A NEW DAY Towards a postcapitalist society
Marco Iembo - Master of Science in Architecture - Politecnico di Milano - 874289
Contents Crisis Aftermaths 4
Elements for a new scenario 8
The code for a new architecture 14
Subverting from below 20
Bibliography 24
Crisis aftermaths
T The 2008 economic crisis has lead to a prolonged phase of world economic stagnation, that after almost a decade, is still marking a small growth amounted to less than 3%. Depression has cleared 18% of production and 20% of the world trade, entering the history as the longest and most pernicious economic crisis of all time. It is not the crisis itself to upset analysts, because, as already noticed by Marx and Engels in the mid nineteenth century, the crisis is the natural flipside of the coin of the capitalist system: when it comes to an overproduction of capital, part of what has been produced (or those who produces it) must be destroyed in order to adjust the economic situation1. The impoverishment of the middle class and the austerity policies conducted from the developed states, have generated a great discontent among the population, which driven by the desire to bring down the establishment (mostly left) decide to vote populist parties, generically right wing, who advocate myopic programs made of improbable promises and nationalistic and introverted policies. The great lack of confidence in the European project, Brexit, the election of Donald Trump in the US and the rise of the xenophobic right-wing parties in Europe are the recent reports that have destabilized the world and continue to undermine the global stability, and although they seam apparently disconnected among them, they actually have elements in common and one fundamental reason: the worst economic crisis of all time. Meanwhile we think of possible remedies to stop the crisis, Marxist theories are back in the limelight hoping to find the answers to the economic stagnation. Indeed among the most accredited recent economic theories we find those of Thomas Piketty, which in 2013 published “The Capital in the XXI Century”, that since from the title establishes a clear link with the body of Marxist ideas. In the book, Piketty demonstrate how social inequalities have scored a remarkable growth since the early nineties onwards, and compares the accumulation of today’s capital to the old system of patrimonial capital that existed before the advent of the first industrial revolution. Eventually the analysis leads to the proposal for taxing the highest incomes in order to resettle world economic inequities, highlighting the clearest difference compared to Marxist ideas: if Piketty tries to soften capitalism, Marx aims to its total subversion. However hopes for a revolutionary style reversal seems weak. We were born under the capitalist system and we don’t know anything else; capitalism is part of what Fernand Braudel defines as material life: “[…] the life that man throughout the course of his previous history has made a part of his very being, has in some way absorbed into his entrails”2 and encourages us to endure all the frustrations that an iniquitous economic system such capitalism involves, such as the series of “Bullshit jobs”3 that have definitely tear down the working class. The working class is dead; killed forever from the ruthless neoliberalism that marked the rise of the private sector and weakened the welfare state. The XXI century workers do not possess even one excerpt of the class consciousness that in the past decades was the engine of social rebellions and fierce struggles to system.
1 K.Marx, 2
F. Engels.1848. Manifesto of the Communist Party F. Braudel. 1977. Afterthoughts on material civilization and capitalism. Baltimore, The John Hopkins University Press. 3 D.Graeber. 2013. “On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs” in Strike!, Summer 2013, pp.10-11.
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Desktop Dinining -Brian Finke.
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Lockers Letteurs -Wolfgang Tillmans, 1994.
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Elements for a new scenario
N Nevertheless some people believe that technological progress associated with the production will upset the current economic system and will lead to the fourth industrial revolution: the era of automation and computerization. Capitalism itself will generate, through the technological production, the conditions for its definitive overcoming, for a postcapitalistic society. Nothing new actually, since Marx in the nineteenth century, pictured in the “fragment on machines” ( a less known essay, as in sharp contrast to the most reliable Marxist ideas) a future in which the work is objectified by the machines while the man is limited to the control of their operations; in which man is freed from his knowledge. This view is taken by journalist Paul Mason in his recent book “Postcapitalism”, in which he argues how capitalism is unable to adapt to technological progress because of three main reasons: the change of the relationship between work and leisure dictated by computer; the erosion of the traditional system of prices generated by the information assets; and the birth of a type of collaborative production outside of the dictates of the market. The Broadband and cloud systems increase the distance between home and office and reduce the one between work and leisure. This is happening in the many comfortable bars and flexible public spaces with a good internet connection, which are colonized by individuals that share the same needs. Furthermore, the technologies have facilitated access to information by generating individuals with expertise in various fields, “networked individuals”4; individuals that are able to take full advantage of the knowledge offered by a relatively open and global system. They do not represent an elite but they are simple persons with a basic education and perpetually connected to the 4G network. These individuals are the new “complex” working class with a varied and constantly evolving background, nomadic from the professional point of view and ready to shout their opinions at every latitude, from Hong Kong to Moscow, from Cairo to New York, sharing hashtags and multimedia materials. An economy based on information has a different behaviour compared to one based on the manufacture of objects as duplicating a digital product has a negligible cost. This low-priced reproducibility mechanism destroys the normal mechanism of prices and push towards zero the costs of reproduction, causing a substantial decrease of profits. Furthermore Linux, Firefox, Wikipedia, Android represent big reality in the markets in which they operate and what intrigues is that they are all open source systems, implemented and modified by millions of users free of charge and with non-profit interests. This is a “peer to peer” production: collaborative, out of the labour market and based on the economy of reputation and altruism.
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M.Castells. 2007. “Communication, power and counter-power in the network society” in International journal of communication, 1, pp. 238-266
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Last October, the Icelandic singer Björk during her lectio magistralis held at the Red Bull Music Academy of Montreal, said “Technology does exactly that, it makes easy to create your own dream. I got my first laptop in 1999, and it has completely freed me”. Today it has become possible to produce anything outside the main market system, and more and more people have begun to do it, earning an audience before that big companies notice them. This redefines the mechanism of capital accumulation, redistributing it from an elite to a greater number of individuals (interconnected), willing to share their knowledge with the community, what Marx theorized as “General Intellect”, a general social knowledge turned into productive force and able to free man from work, especially by those less gratifying5. Perhaps in the future the term unemployed will lose its negative meaning and will become a necessary condition for the freedom of men. Maybe all the scientific and automatic work will be the exclusive preserve of the machines and humans will remain the exclusive production of culture, ideas, things eternal and hardwearing; the fruit of experience, sensitivity and in some ways, a large margin of error. If such a scenario comes true, the transition towards it must be driven by innovative and forward-looking policies that has to redesign the social contract8 taking into account the potential offered by computerization. We must promote peer to peer networks, cooperative enterprises, collaborative business models that destroy unjust hierarchies and limit social injustice in the contexts in which they operate. It will be essential to take advantage of the data generated by smart devices, preventing them from being monopolized in order to plan future changes with a negligible margin of error.
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K.Marx. 1858. “Fragments on the machines” in Grundisse, vol.I, p. 690-712 B. Obama. 2016. “Yes we still can” , S. Dadich in Wired Italia, 79, pp. 21-23
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Egyptians using their mobile to record the celebration in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, 2011.
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In the sky -Brian Finke.
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The code for a new architecture
I If the challenge for the future society is to protect the virtual architecture of data and information from the capitalist monopolies, the real architectural practice must eradicate the existing ones and return to its original social value. Today the architectural scene is dominated by the figure of the global architect or archistar with branches studies around the world, who designs mostly large-scale buildings, iconic and doubtfully necessary because not attributable to real needs. This type of architecture is infinitely distant from its primordial collaborative aim to generate, protect and articulate places through small acts of planning7. A stylistic innovation will not be enough to overturn the capitalist architecture processes, it will only be the outcome of a more radical ideological change. Architect must observe the social and political upheavals, finding the factors that feed them and turning them into stimuli for new ideas; creativity must be accompanied by reactivity. Open source systems, peer to peer collaborations and the big data are the new tools to be used to generate 2.0 processes from below, computerized and sophisticated because local and out of the global industrial processes. The open source architecture Manifesto (OSArc) exists and is one of 35 million entries in the world’s biggest online encyclopaedia in the world: Wikipedia. The page was born in 2011, when Domus magazine asked to the architect and engineer Carlo Ratti to write an article about the open source design. Ratti had the idea to engage a plurality of authors and the outcome was an entry on Wikipedia, editable by anyone, “the poster for the XX century architecture, in perpetual transformation”8. The page identifies the processes and tools needed to open source architectural design such as the use of Creative Commons licenses, digital manufacturing tools, platforms crowdfunding and a type of reticulated collaboration between individuals (peer to peer); a democratic production in the hands of the citizens able to produce a “vernacular architecture with an internet connection”9. The Open Source architecture redefines the architectural process schemes and eliminates the hierarchies that are established between the actors involved. The designer is an intermediary that creates produces open schemes, order a body of ideas in a similar way to the programmer architect theorized by Cedric Price10; he orchestrates the process by identifying a beginning and an end. Although the Manifesto of OSArc is a collection of consistent and innovative ideas, no equally convincing achievement have been supported its insights so far.
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7 M. Fuller, U. Haque. 2008. “Urban Versioning System 1.0”, in Situated Technology Pamphlet Series, Architectural League of New York, New York 8 C.Ratti, M.Claudel. 2015. Open Source Architecture. London, Thames & Hudson, p.IV
A first attempt to open source architectural design was led by Cameron Sinclair (TED Prize 2006) founder of Architecture for Humanity, a non profit organization that was involved in the design of housing solutions in developing countries made by a plurality of users who interacted through a website that today is out of order. Despite its end, this project remains a seminal example of an open source design approach. Other attempts in this direction are: the Wikihouse platform, which provides a the drawings for a micro house available online and printable with CNC devices; the drawings for the social housing project “Half an house� shared with a Creative Commons license by the firm Elemental; or the operating system named Bricksource, designed by the Iranian architecture firm Studiomm, which collects templates for building brick walls uploaded by users from all over the world. Different examples of Open Source Architecture are those using public data generated by the Internet of things as in the case of Studio Carlo Ratti Associati or Haque Design Research, that however don’t involve the active participation of external users in decision-making. A positive example of collaborative Open Source design is the network of FabLabs, the brainchild of Professor Gershenfeld, now present worldwide. Within these digital manufacturing workshops are designed innovative devices co-developed by users and citizens, and represent the most clear example of how easy it is now to turn ideas into bits and the bits into atoms. The Open Source Architecture limit is not defined by its core values and its purposes, but rather from the difficulty to coordinate and keep alive a remote collaboration on the effective construction of a building. I believe that the cooperative model is still the most technologically advanced one because it is reticular, not hierarchical, modular, less alienating and therefore more enjoyable. This is the model adopted by the British collective Assemble, which embodies a kind design from the bottom built for and with the community on the legacy of architect like Walter Segal or Hassan Fathy.
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p. 105 Ivi p. 114
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Abitare Vs Wired.
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Supermarket of the future - Carlo Ratti Associati.
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Subverting from below
T The collective Assemble was born in 2010 when a group of fifteen friends, frustrated by the classic hierarchical division of work that takes place within the architectural firms, decided to make architecture by taking part in all the phases ranging from concept to construction. The background of the collective components consists of an amalgam of humanistic and artistic disciplines such as history, philosophy, art, product design, architecture etc...and this blend of knowledge gives to the various interventions a highly social character that strive to empower the social conscience of the citizens by involving them in the production process. Their first operation was the conversion of a former petrol station in London into a temporary theatre for the community of the district, using poor materials and the help of hundreds of volunteers. The success of this small intervention was the forerunner of a series of works that have seen the collective transform many small neglected urban spaces into true public spaces that attract local communities, as in the case of transformation of a empty space below a London flyover in a small space for events, or the construction of the “Yardhouse�, an economic and creative workspace in the Stratford district of London. These projects emphasize the two main leitmotif of the English Collective: directing the attention towards the social classes that effectively need better public spaces and mending the breach that has been generated among the population and the construction of its places. These principles are evident in the works that the collective Assemble has been conducting since 2013 in Liverpool’s Granby neighbourhood, which could be regarded as the most extensive and complex realization that the collective has ever faced so far. The activities that Assemble is carrying out in this area are more than architectural and include also the creation of a workshop in which the neighbourhood community and some local artists work together to produce and sell furniture items, making this rebuilding project the instrument to activate the creativity and the economy of a troubled district. Assemble approach completely rewrites the traditional architectural processes and ranks them out of the global market, generating a valid response to the crisis of values in the contemporary scenario and setting the code for a postcapitalist architecture.
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The Cineroleum - Assemble.
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Granby workshop - Assemble.
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Bibliography K.Marx, F. Engels.1848. Manifesto of the Communist Party K.Marx. 1858. “Fragments on the machines” in Grundisse, vol.I. p. 690-712 F. Braudel. 1977. Afterthoughts on material civilization and capitalism. Baltimore, The John Hopkins University Press. M.Castells. 2007. “Communication, power and counter-power in the network society” in International journal of communication, 1, pp. 238-266 M. Fuller, U. Haque. 2008. “Urban Versioning System 1.0”, in Situated Technology Pamphlet Series, Architectural League of New York, New York D.Graeber. 2013. “On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs” in Strike!, Summer 2013, pp.10-11 T. Piketty. 2013. The capital in the XXI century. Cambridge, Harvard University Press. P. Mason. 2015. Postcapitalism: a guide to our future. London. Allen Lane. C.Ratti, M.Claudel. 2015. Open Source Architecture. London, Thames & Hudson. S.Dadich. 2016. “Yes we still can” , in Wired Italia, 79, pp. 21-23 Björk. 2016, “Utopie”, in Wired Italia, 79, pp. 62-67
Lectures F. Edgeley, P. Strelitz (Assemble). 2016. Columbia GSAPP, New York. M. Lisogorskaya (Assembel). 2016. “5x15 Stories”, London.
Images at pages: 1, 4, 8, 9, 14, 15, 20; are from Wolfgang Tillmans book “Neue Welt” (2012, Taschen).
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