
enveloped; what he calls 'flesh'; 'the flesh is not matter, is not
mind, is not substance. To designated it, we should need the old
term "element", in the sense it was used to speak of
water, air, earth, and fire, that is, in the sense of a general
thing, midway between the spatio-temporal individual and the
idea, a sort of incarnate principle that brings a style of being
wherever there is a fragment of being. The flesh is in this sense an
"element" of Being.' (p. 139 The Visible and the
Invisible)
18. Merleau-Ponty cites this example in his essay 'Eye and Mind'
in The Primacy of Perception.
19. Merleau-Ponty. The Primacy of Perception, and other
essays on phenomenological psychology, the philosophy of art, history
and politics.
20. Merleau-Ponty. "The Intertwining The Chiasm' The Visible
and the Invisible, p. 134
21. S. Gennain. [as quoted in 'Doing It, (Un)Doing It, (Over)Doing
It Yourself: Rhetorics of Architectural Abuse' by Jane Rendell]
22. Beloved by Toni Morrison. p.3, 169, 239. In Beloved, the
memories of the character's past are often revealed through spatial
metaphors
23. Walter Benjamin, [as quoted in 'Doing It, (Un)Doing It,
(Over)Doing It Yourself: Rhetorics of Architectural Abuse' by Jane
Rendell.]
24. Beloved by Toni Morrison, p.36
bibliography
Bey, H.
'The Temporary Autonomous Zone.'
www.hermetic.com/bey/taz3.html
Foucault, M. 'Other Spaces. The Principles of Heterotopia.'
Lotus no.48/49 1985 p.9-17
Lefebvre, H. The Production of Space, publ. 1991.
Oxford, Blackwell.
Leibniz, G. The Monadology. The Internet Encyclopedia
of Philosophy.
Maria, W. Walter de Maria, preface by Wim Beeren.
publ. 1984 exhibition. Museum Boymans-Van Bennigen, Rotterdam.
Merleau-Ponty, M. The Visible and the Invisible, (esp.
'The Intertwining - The Chiasm') publ. 1968. Northwestern University
Press
Merleau-Ponty, M. Phenomenology of Perception, trans.
Colin Smith, publ. 1992. Routledge
Merleau-Ponty, M. The Primacy of Perception, and other
essays on phenomenological psychology, the philosophy of art,
history and politics, edited by James M. Edie. publ. 1964
Evanston, III: Northwester University Press.
Morrison, T. Beloved, publ. 1997 Vintage
Rendell, J. 'Doing It, (Un)Doing It, (Over)Doing It Yourself:
Rhetorics of Architectural Abuse.' in Occupying Architecture.
Between the Architect and the User. ed. Jonathan Hill. publ.1998
Routledge.
© Copyright 2002
Alice Scott/The Journal of Psychogeography and Urban Research
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