Aaron Swartjes - Book of Visions by Aaron Swartjes

Collective Patchwork, Patchwork of Collectivity // 22 June 2017 // Aaron Swartjes

BOOK OF Even factoring in its low GDP per capita, the Human Development Index (HDI) lists Cuba in the “high human development” category; it excels not just in health and education, but also in women’s participation and political inclusion. // Piketty states that if we want to imagine a fairer and more equal world, capitalism will have to be reformed. It’s only a matter of time before a next crisis or war will break out. // The peer-to-peer model, inspired by open source, wants to turn this logic around. It can be a new way to approach a post-capitalist society: a society where the market follows the idea of the commons. Capitalism will disappear sooner or later and peer-to-peer can be the missing link in the transition to a post-capitalist model with more equality. This is not a Utopian idea. These new means of economy are already happening today. // When we look at the grassroots cultures of connectivity that Cubans have built from the ground up – including horizontal and open-source methods of information sharing, using established platforms to promote social justice concerns – and the noncommercial nature of these networks, it does seem that these cultures could be the basis for alternative and innovative uses of digital technologies. // all efforts should be made to steer the economy and the behavior of the country’s emergent private entrepreneurial class in a direction that comports with the ethos and objectives of economic democracy. // “You don’t need regulations and city planners deliberately creating these structures. All you need are thousands of individuals and a few simple rules of interaction. The bright shop windows attract more bright shop windows and drive the impoverished toward the hidden core. There’s no need for a Baron Haussmann in this world, just a few repeating patterns of movement, amplified into larger shapes that last for lifetimes: clusters, slums, neighborhoods.” // Cuba has the potential to become a technology hub in its own right // So, starting to think about space as related to the commons means to conceptualize it as a form of relations rather than as an entity, as a condition of comparisons instead of an established arrangement of positions. We have to conceive space not as a sum of defined places, which we should control or liberate but rather as a potential network of passages linking one open place to another. Space, thus, becomes important as a constitutive dimension of social action. Space indeed “happens” as different social actions literally produce different spatial qualities. (...) Those spaces thus retain a “passage” character. Once more, we have to reject the exclusionary gesture which understands space as belonging to a certain community. To think of space in the form of the commons means not to focus on its quantity, but to see it as a form of social relationality providing the ground for social encounters. I tend to see this kind of experiencing-with and creation of space as the prospect of the “city of thresholds.” ...

VISIONS

INTRODUCTION

The Book of Visions is a collection of interesting articles, bold statements and visionary thoughts that have inspired me throughout the process of the Master Dissertation. Different articles talk about possible future scenarios for Cuba, about what makes Cuba special and interesting, about what Cuba is already doing great and should continue to do or enhance. On various aspects, the world could learn from this island that has sailed such a distinct course throughout modern history. Quotes, statements, paragraphs and summaries of writings of visionary thinkers have been a foundation for my critical reflection, theoretical framework and the development of my architectural intervention. The research presented in this book fits in the Streetscape Territories framework, an international research project that deals with the way buildings and properties are related to streets and how their inhabitants can give meaning to them. Streetscape Territories deals with models of proximity within a street, neighborhood or region and starts from the assumption that urban space, from the domestic scale till the scale of the city, can be understood as a discontinuous collective space, containing different levels of collective use that are defined by multiple physical, cultural or territorial boundaries.

Aaron Swartjes - Book of Visions

ARTICLE #01 CUBA IS POOR, BUT WHO IS TO BLAME - CASTRO OR 50 YEARS OF US BLOCKADE? High-quality education and healthcare are free. They are part of the material wealth of Cuba and should not be dismissed – as if individual consumption of consumer goods were the only measure of economic success.

and education, but also in women’s participation and political inclusion. The infrastructure is crumbling and yet they have first-world human development indicators.

Even factoring in its low GDP per capita, Cuba is the country with the greatest cothe Human Development Index (HDI) operation in relation to its gross domestic lists Cuba in the “high human develop- product and it is an example for all of us. ment” category; it excels not just in health

Aaron Swartjes - Book of Visions

Academic rigour, journalistic ﬂair

Cuba is poor, but who is to blame – Castro or 50 years of US blockade? December 2, 2016 8.59am GMT

EPA/Orlando Barria

Alongside his depiction as a “brutal dictator”, negative reflections on Fidel Castro since his death on November 25 have focused on his “mismanagement” of the Cuban economy and the consequent “extremes of poverty” suffered by ordinary Cubans. This caricature is problematic – not only because it ignores the devastating economic

Author

STATEMENT #01 CAPITAL by THOMAS PIKETTY Piketty’s book Capital is a collection of knowledge about the increased inequality in the world. According to Piketty the (capitalist) world will return to the 19th century state of inequality. After some decades of equality, inequality is currently strongly increasing again: a rich elite who earns their money not by working hard, but just makes more money by already having a lot of money. The rich get richer without doing anything.

According to Piketty, progress of technology or economical thinking, do not necessarily mean advancing in equality or democracy. You can’t trust the arbitrariness of technology for a righteous development to common welfare. Piketty states that if we want to imagine a fairer and more equal world, capitalism will have to be reformed. It’s only a matter of time before a next crisis or war will break out.

Aaron Swartjes - Book of Visions

VISION #01 SAVING THE WORLD by MICHEL BAUWENS oped a modular car through open source software that can be built with only a couple of people in any garage. Modular means that every part of the car can be replaced on very short notice for a better counterpart. Today, it is perfectly imaginable to propose a worldwide network of micro-garages with advanced technology The peer-to-peer model, inspired by open like 3D-printers, where cars can be made source, wants to turn this logic around. It and adapted locally on demand. can be a new way to approach a post-capitalist society: a society where the market Peer-production can happen both localfollows the idea of the commons. Capi- ly and globally. Local production can be talism will disappear sooner or later and linked to global knowledge. For exampeer-to-peer can be the missing link in ple, growing potatoes is a local activity the transition to a post-capitalist model that can benefit a lot from international with more equality. This is not a Utopian knowledge. idea. These new means of economy are alIn local resilient structures, entities are ready happening today. not driven by profit, but by the commuPeer-to-peer is the capacity of people to nity. Resources and energy become more work together as equals and create value scares all around the world. It becomes without having to ask permission to do clearer every day that we will need to preso. This relational logic is very important: pare ourselves to survive locally in a more it means that every individual in a society sustainable way. This manifests itself today in for example urban farming, local can contribute to a common project. renewable energy, local currencies, etc. A good example of peer-production is They are measures to protect a local comWikispeed. A team of engineers devel- munity from global disintegration.

Aaron Swartjes - Book of Visions

The goal of the book Saving The World is to explain the basic principles of peerto-peer as a new form of creating and (re) dividing value. The current economic model in the world relies on the idea of material abundance and artificial immaterial shortage.

ARTICLE #02 IN CUBA, WILL THE REVOLUTION BE DIGITIZED? Presenting Cuba as a tabula rasa, stuck in the digital dark ages, fails to engage with the cultures of communication that currently exist on the island. These cultures could provide a strong base for constructing a self-sustaining, open, and accessible digital commons with robust privacy protections.

noncommercial nature of these networks, it does seem that these cultures could be the basis for alternative and innovative uses of digital technologies.

Preserving the best aspects of the current system would be great. It would keep the infrastructure in Cuban hands, avoid the market as the principal distributor of conWhen we look at the grassroots cultures of nectivity, and has very little commercial connectivity that Cubans have built from advertising. the ground up â&#x20AC;&#x201C; including horizontal and open-source methods of information Cuba is the country with the greatest cosharing, using established platforms to operation in relation to its gross domestic promote social justice concerns â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and the product and it is an example for all of us.

Aaron Swartjes - Book of Visions

ARTICLE #03 NEW CUBA: BEACHHEAD FOR ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY BEYOND CAPITALISM (...) In other words, Cuba’s post-communist story ends just like China’s - in capitalism, because according to orthodox dogma, there’s nowhere else to go. Trapped by the limited possibilities of this dichotomist capitalism-or-communism mentality, mainstream commentators lack the perspective needed to appreciate (much less inform others) that a transition away from a state-dominated command economy might conceivably lead to a type of market that is very distinct from our elite-shareholder-dominated and profit-fixated capitalist model.

Aaron Swartjes - Book of Visions

But that is precisely the nuanced story we find in Cuba when we dig just below the surface and consider the very guidelines the Cuban government has adopted to steer the transition process. Since the state unveiled its nuevos lineamientos or new guidelines for economic development in 2010, the easing of government restrictions on private entrepreneurial activity has only constituted a single aspect of a much broader picture of change.

(...) In other words, Cuba’s new worker cooperatives will operate pretty much along the same lines as their successful cousins in the capitalist world. (...) But what sets the Cuban cooperative experiment apart and renders it such an incredible opportunity for the global worker-cooperative movement, is its occurrence in a political-economic milieu that is currently free from the distorting effects of capitalist competition. (...) Nevertheless, for Cuba’s experiment to work, all efforts should be made to steer the economy and the behavior of the country’s emergent private entrepreneurial class in a direction that comports with the ethos and objectives of economic democracy. Above all, this would likely require severe restrictions, if not an outright ban, on the entry of large foreign capitalist firms or the establishment of large domestic capitalist firms.

VISION #02 EMERGENCE by STEVEN JOHNSON “That mix of order and anarchy is what we now call emergent behavior. Urban critics since Lewis Mumford and Jane Jacobs have known that cities have lives of their own, with neighborhoods clustering into place without any Robert Moses figure dictating the plan from above.” “You don’t need regulations and city planners deliberately creating these structures. All you need are thousands of individuals and a few simple rules of interaction. The bright shop windows attract more bright shop windows and drive the impoverished toward the hidden core. There’s no need for a Baron Haussmann in this world, just a few repeating patterns of movement, amplified into larger shapes that last for lifetimes: clusters, slums, neighborhoods.” “It is the sidewalk – the public space where interactions between neighbors are the most expressive and the most frequent – that helps us create those laws. In the popular democracy of neighborhood formation, we vote with our feet.”

“The key here is that sidewalks are important not because they provide an environmentally sound alternative to freeways (though that is also the case) nor because walking is better exercise than driving (though that too is the case) nor because there’s something quaintly old-fashioned about pedestrian-centered towns (that is more a matter of fashion than empirical evidence). In fact, there’s nothing about the physical existence of sidewalks that matters to Jacobs. What matters is that they are the primary conduit for the flow of information between city residents. Neighbors learn from each other because they pass each other – and each other’s stores and dwellings – on the sidewalk. Sidewalks allow relatively high-bandwidth communication between total strangers, and they mix large numbers of individuals in random configurations. Without the sidewalks, cities would be like ants without a sense of smell, or a colony with too few worker ants. Sidewalks provide both the right kind and the right number of local interactions. They are the gap junctions of city life.”

Aaron Swartjes - Book of Visions

“She fought so passionately against urban planning that got people ‘off the streets’ because she recognized that both the order and the vitality of working cities came from the loose, improvised assemblages of individuals who inhabited those streets. Cities, Jacobs understood, were created not by central planning commissions,

but by the low-level actions of borderline strangers going about their business in public life. Metropolitan space may be habitually be pictured in the form of skylines, but the real magic of city living comes from below.”

STATEMENT #02 SELF-ORGANIZATION, EMERGENCE AND THE ARCHITECTURE OF COMPLEXITY by FRANCIS HEYLIGHEN Self-organization may be defined as a spontaneous process of organization, i.e. of the development of an organized structure. The spontaneous creation of an “organized whole” out of a “disordered” collection of interacting parts.

an emergent whole at one level is merely a component of an emergent system at the next higher level.

Aaron Swartjes - Book of Visions

In general, there is not just one global hierarchy or non-linear organization, but a multitude of inextricably entwined suborAn essential characteristic of emergence ganizations and subsystems. is its hierarchical or multi-level nature:

ARTICLE #04 WHAT FIDEL’S DEATH MEANS FOR THE FUTURE OF TECH Tech SEARCH SUBSCRIBE IN CUBA Google has the potential to become a techCuba Google Uses Its Doodle to Send a Message to Trump nology hub in its own right, thanks to a surprisingly large supply of engineers. Cuban universities were graduating 5500 robot computer scientists per year, including Robots Make Cappuccinos At This New San Francisco Cafe thousands with advanced degrees.

Even if Raúl Castro doesn’t immediately embrace more robust Cuban digitalization, Raúl’s likely successor, 56 year-old Miguel Diaz-Canel, seems likely to. Canel is himself a trained electrical engineer, and reportedly a frequent Facebook user.

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Fidel Castro

David Z. Morris

Aaron Swartjes - Book of Visions

Cuban Vice President Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel, Raúl Castro's likely successor, is an electrical engineer and, reportedly, a regular Facebook user. Chip Somodevilla Getty Images

VISION #03 ON THE COMMONS: A PUBLIC INTERVIEW WITH MASSIMO DE ANGELIS AND STAVROS STAVRIDES by AN ARCHITEKTUR Massimo De Angelis: My interest in the commons is grounded in a desire for the conditions necessary to promote social justice, sustainability, and happy lives for all. (...) Especially against the background of the many crises that we are facing today – starting from the recent global economic crisis, and moving to the energy and food crises, and the associated environmental crisis – thinking and practicing the commons becomes particularly urgent. MDA: Commons are a means of establishing a new political discourse that builds on and helps to articulate the many existing, often minor struggles, and recognizes their power to overcome capitalist society.

Aaron Swartjes - Book of Visions

An Architektur: It is central to neoliberal thinking that self-interest is dominant visà-vis common interests and that therefore the free market system is the best possible way to organize society. MDA: Most of the time, developing methods of ensuring the sustainability of common resources has been an important part of the process of commoning. (...) This is another reason why it is important to keep in mind that commons, the social dimension of the shared, are constituted by the three elements mentioned before: pooled resources, community, and commoning. Hardin could develop a “tragedy of the commons” argument because in his assumption there existed neither community nor commoning as a social praxis, there were only resources subject to open

access. (...) MDA: This implies that commons can be pitted against one another in processes of market competition. Thus we might state as a guiding principle that whatever is produced in the common must stay in the common in order to expand, empower, and sustain the commons independently from capitalist circuits. Stavros Stavrides: (...) The change in the capitalist production from material to immaterial labor provides the opportunity to think about commons that are produced in the system but can be extracted and potentially turned against the system. We can take the notion of immaterial labor as an example of a possible future beyond capitalism, where the conditions of labor produce opportunities for understanding what it means to work in common but also to produce commons. (...) AA: But how can it be organized? What could this finally look like? SS: The short answer is a federation of communities. (...) I think that we are not for the replacement of the capitalist state by another kind of state. (...) I think we should find ways in today’s struggles to reduce the presence of the state, to oblige the state to withdraw, to force the state to be less violent in its responses. (...) MDA: Whenever we try to produce commons, what we also need is the produc-

tion of the respective community and its forms of commoning. (...) When we are talking about emergent commons, we are talking about spaces of negotiation across diverse communities, the bottom line of what Stavros referred to as “public space.” (...) MDA: What new forms of interdependence would emerge? Who knows. But the real question is: what new forms of interdependence can emerge given the fact that we will never be left alone? (...) SS: I think a very small percentage makes a difference as well. Not in terms of producing enclaves of otherness surrounded by a capitalist market, but as cases of collective experimentation through which you can also convince people that another world is possible. (...) AA: Can we attempt to further relate our findings to their spatial and urban impacts, maybe by more generally trying to envision a city entirely based on the commons?

Those spaces thus retain a “passage” character. Once more, we have to reject the exclusionary gesture which understands space as belonging to a certain community. To think of space in the form of the commons means not to focus on its quantity, but to see it as a form of social relationality providing the ground for social encounters. I tend to see this kind of experiencing-with and creation of space as the prospect of the “city of thresholds.” (...) To me, the idea of an emancipating spatiality could look like a city of thresholds. A potentially liberating city can be conceived not as an agglomerate of liberated spaces but as a network of passages, as a network of spaces belonging to nobody and everybody at the same time, which are not defined by a fixed-power geometry but are open to a constant process of (re)definition. (...) For Lefebvre the right to the city is the right to create the city as a collective work of art. The city, thus, can be produced through encounters that make room for new meanings, new values, new dreams, new collective experiences. And this is indeed a way to transcend pure utility, a way to see commons beyond the utilitarian horizon.

Aaron Swartjes - Book of Visions

SS: So, starting to think about space as related to the commons means to conceptualize it as a form of relations rather than as an entity, as a condition of comparisons instead of an established arrangement of positions. We have to conceive space not as a sum of defined places, which we should control or liberate but rather as a potential network of passages linking one open place to another. Space, thus, be-

comes important as a constitutive dimension of social action. Space indeed “happens” as different social actions literally produce different spatial qualities. (...)

STATEMENT #03 THE RIGHT TO THE CITY: THE CREATION OF THE URBAN COMMONS by DAVID HARVEY Through their daily activities and struggles, individuals and social groups create the social world of the city, and thereby create something common as a framework within which all can dwell.

The “rich mix of instrumentalities” that Elinor Ostrom begins to identify – not only public and private, but collective and associational, nested, hierarchical and horizontal, exclusionary and open – will all have a key role to play in finding ways to organize production, distribution, exchange, and consumption in order to meet human wants and needs on an anti-capitalist basis. This rich mix is not given, but has to be constructed.

Aaron Swartjes - Book of Visions

Capitalist urbanization perpetually tends to destroy the city as a social, political and livable commons. Left unregulated, individualized capital accumulation perpetually threatens to destroy two basic common property resources that undergird all forms of production: the laborer and the The point is to change and to find creative land. ways to use the powers of collective labor for the common good, and to keep the The political recognition that the com- value produced under the control of the mons can be produced, protected, and laborers who produced it. used for social benefit becomes a framework for resisting capitalist power and rethinking the politics of an anti-capital transition.

VISION #04 COMMON SPACE AS THRESHOLD SPACE by STAVROS STAVRIDES Thresholds may appear to be mere boundaries that separate an inside from an outside, as in a doorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s threshold, but this act of separation is always and simultaneously an act of connection. Thresholds create the conditions of entrance and exit; thresholds prolong, manipulate and give meaning to an act of passage. This is why thresholds have been marked in many societies by rituals that attempt to control the inherent potentialities of crossing. Guardian gods or spirits dwell at thresholds because the act of passage is already an act that creates a potential connection between an inside and an outside. Entering may be taken as an intrusion, and exiting may convey the stigma of ostracism.

Aaron Swartjes - Book of Visions

FIGURE LIST

p. 4 screenshot of the article taken from https://theconversation.com/cuba-is-poor-but-whois-to-blame-castro-or-50-years-of-us-blockade-69528 p. 7 screenshot of the article taken from https://www.thenation.com/article/in-cuba-will-the-revolution-be-digitized/

Aaron Swartjes - Book of Visions

p. 11 screenshot of the article taken from http://fortune.com/2016/11/26/fidel-castro-deathcuba-tech/

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BAUWENS, M.; LIEVENS, J. (2013): “De wereld redden: Met peer-to-peer naar een postkapitalistische samenleving”, Houtekiet, ISBN 9789089242549. CLEMENS, O.; HORLITZ, S.; KASPAR, A.; MÜLLER, A (editors) (2010): “A Public Interview with Massimo De Angelis and Stavros Stavrides”, An Architektur nr. 23: On the Commons, http://www.e-flux.com/journal/17/67351/on-the-commons-a-public-interview-with-massimo-de-angelis-and-stavros-stavrides/ FERNANDES, S. (2016): “In Cuba, Will the Future Be Digitized?”, (article) The Nation, https:// www.thenation.com/article/in-cuba-will-the-revolution-be-digitized/ HARRINGTON, K. (2013): “New Cuba: Beachhead for Economic Democracy Beyond Capitalism”, (article) Truthout, http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/13918-the-new-cuba-abeachhead-for-economic-democracy-we-should-support#.U1ya-dDws8g.facebook HARVEY, D. (2012): “Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution”, Chapter Three: The Creation of the Urban Commons p. 67- 88, Verso, ISBN 9781844679041. HEYLIGHEN, F. (1989): “Self-Organization, Emergence and the Architecture of Complexity”, in: Proceedings of the 1st European Conference on System Science, (AFCET, Paris), p. 23-32. JOHNSON, S. (2002): “Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software”, p. 38, 41, 91-92, 94, ISBN 9780684868769. MORRIS, D. (2016): “What Fidel’s Death Means for the Future of Tech in Cuba”, (article) Fortune, http://fortune.com/2016/11/26/fidel-castro-death-cuba-tech/ VAN BERGEN, W.; VISSER, M. (2014): “De Kleine Piketty: Het kapitale boek samengevat”, Business Contact, ISBN 9789047008057. YAFFE, H. (2016): “Cuba is poor, but who is to blame – Castro or 50 years of US blockade?”, (article) The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/cuba-is-poor-but-who-is-to-blamecastro-or-50-years-of-us-blockade-69528

Aaron Swartjes - Book of Visions

NOTES

BOOK OF INSPIRATIONS for the Master Dissertation Project: Collective Patchwork, Patchwork of Collectivity by

Aaron Swartjes

promotor Kris Scheerlinck - Streetscape Territories Research Project International Master of Science in Architecture: Urban Projects, Urban Cultures Program 2016 - 2017 KU Leuven, Faculty of Architecture, Campus Sint-Lucas Brussels contact: swartjes_aaron@hotmail.com