a p p e n d ix 1: ne w baby l o n
New Babylon was the utopian vision first conceived in 1 956 by the Dutch artist Constant Nieuwenhuys (born 1 92 0 , died 2006) and eagerly adopted by the Provos , with his blessings , as their own. Constant i s generally referred to by his first name . In 1 947 Constant became a founding member of the COBRA abstract painters group , for which he was an important spokesman (see Chapter 1 ). He left C OBRA in 1 9 5 1 and resigned from the influential Paris-based Internationale Situ ationiste, an ultra-left artists group , in 1 960 . He became identified with the Provo movement as it developed and was an important contributor to Provo magazine and a candidate on the Provo list for the Amsterdam City Council. Constant 's utopia was imagined for a population that would come into being some 50-1 00 years after 1 9 65. Its citizens would pass their time in perpetual tourism living in hotel-like accommoda tions clustered every so many miles across the face of the E arth on platforms of 2 5-50 hectares ( about 5 5-1 1 0 acres ) raised 16 meters (50 feet ) from the ground. The rest of the Earth's surface would be given over to agriculture , nature preserves, and historic buildings and monuments . ( The whole concept has caused many commenta tors to shudder, foreseeing in its perpetual tourism only an unsatis fying, mandatory, eternal youth-hostelling. ) Constant 's utopia furnished the Provos with the battle cry " New Babylon ! " , which they used in their ecological white plans to campaign for a better and more livable Amsterdam and a better quality of life in general. It also gave them a model that contrasted sharply with the capitalist system and furnished them with a radi cal socio-economic critique of society on a utopian plane . Roel Van Duyn was especially enthusiastic about Constant 's vision of New Babylon: a cybernetic paradise in which total auto mation of the means of production would bring about total welfare and a socialist-anarchist state in which authorities would be super fluous . People would be freed from work because labor would be ·
••••••••- provo: amsterdam's anarchist revolt • l l 7
