#1 – New Hierarchies; rhizome / lines of flight literature: Rhizome, by Gilles Deleuze / Félix Guattari, in A Thousand Plateaus / Mille Plateaux (1980) The ascendance of information industries and the growth of a global economy are inextricably linked, and have contributed to what Saskia Sassen calls: a new geography of centres and margins (The global city: strategic site/new frontier, 2000). This means that former structures of economical or political hegemony have radically changed (and are still changing rapidly) with the consequence of a displacement (in economical sense), in both geographical significance of cities and places, and in the valuation of different kind of labour: Financial services produce superprofits while industrial services barely survive. Beside the obvious impact of globalization, there is an equally obvious inconsistency between everyday life and the performance of individual spatial practices, and the way the formal society is organised and governed. Politics, laws and planning – and even partly the global economical systems (the colonization effect on places and societies), appears essentially hierarchical, and perform linear authority, which in many cases has as consequence limitation, stagnation and regression. Beside the governing systems of order, bureaucracy and linearity, there are infinite parallel systems of other formal and informal networks, knowledge and ‘weak’ voices not so easily observed and recognised. The complexity of this everyday reality presupposes new and experimental strategies and ideas for seeing, observation, participation and mapping of what ever is relevant for the plans we are making, and the societies we are planning for – it is a question of concern, like the title of Bruno Latour’s essay suggests, a transition From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern, (Critical Inquiry, 2004). Last yearʼs events and revolutionary rebellions in the Middle East show indeed examples of how weak connections and loosely organized voices can interconnect into strong movements that are able to turn inherited hierarchical structures of power upside down, and also institute new systems of organization. Not all changes have the character of a violent revolution concerning time and drama, but any shift in a hierarchical system has the ultimate consequence of changing basic living conditions – either it are shifts in natural systems or in social structures. Through the concept of rhizome lies the ultimate metamorphosis of a hierarchical system, as by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari termed as a tree structure: unlike the trees or their roots, the rhizome connects any point to any other point, and its traits are not necessarily linked to traits of the same nature; it brings into play very different regimes of signs, and even non sign states. (…) Unlike the graphic arts, drawing, or photography, unlike tracings, the rhizome pertains to a map that must be produced, constructed, a map that is always detachable, connectable, reversible, modifiable, and has multiple entryways and exits and its own lines of flight. (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980). Through rhizome thinking, hierarchical systems will be challenged – new ideas, experimentation and new attitudes will reveal, and priorities and encounters of alternative values become relevant. Assignment: Find a rhizome, interpret a rhizome, invent a rhizome, draw a rhizome, write a rhizome or make a rhizome….. /MH+GL
SLICES THROUGH SPACE – Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism, guest studio spring 2012 Magdalena Haggärde & Gisle Løkken – 70°N arkitektur