Rebel Rebel - An Architectural Device of Interference

Rebel

An Architectural Device of Interference

sistance by interfering g re with n u yo urb g n an ri pu e w bl po ic m E sp ac e

s h ug ro th l ta gi di turbance l dis tia spa

Lisa Weigl, MA City Design, 2020

‘‘Rebel Rebel - An Architectural Device of Interference, Empowering young resistance by interfering with urban public spaces through digital spatial disturbance ‘‘ Lisa Weigl, MA CITY DESIGN, 2020 248345 Head of Program: Godofredo Pereira Tutor: Cristina Goberna Practice Mentorship: Karakusevic Carson Architects, London Royal College Of Art, London Kensington Gore

Rebel

AN ARCHITECTURAL DEVICE OF INTERFERENCE EMPOWERING YOUNG RESISTANCE BY INTERFERING WITH URBAN PUBLIC SPACES THROUGH DIGITAL SPATIAL DISTURBANCE

In a time where a pandemic causes a pressing need for new demands, with lockdown measures and oversurveillance in place; and in a city which has been shaped by a society disregarding ungoverned presence of youth in the public realm, their possibility to rise spatially against their oppressors is being limited even further.

There is no room for the young to communicate their unrest, except digitally.

Such census oppresses a valuable contribution to an equal city. Protests and their various stages carry the highest potential for the youth to directly influence urban society and an equal city making. ‘Rebel Rebel’ works with the impact of digital activism and translates digital interference into spatial interference cybernetically.

The work focusses on a dissolution/interference of hierarchies in public space (the right of presence, freedom of movement) through breaking boundaries by disturbing infrastructures and communication networks in a system which doesn’t serve the youth. A structural, unfolding dome, with the street as its most influential environment, gradually occupies more urban space with growing digital unrest. It’s structural plan + Software is provided as open source material. By filtering activism information, e.g. algorithms, hashtags, petitions and direct messages through the software, it creates pressure towards the governing system to pay attention to.

The information gathering depicts the first safe space - it happens anonymously to hide identities. By being projected into physical space (projection mapping), the information works as a surface (curtain) to hide protesters through distraction. The space occupied enables the youth to create not only a safe digital but also physical network across the city and constructs an alternative infrastructure as a further stage of protest. ‘Rebel Rebel’ creates an urgently needed bridge between digital and physical space which can no longer be ignored and by doing so introduces a new spatial practice to the school of architecture. A digital space in the urban fabric, a rebellious tool of freedom and safety. ‘Rebel Rebel’ is a ‘stateless’ safe space which enables opinions to be heard and seen, and a motivator to re-imagine the city as a space of equality - overthrowing the spatial systems of oppression through radical digital and spatial rebellion/resistance.

Rebel Introduction

3

1

The many struggles of (North) London’s Urban Youth (Introduction)

5

1.1

Stigmatization, Ethnic Minorities, Sink States, Socio-Political Challenges,

Deprivation - a history of youth oppression and its resistance in space

5

1.2

An uncertain future for the youth - Challenges caused by the Pandemic and the

absence of solutions, food for a future riot

9

2

Interferences / Riots, Rallies, Protests, Demonstrations

15

2.3

The value of the street as a threshold to Resistance

19

2.4 Tool of political expression & resistance - challenging governance and its

hierarchical systems of oppression through direct oppositions and alternative infrastructures

23

2.4.1

The Black Panther Movement, Oakland 1963 and its living demand for an alternative infrastructure

27

2.4.2

Züri brännt, Zurich 1980 and its demand for an autonomous youth centre

33

2.4.3

The Black Lives Matter movement, a reoccurring demand for an equal society

39

2.5

The Stages of protest - Investigating tools & stages of interference

45

3

Rebel Rebel - The Proposal

53

3.1

Digital placemaking - Danger & risks of physical & digital protest

53

3.2

Structures of interference

59

3.3

Multiscalar Disturbances - Spatial translation of Digital Protest

67

3.4

Elements & Construction

73

3.5

Disturbance Modes

75

3.7

The Questions of Ownership and Distribution - Emerging Networks

79

4

Conclusion - The necessity of collective actions, social movements, and revolution - changing history

93

5

Bibliography & Picture Index

97

1 Hong Kong Protest 2019

3

London, where this proposal is based has its very own, long history of social interferences through its city’s young.

On the 4 August 2011 Mark Duggan was shot and killed by the police in Tottenham, Haringey. He was a 29 years old black man.

The high lack of evidence, willingness of cooperation and answers form the police adding to Haringey’s past in oppression of its majority of Black and minority ethnic community led to, what is today known as, the England Riots. A riot which has been particularly fueld by the possibility of digital communication across the city and ultimately the country. The Civil unrest has been described as a violent train of destruction across the country by the government and media, lead by youth between the ages of 1521 which was in the mood to destruct and loot without a specific reason.1 However, what the riots and their reaction really described was a replayed struggle of the movements in the 1980s. A long history of a lack of acceptance, education and space for the youth in society and the urban realm by its governance structure. A riot, understood as a negative expression, after all, describes

Introduction nothing else but the spatial dismantling of a capitalist system which doesn’t serve an oppressed community.

In a city which has been shaped by a society who even disregards ungoverned presence of youth in the public realm and dictates a hierarchical domestic typology there is no room for youth to express its demands, except digitally. Their sole presence is being seen with suspicion, intolerance - and therefore the spatial world of young people gets severely limited. Such census oppresses a valuable contribution to an equal city.

Especially in times of a crisis and post-crisis this is more important than ever. Protests and their various stages carry the highest potential for the youth to directly influence urban society and an equal city making.

It is time that digital space finds a way to be present in physical space. This proposal aims to enable spaces of expression and at the same time as spaces of shelter from over-policing and surveillance by bridging both spatial worlds. The work focusses on a dissolution/interference of (public) typology and infrastructures as boarders which don’t serve the oppressed youth to break existing boundaries and challenge the city’s hierarchy. At the same time it forces an interaction with the youth - and youth with the city in times of a pandemic crisis.

‘Rebel Rebel’ is a ‘stateless’ safe space which enables opinions to be heard and seen, and a motivator to re-imagine the city as a space of equality - overthrowing the spatial systems of oppression through interference.

1

cf. The Guardian, Paul Lewis, and Tim Newburn, Reading the

Riots: Investigating England’s Summer of Disorder, ed. by Dan Roberts, 1 edition (Guardian Books, 2011).

(2,3,4,5) Newspaper headlines depicting media coverage and the spread of stigmatization after 1981 & 2011 riots.

It might be that being trapped inside during various lockdowns made many of us more aware of all the struggles currently being fought for around the world, many may have now turned towards activism themselves, though it is to doubt that 2020 has born new beginnings in ongoing civil unrests.

Hong Kong has been fighting for democracy whilst experiencing violent physical and surveillance police attacks since March 2019, Palestinians protest against the Israeli annexation plan, and the worldwide ‘Black Lives Matter’ protest, the largest protest in the US yet, has been met with various mass violations by US Police.

4

The many Struggles of (North) London’s Urban Youth

Looking at riots in general as a form of resistance, it in every case exposes a network behind it which creates a form of political expression through interfering with an existing system. To even assume, like is has been done in many political agendas and media coverages, that riots and protests need to be stopped is fundamentally wrong. Protests are a legitimate, democratic right which needs to persist.2 Where there are riots, there is local culture and a local network.

A local network which experiences immense struggle induced by a governmental and spatial system which does not accommodate the needs of the community. The reasons for interferences such as riots, protests, rallies and strikes always lead back to sociopolitical restrictions of some kind. They involve issues of race, material conditions, police brutality, unemployment in a context of economic downturn, immigration, press representation, far right activity and the disproportionate burden all of these placed on the lives of a specific community.3 In the case of the England riots which started in

Stigmatization, Ethnic Minorities, Sink Estates, SocioPolitical Challenges, Deprivation - A History of Youth Oppression and its Resistance in Space

5

6. London’s Black & POC Minorities + Boroughs of England Riots 2011

7. Brixton Riots, 1980 during Thatcherism. A Black man gets held by 3 police officers.

8. Margaret Tatcher at home at a Right-To-Buy Family at a housing estate drinking tea.

schools) in Haringey in 1965-1975.5 In 1977s where tensions caused by the far right National Front lead to the Battle of Lewisham on 13th August 1977 the Battle of Wood Green on 23rd April 1977.6 Showing, that the 2011 riots weren’t a new or surprising pattern of counter-action is the history of the city’s 1980s riots during a time in which Thatcherism, its economical crises and far right activity especially affected the young generation of the country.

1981 Brixton Riots, Croydon (Also spread to other parts of London and the Country)

2 cf. ‘Der Zürcher Sommer 1968: Stadt Zürich. VBZ Und Demonstrationen’.

3 cf. Youth Culture and Social Change: Making a Difference by Making a Noise, ed. by Keith Gildart and others(Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), p.5-6.

4 cf. ‘Indices of Deprivation - London Datastore’ .

5 cf. Jessica Gerrard, ‘Self Help and Protest: The Emergence of Black Supplementary Schooling in England’, Race Ethnicity and Education.

6 ‘The Battle of Wood Green 23rd April 1977’, Kmflett’s Blog, 2017.

6

Haringey it was a burden placed on the lives of young Black men and women, a sociopolitical issue which had its history repeated over decades and generations, specifically in the area of Tottenham - a suburban area of London being the home of a high number of ethnic minorities and being part of the 10% of the most deprived areas of the UK.4 The burden placed on their shoulders by accusing them to be part of a poorer, lower class, part of a minority with a lack of education was an accusation which should have been made towards the capitalist system itself not the ones being oppressed under it.

The Borough’s racial protest history and that of many other Boroughs in the city (e.g.

Croydon) leads back to counter movements and organisations - both systematic and temporary interferences such as protests and riots - e.g. the Black Education Movement (part of The Black Panther UK liberation

7

‘‘Historically, gangs solicited fear of young people’s collective identification with place and local networks identification which often trumped deference to authority (...)’’

1985 Brixton Riots, Croydon (After the injuring of an innocent woman) 1985 Broadwater Farm Riots, Haringey (After the death of Cynthia Jarrett) 1995 Brixton Riots, Croydon (After death of Wayne Douglas in police custody) 2011 England Riots, Haringey (Starting in Tottenham after the death of Mark Duggan, spreading to other parts of London and the country) 2017 Forest Gate Riots, Newham (After the death of Edir Frederico Da Costa) 2018 Dalston Riots, Hackney (After death of Rashan Charles)7 Tottenham (Haringey), Hackney and Croydon and its occurrences of riots also very often get associated with its gang culture. Gangs being viewed as a highly problematic social structure in London raises the same question as the negative use of the word riot does. Historically, gangs solicited fear of young people’s collective identification with place and local networks; identification which often trumped deference to authority, the aspirations of the workday week and traditional forms of working-class respectability.8 In short, deference to being trapped in the existing governance system. Gangs also tell the story

of the desire of belonging to a group or chosen family.9 Describing youth - the word in itself already forming more of a question than an answer, being not a child anymore but not quite an adult and therefore not fully liable to take on responsibilities in society - the daily linguistic use finds many negative expressions to depict its presence in space. ‘Vandalism’ being one of them, which - analysing it further - means nothing else

but interfering with the built environment which is not meant to host the young or their mark on it. ‘Lingering’ which is the simple presence in space, it can however be seen as a protest through claiming space as a way of emphasising identities. All of these descriptions pointing towards the fact that young members of society are seen as unwanted assets in public space.

9. Brixton Riots, 1985 Rioters about to be met by the police.

10. Brixton Riots, 1981 Rioters trying to flee from the police - tools of spatial order hindering their escape.

7 cf. ‘A New Kind of Riot? From Brixton 1981 to Tottenham 2011’, The Guardian, 9 December 2011.

8

8 cf. Karen Malone, ‘Street Life: Youth, Culture and Competing Uses of Public Space’:, Environment and Urbanization.

9 cf. Dying to Belong: An in-Depth Review of Street Gangs in Britain: A Policy Report, ed. by Centre for Social Justice (London: Centre for Social Justice, 2009).

11 Model Lodge, 1851 Prince Albert for the first World Exhibiton ‘Cottage for Working Families’

victorianlondon.org/houses/princealbertsmodel

We are now faced with the reality of a pandemic and spatial restrictions which were unthinkable for many city dwellers until a few months ago. Curfews and the closing of educational, infrastructural institutions and leisure facilities such as schools, universities, high street shops, clubs, sports facilities, etc. leave public spaces, squares, central main streets, high streets almost uninhabited. One finds themselves limiting their lives to the realm of one owns dwelling. And it is here, where spatial and social hierarchies amongst family and kinship structures are made visible in the first place. The young are governed by the parental body of the dwelling, this translates into a smaller proportion of layout, less private sphere and a lack of access to service areas and therefore a lack of responsibility and perspective. Trapped in layouts resembling the Three Bedroom Apartment, 1875 the youth is now limited to almost no escape routes.

An uncertain Future for the Youth Challenges caused by the Pandemic and the Absence of Solutions, Food for a future Riot

“Youths are passed through schools that don’t teach. Then forced to search for jobs that don’t exist and finally left stranded to stare at the glamorous lives advertised around them.”

Women

Men 1

9

Under 25s

n 17%

13%

4/5 of Tennants work in restricted sectors

10

Social Housing Tennants Statistics of economically effected groups - Covid-19

12 The Guardian reporting on Hancock blaming the youth for rising numbers in Covid Cases

Huey Newton10 Paying close attention to politics and the media it can be observed that, should the young, after all being a major economical impact an expected to do so, leave the house they are presented with the old pattern of being blamed for their presence, should they not follow the social hierarchical structure.

Not only are the young getting blamed for the rise of Covid-19 infection numbers but also for finding ways of navigating through social distancing measures to come together for ‘illegal’ raves.

“When people feel oppressed by the system, the system will have pushback, especially lately as there’s so many more rules now, but also illegal raves are a way of life too. They have never stopped since the late 1980s, it just went underground – but lately, as we’ve been in lockdown, the spotlight is once again on raves.” Ian, Raver interviewed by Matthew Smith, author of Exist to Resist in 2020.

“Raves became partly about protest when they created a culture so popular that the government stepped in to outlaw that culture,” Matthew says, referring to the 1994 Justice Act which banned unlicensed rave parties, which he describes as the criminalisation of his culture. “There were times when the purpose of our parties was to raise money for protest and to create protest using celebration as a positive tool for raising awareness, opposition and uniting people,” he added.’’11

11

Though the most devastating effect on the young might be the current lack of option and the further outlook of a high number of unemployment, effecting especially youth in highly deprived areas of the UK and especially London. What the current reality is facing

12

is an even more oversurveilled, spatially restricted and economically glim present and future for a generation which is already struggling to find a place in this seemingly perfectly structured capitalist system. All of these challenges adding to the already existing ones are indicating that Covid related riots are looming in the near future and there are no cooperative new systems in place for the young to accommodate those.

13 Protests after 1985 Broadwater Farm riots.

A police officer has been killed during the riots - the local youth has been blamed. Broadwater Farm in Haringey, a housing estate, has been the victim of stigmatization and prejudices towards its residents.

10 Huey P. Newton, War Against the Panthers: A Study of Repres-

sion in America (London: Writers & Readers, 2000).

11 ‘Partying In A Pandemic: Why The Rave Scene Is Experiencing A Resurgence’, HuffPost UK, 2020.

‘‘When people feel oppressed by the system, the system will have pushback, especially lately as there’s so many more rules now (...)’’

14 Youth in Manchester’s suburbs occupying demolishion grounds for their own leisure and fun.

13

14

“Youths are passed through schools that don’t teach.

Then forced to search for jobs that don’t exist and finally left stranded to stare at the glamorous lives advertised around them.”

Huey Newton

16 Norman Jay – Good Times DJ Set at Notting Hill Carnival, 1992

15 The empty site of a closed down ‘Quarantine Rave’ in the English countryside.

Interferences: Riots, Rallies, Protests, Demonstrations

The revolution has always been in the hands of the young. The young always inherit the revolution. You can tell the tree by the fruit it bears. - Huey P. Newton12

17 Manchester, Cops Piss Off. From the series Youth Unemployment (1981), Tish Murtha

By forming a subculture, a network of new collective identities which works against the oppressing system and taking their demand to the streets, rioting might be the most spectacular expression of youth disconnect.13 Protests are part of an ongoing continuum of resistance and resilience that helped communities stick together.

These counterpublics as Margaret Crawford describes them in her Essay ‘Blurring the Boundaries - Public Space and Private Life’ reveal a range of discursive sites characterized by (...) varied struggles between contentious concerns. In the bourgeois public sphere, citizenship is primarily defined in relation to the state, framed within clear categories of discourse.’ This, as pointed out, especially applies to the young not having the right of space and identity in the public realm.

Riots, strikes and demonstrations exist to demand ‘new rights based on their specific roles in the domestic or economic (and public) spheres.’14 and through doing so

15

18 Broadwater Farm Youth Association demonstrating for Nelson Mandela’s Freedom as part of London’s anti-Apartheid group

12 Huey P. Newton Foundation Staff, Dr Huey P. Newton Foundation, and The The Huey P. Newton Foundation, The Black Panther Party: Service to the People Programs (UNM Press, 2008).

13 cf. Youth Culture and Social Change: Making a Difference by Making a Noise, ed. by Keith Gildart and others(Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), p. 3-4.

16

redefine democracy and redraw hierarchical boundaries in space.

Resistances as these are shedding light on spatial limitations towards political activism.

It can be concluded that resistance requires spatial restrictions and boarders in order to break them, otherwise the potential of an impact does not exists. ‘Once mobilized, social identities become political demands, spaces and sites for political transformation, with the potential to reshape cities.’15

14 cf. Readings in Urban Theory 3e, ed. by Susan S. Fainstein, 3rd edition (Chicester, West Sussex ; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), p.22-23.

15 Ibid. p.28.

Socio-political misstreatment Economical & political crisises Covid-19 Pandemic 2019

Affected Age of Unemployment 15-30

n ici l o

n

rgovernanc e v e& oo t p g

Current Situation

g

COMMUNICATION THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF CULTURE (ART - GRAFFITI, MUSIC), PROTEST & RIOTS

Expression in Culture & Interference in urban fabric

rea c ti

Current H 17

no c g in op mechanisms a v ai

xx

e bl la

Emerging of Youthcultures and their demands/ claiming of space CREATING OF OWN RULE SETS ‘OWN STATE’

No Space! No Opportunity!

SAFE SPACES OF EXPRESSION

18

High Risk

In a way, taking the demands to the street is just another way of occupying physical space, though protests work on a temporary occupation strategy and one which works dynamically.

‘Reclaiming the Streets’, a movement combining Rave culture and street protest in 1995 worked against the threat of the car taking over the city and minimizing public space. It ‘saw the streets as the urban manifestation of the commons, in need of reclaiming from the enclosures of the car and commerce and transformed into truly public places to be enjoyed by all.’16. The movement saw the street itself not only as a stage for protest but as a reason to protest and therefore highlighted its importance in expressing their opinion.

‘Streets and public space as a domain in which social values are asserted and contested. (...)

They allow expressions of intolerance and difference within society. For that reason ‘streets are the terrain of social encounters and political protest, sites of domination and resistance, places of pleasure and anxiety.’17 What should be mentioned is that what is meant by ‘street’ in the cases of protests is mostly high streets and main streets of the city - places of attention and daily occupation, space that clearly belongs to a governance body and is not part of private civil ownerships.

To quote Jane Jacobs ‘Streets and their sidewalks, the main public places of a city, are its most vital organs. Think of a city and what comes to mind? Its streets.’18 These descriptions of an ideal street don’t apply to the reality. Though thought of as a space to roam free and express ones culture and explore ones ‘self-identity - youth having different cultural values, understandings and needs - through the rituals and “dailyness” of

The Value of the Street as a Threshold to Resistance

19

19 Reclaim the Streets, London 1991 A protest blocking the Street by letting two cars crash into each other the element of unpredictable surprise, the protest then incorporated a rave.

(...) that which can’t be held, can’t be repressed, can’t be organized into neatness. The fear of politicians everywhere: the crowd in the street (...) declared illegal a range of activities in the streets, including football, flying a kite or any game considered to be an annoyance to inhabitants or passers-by.’21 ‘Hanging around in groups on street corners talking, playing or simply observing others is viewed as inappropriate in the structured ordered streets of our cities. (...)’ it makes the streetscape look ‘untidy’. Though for many young people it is the place of performance,

16 cf. Juman Abujbara, Beautiful Rising: Creative Resistance from the Global South (OR Books, 2018).

17 cf. Karen Malone, ‘Street Life: Youth, Culture and Competing Uses of Public Space’:, Environment and Urbanization.

18 cf. Jane Jacobs, Tod und Leben großer amerikanischer Städte (Ullstein, 1963).

19 cf. Karen Malone, ‘Street Life: Youth, Culture and Competing Uses of Public Space’:, Environment and Urbanization.

20 cf. Readings in Urban Theory 3e, ed. by Susan S. Fainstein, 3rd edition (Chicester, West Sussex ; Malden, MA: Wiley-Black-

20

street life,’19 - it is built on the principles of democracy. Looking back in history it reveals that in fact, democracy has always been a concept of ‘systematic exclusion’. ‘We may well ask if there was ever a time when street spaces were free and democratic, equal and available to all. (...) Various social groups – the elderly, the young, the poor, women and members of sexual or ethic minorities – in different times and places, have been excluded from public space and subjected to political and moral censure.’ The Greek Agoras for example being pictured as the ultimate forefather of democracy has in fact excluded more than it has enabled society to fully include itself into the decision making of the state. Women, slaves and children have been excluded from the right to attend the space and to vote.20 Looking back at a time when moral census ruled society and was considered the greatest good, Victorian London released the ‘Vagrancy and Malicious Trespass Act of 1839 in metropolitan London (which)

well, 2011) 21 cf. Judith R. Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives Of Sexual Danger In Late-Victorian London, 1st Edition (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1992).

21

A shared memory of a common world (even when severely shaken) can play an important role in shaping practices of commoning. - Stavros Stavrides27

there their social identity is constructed.

The street, according to Rob White: “...represents for many young people a place to express themselves without close parental or ‘adult’ control, at little or no cost in commercial or financial terms. It is also a sphere or domain where things happen, where there are people to see and where one can be seen by others. In short, for many young people the street is an important site for social activity. And the intrusion of ‘authority’ into one’s social affairs can and does create resentment and resistance, especially if this is done in a heavy handed fashion.”22 Yet the presentation of the young and other minority groups in the streets through gatherings and appearance in big numbers, for example through carnivals is seen as a political threat which aims to ‘destabilize the hierarchy of spatial dominance’23.

The carnival, as defined by Antoni Jach, is: “...that which can’t be held, can’t be repressed, can’t be organized into neatness.

The fear of politicians everywhere: the crowd in the street; the uncontrolled, uncontrollable display; the random, unpredictable event that punctuates the facade of normality, the facade of power.” 24 What can be concluded therefore is that ‘where the passage through space is disrupted and distracted by a diverse community, including children and youth who are playfully exploring their sense of belonging, place and self-identity’25, it creates a strong impact as well as a strong objection from governmental bodies against the disrupters. One fuels/creates the other and the street consequently functions as an ultimate dynamic ‘battleground’.

To stress the conclusion - a riot requires

unadapted spaces, which present the protesting group with certain boarders and obstacles that give the chance to be reshaped and space to be won back from the dominant power over it. All boundaries ‘are socially constructed products of society (they) organize our social space through geographies of power’.26 What first appears as the main problem cannot and under no circumstances should be solved, but rather be seen as a chance to, just like the movement ‘Reclaim the Streets’, make use of its protesting reason and space.

22 Alan France and Paul Wiles, ‘Dangerous Futures: Social Exclusion and Youth Work in Late Modernity’, Social Policy & Administration, 31.5 (1997), 59–78.

23 cf. Karen Malone, ‘Street Life: Youth, Culture and Competing Uses of Public Space’:, Environment and Urbanization.

24

cf. Antoni Jach, Layers of the City (Rydalmere, N.S.W: Hodder Headline Australia, 1999), p.91.

25 cf. Karen Malone, ‘Street Life: Youth, Culture and Competing Uses of Public Space’:, Environment and Urbanization.

26 Ibid.

20 New York street scenes in the 1980s. A group of youth performing break dance in front of a graffiti mural spelling ‘Space’

22

27 Stavros Stavrides, Common Space: The City as Commons, p.203

21

Riots and protests ‘are best understood in the longer context of slow resistance and everyday ways in which making a noise makes a difference to young people’s lives’.28 Reshaping the city begins with protest in different forms organized in the backrooms of shared club and night time spaces, stairwells, recreational parks, street corners and bedrooms where the excluded groups form their counterpublic against the excluding body. Historically these might have been coffee houses for example. This shows that these traditional layouts with their function of exclusion work as a fort in organising interference and at the same time as positioning themselves in the structure of existing society (see chart above). The

Tools of political expression and resistance - challenging governance and its hierarchical systems of oppression through direct oppositions and alternative infrastructures (Subcultures)

23

total surveillance, is produced through collective inventiveness, which is either triggered by everyday urgent needs or is unleashed in collective experiments in inventing possible forms of space sharing and sharing-through-space31 are first and foremost a space of movement. This can be understood as either literal movement, coming and going, entering and exiting, or metaphorical movement of change which also includes shifts in society, this may regard passing from childhood to adolescence, single to married life, life to death – a social transformation that molds individuals, and therefore an area of common life, social relations and organization, which is always in the making.32 Streets these days certainly appear as boundaries instead of the ideal and final place to carry ones demands. They are restricted through CCTV, private ownership and policing. The streets as stages during protest therefore are the threshold towards the expression of opinions.

To understand the various stages and tools of protest leading towards crossing the threshold of/to the street it is important to look at successful case studies whose cause and impact have achieved noteworthy reactions and the breaking down of boundaries in society and space.

What should be noted is, that two of these case studies (The Black Panther Party and Züri Brännt) work on the principle of

28 cf. Readings in Urban Theory 3e, ed. by Susan S. Fainstein, 3rd edition (Chicester, West Sussex ; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) p.20, Crawford.

29 cf. Karen Malone, ‘Street Life: Youth, Culture and Competing Uses of Public Space’:, Environment and Urbanization.

24

post-war generation for example came to be defined by their refusal to reap the rewards of the post-war settlement in simple terms.

Instead they took new popular cultural spaces like cinemas, clubs and concert halls and used them to build new collective identities. The pattern of occupation as a form of protest has been emerging into the squatting scene, especially popular in the 1970s through the Hippie and Punk scene.

Through subcultures as these, different cultural networks of resistance have emerged.

These subcultures, their music, literature, events and art ‘provided the structures, shapes and styles needed for resistance, resilience and in some cases conformity.‘ and ‘offered young people a form of political expression’29 Today these spaces are often transformed into digital spaces. Culture of resistance gets communicated through social media, opinions shared and issues discussed.

Though the final impact - the physical and spatial protest - unable to be performed digitally is unable to impact indefinitely as it can be ignored too easily without any direct disruptions. Riots and demonstration therefore follow a pattern of disruptions in the system, but begin through a practice of commoning in movements and gatherings behind closed doors, unsurveilled and far from policing grounds, and travel through different ways of media and influences to a final stage of disruption, the physical presence in the street, often connected with strong interferences, etc. portraits the emerging connection of private with public space and creates a threshold for opinions.

Thresholds itself first appear as boundaries, something which must be crossed in order to transfer to another place.30 Common space, used without policed governance outside of the user-group (residents), and therefore distant from

30 Stavros Stavrides, Common Space: The City as Commons, p.203

31 Ibid.

32 Stavros Stavrides, Towards the City of Thresholds (Brooklyn, NY: Common Notions, 2019).

22 Northern Soul dancers in Wigan Casino. An old dance hall on the outskirts of Manchester. Ending up being rewarded the best club in the world.

having central headquarters from where they operate and organise from, which localises the demands around certain starting points.

The mapping therefore is clear. However, to complete the case study and lead it back to the present digital age, The Black Lives Matter movement and its protests sparked from different points in the city due to its very different way of organisation via digital connections. Though the street clearly still operates as the final stage, it clarifies that protests, though still using traditional tools for protest as well as traditional tools being used against them, now draw on various new tools to maintain safety during protest.

23 Carnaby Street Soho, 1968 Youth occupying formerly empty retail spaces to create a subculture

25

24 Warehouse Rave in 1990s The Rave Culture originated from inhabiting unused space and organising illegal gatherings

26

25 Punks squatting in an empty building.

Squatting culture as a political act was born in the 1960s and first used by Hippies and Punks, working against the system.

(...) where the passage through space is disrupted and distracted by a diverse community, including children and youth who are playfully exploring their sense of belonging, place and selfidentity.

The Black Panther Party (of Self Defense)

26 Free Huey Rally in Oakland, 1968 Protesters occupying the street, marching towards the city’s governmental building

Who: Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale When: October 1966 - 1982 Where: (Merritt College) Oakland California, quickly spread across the whole US & Europe Against: Oppression and oppressors, Capitalist-Systems, police brutality, Killing under racism On September 27, 1966, a police officer shot Matthew Johnson, an unarmed 16-year-old, in the back in San Francisco’s Hunters Point neighbourhood, sparking violent unrest for several days. Huey Newton decided the only way to address police brutality was to monitor the authorities.

Black people had been taught nonviolence; it was deep in us. What good, however, was nonviolence when the police were determined to rule by force? We had seen the Oakland police and the California Highway Patrol begin to carry their shotguns in full view as another way of striking fear into the community. We had seen all this, and we recognized that the rising consciousness of Black people was almost at the point of explosion. One must relate to the history of one’s community and to its future.

Everything we had seen convinced us that our time had come ...

Huey P. Newton, “The Founding of the Black Panther Party,” taken from his autobiography, Revolutionary Suicide

29

The Black Panther Party has a significant place in the modern Black Liberation Movement. It not only protested through creating a whole new infrastructure, their Survival Programs, but also by their appearance and distribution of information through media such as The Black Panther Newspaper. Huey P. Newton saw especially

The Black Panther Party (of Self Defense)

the youth as the chance to create a liberated future. Some of the reasons why the Party experienced such success during their first years were: 1 The principle of Self-Defense: fundamental things that set the BPP apart from most previous Black organizations and which attracted members (particularly the youth), mass support, and a mass following.

2 Revolutionary Nationalist Ideology: Its main goal was the national liberation of Afrikan people in the U.S. through theories and practices which were based on socialist principles.

3 Mass Organizing Techniques: its policy of “serving the people”. This was a policy of going to the masses, living among them, sharing their burdens, and organizing the masses to implement their own solutions to the day to day problems that were of great concern to them. For these reasons, and others, the influence of the BPP spread far beyond its actual membership. Not only did the BPP programs teach self-reliance, but years later the government established similar programs such as free school lunch, expanded medicare and day care facilities, and liberalized court procedures for tenant takeovers of poorly maintained housing.’

In terms of their own alternative infrastructure, protesting through serving their own needs/ demands, the Black Panther Party founded their system on the socialist principles of acting for the people - The Black Panther

Party Survival Programs: Intercommunal Youth Institute, Community Learning Center, Son of Man Temple, Seniors Against a Fearful Environment (SAFE), People’s Free Medical Research Health Clinics, Sickle-Cell Anemia Research Foundation, People’s Free Ambulance Service, Free Breakfast for Schoolchildren Program, Free Food Program, Black Student Alliance, Landbanking, People’s Free Employment Program, Intercommunal News Service, People’s Cooperative Housing Program, Child Development Center, People’s Free Shoe Program, People’s Free Clothing Program, Free Plumbing and Maintenance Program, People’s Free Pest Control Program, The Black Panther Party’s TenPoint Program, Legal Aid and Educational Program, Organizing a People’s Campaign.

Especially their 10 Point Program functioning as their manifesto of demands operated as the ultimate protest against the capitalist system.

4 Propaganda Techniques: significant contributions to the art of propaganda.

Spreading its message and ideas through its newspaper The Black Panther, mass rallies, speaking tours, slogans, posters, leaflets, cartoons, buttons, symbols (e.g., the clenched fist), graffiti, political trials, and even funerals. The BPP also spread its ideas through use of the establishment’s t.v., radio, and print media.33

town houses. The recruitment and direct communication with the people however took place on the street and parks. The final rallies, protests and marches, for example the Free Huey rallies followed the patterns of Oakland’s main streets from outer suburbia (West Oakland - an area of the city which by 1950 was already overcrowded with 80% of the city’s Black population, by 1960 segregated from the rest of the city through a freeway and a deliberate lowering of property values enabling the pricing out the Black community of the city with only 1422 public housing units built for 20 000 eligible dwellers34 towards the town centre and its institutional state buildings, such as the Alameda County Court House and its surrounding urban fabric (e.g. lake Merritt).

27

30

Taking as the case study the origins of the Party in Oakland and their leading patterns of spatial occupation through protest, the organisation operated mostly in public space, apart from activities requiring spatial implementation such as the headquarters, schools and the breakfast program as examples - again simple colonial Victorian layouts such as churches, village halls and

33 ‘A Brief History Of The Black Panther Party’ <http://www.

thetalkingdrum.com/bla2.html>.

34

‘THE CHANGING FACE OF OAKLAND’, THE PLANNING HISTORY OF OAKLAND, CA.

Spatializing the Movement

28

De Fremery Park, Place of Free Huey Rallies

Community Centre, e.g.

Clothes Program

29

Last Black Panther HQs, also Newspaper main office & â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Hospital wingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; 30

31

Inner City Active Interference, Protest Passive Interference, Infrastructure Green Spaces

32

West Street, Breakfast Program

Highway built in 1960s around West Oakland

Alameda State County Hall (Trial of Huey Newton)

31

32

Lake Merrit Park - Place of Rallies

Zßri Brännt - Zurich Youth Riots 1980

33 Zurich Youth rioters being attacked by the police. This picture has ended up being one of the most famous ones of the riot in 1980.

Who: Zurich Youth, Aktionsgruppe Rote Fabrik (ARF) When: May 1980 - March 1982 Where: Zurich, Switzerland Against: Conservative city government, one sided investments into opera house etc., being ignored and not given space in the city

35

The city of Zurich has a long history of riots.

In the 1968s the idea of an autonomous state has emerged amongst the city’s young and in contrast to the conservative government of the city’s plans they wanted their own ‘stateless’ autonomous youth centre. Amongst the youth culture 1968 unrests across the world, Zurich made its stand. Their demand has not been met, instead the activists have been treated as criminals in various trials afterwards.

The very same demand has lived on and resurfaced through occupations across the city in unused buildings - squatters rather successfully occupied unused buildings. The ‘Rote Fabrik’ an unsued industrial building on the outskirts of the city has been one of them. By 1980, the city still hasn’t reacted to the demand of handing over some space to the youth in the city, instead they funded the renovation of the opera house. Whilst the opera house should undergo refurbishment work, the concerts should take place in the ‘Rote Fabrik’. Not only should the youth be ignored once more, they should even be driven out of the space they chose to express their cultural demands with. By the time this decision was made, the youth has already organised themselves into a cultural orientated organisation originating from the Rote Fabrik itself ‘Aktionsgruppe Rote Fabrik (ARF)’. They declare a protest on the 30th of May 1980 to put the city under pressure to take their demands seriously.

Züri Brännt Youth Riots, Zurich, 1980 This protest, aiming for the opera house in the centre of the city was just the beginning of what proofed to be a two year long fight.

Various protests around the inner city of Zurich have been taken place until they get the right to open up the AJZ (Autonomous youth centre). Naked protests, occupation protests, marches, violent protests - the youth organised cultural events such as concerts, gatherings and distributed more than one newspaper towards the cause. The protests demanded over 4000 arrests, over 1000 criminal processes and many violent attacks coming from the police. The AJZ unfortunately it has was forced to close down after a few months as it got known as a place for drug trafficking and homelessness.

Of course this didn’t happen without a further riot. Finally the Rote Fabrik got to be known - after a 7 year long test period as the cultural centre of Zurich. The city has also decided, after some years, to raise the cultural budget from 1 to 11 Million SF. One of the movement’s strongest way of communication, which apart from unsuccessful conversations in state buildings across the city has been performed on the street once again, was the medium of film.

The first night of the protest has been recorded on video and been edited into a film. This was shown to the city council and afterwards got forbidden to be screened and confiscated. Today it counts as one of the

Y

p

in

34

most powerful testimonies of the movement and the struggles the youth fought for. The organisation of the movement took place through meetings in occupied buildings further from the city centre and posters around the city. Whilst the interferences itself took place mostly within the old city’s walls and aiming for institutional buildings such a s the police station, the opera house, the city hall. 35/36

We found the demand for a Youth Centre quite obvious, but as an answer the city sent the police which beat the occupants out (...) We had utopian ideas how to change society with culture, but no space to express them (...) therefore we came together on the street students, workers, artists and ntellectuals - everyone who was 37 dissatisfied.

35 cf. Sabine Fischer, ‘1979–1991: Chronologie Zürich’, 2013

<https://www.woz.ch/-3844> [accessed 20 October 2020].

36 cf. ‘Der Zürcher Sommer 1968: Stadt Zürich. VBZ Und Demonstra-

36

tionen ID: GK_1093_SH’ <https://www.uzh.ch/cosmov/edition/ssldir/V4/XML-Files/XML/GK_1093_SH.xml> [accessed 21 November 2020].

37 Matthew Allen, ‘Im heissen Sommer 1980, als Zürich brannte’, SWI swissinfo.ch <https://www.swissinfo.ch/ger/im-heissen-sommer1980--als-zuerich-brannte/8968762> [accessed 20 October 2020].

AJZ Youth Centre, events, demonstrations â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;HQâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

35

Helvetiaplatz Place of gatherings & speechess 36

37

Rote Fabrik Occupied Industrial Areal, final youth centre & cultural centre

Spatializing the Movement

Inner City Active Interference, Protest Passive Interference, Infrastructure Green Spaces Platzspitz Protests, Speeches

Zurich University Strikes and Speeches

QuaibrĂźcke, confrontation with police & naked protest 37

38

38

Opernhaus & Opernplatz Final gathering of protests

Black Lives Matter

39 The Black Zurich Youth Lives rioters Matter beingprotests attackedin by2020 the have police.

This written been picture down has ended in history up being as the one most of the attended most famous ones protest in the of US the-riot and even in 1980. world wide.

Who: People of all age groups and ethnicities, founded by three community organisers When: July 2013 - today Where: US, internationally Against: Oppression and oppressors, police brutality, Shooting and killing of unarmed Black people

41

‘In the summer of 2013, three community organisers Alicia Garza, a domestic worker rights organizer in Oakland, California; Patrisse Cullors, an anti-police violence organizer in Los Angeles, California; and Opal Tometi, an immigration rights organizer in Phoenix, Arizona, founded the Black Lives Matter movement in cyberspace as a sociopolitical media forum, giving it the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter (...) after the murder of seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin by a neighbour watch police.’

By ‘petitioning for justice through mediums like Change.org. Using Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, they created a movement unlike most black freedom campaigns that preceded them’. While Black Lives Matter drew inspiration from the 1960s civil rights/ black power movement, the 1980s black feminist/womanist movement, the 1980s anti-apartheid/Pan African movement, the late-1980s political hip-hop movement, the 2000s LGBT movement, and the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement, they used newly developed social media to reach thousands of like-minded people across the nation quickly to create a black social justice movement.38 The use of social media as a collective communication tool sparked protests all over the country and internationally as it distributed information, exposion of valuable recordings and photos, collective protests and protest mantras. ‘Between

Black Lives Matter Movement, 2013-today August 2014 and August 2015, Black Lives Matter chapters around the world have organized more than nine hundred and fifty protest demonstrations (all of which are) (...) intentionally provocative. 39 Though often portrait as a violent movement the Black Lives Matter protests have been successful in creating a ‘new mechanism for non-violently addressing racial inequality in twenty-first century America in order to draw attention to issues that were continually ignored by most non-black people.’ The violences in these cases originated mostly from the police and counter-protesters.

Due to the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in the first months of 2020 and the Covid-19 induced lockdowns enabling more social media use, the activism has been even more influential than before. The protests spread internationally, so did police activity as well as digital counter activism, surveillance tactics increased and painted murals have been overpainted. 40

d

40 Scanmap, a collective police activity information map which depicts location and activity of the police in certain specific American cities.

‘The Black Lives Matter movement is reinventing digital activism by occupying opposing hashtags, hacking ad revenue streams, and dismantling biased algorithms and censorship.

Technology is allowing secure communication for on-site protesters, with protective features ensuring secure and anonymous co40 ordination.’

38 cf. Herbert G. Ruffin II, ‘Black Lives Matter: The Growth of a New Social Justice Movement’.

39 Ibid.

42

40 cf. Emily Seger, ‘Black Lives Matter: New Digital Activism

Strategies.

41 Black Lives Matter digital platform - An essential virtual showroom offering educational resources and art

42 Influencing communities by distributing needed resources (such as free food) towards neighbourhoods.

By doing so, interfering with the existing infrastructure.

43 Distribution of The Black Panther Newspaper as a tool of information, mobilization and education.

43

44 #blacklivesmatter the Black Out Tuesday action of posting a black square to focus the attention on educational material rather than promotional material

46 Distribution of protest newspapers with latest information on police violence and opposition of the city of Zurich as well as new action plans

44

45 Zurich poster, explaining death of a protester.

The Stages of Protest - Investigating Tools and Stages of Interference

Through analysing the protest in the case studies, it is clear that interference neither happens on just one scale - the street neither does it happen through just one tool. What interferences include, though often appearing spontaneous - is for one a previous organisation, recruiting and distribution of information through various platforms and the elements of safety & surprises to counter act on police activity. The lack of surveillance and privacy is therefore a must to defend identities and physical security.

To clarify the stages in protests and the tools they include, this work analyses the three case studies and identifies four stages of protests.

What can also be concluded, analysing various protests is the progress of protest becoming increasingly spatial. This may

47 Angela Davis leading a Black Panthers march in New York. Speaking out to the crowd, occupying the street in protest.

45

48 Squatters in Zurich being evicted by the police. Zurich has a long history in squatting, some of the occupied buildings have ended up being successfully handed over to the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s youth and are now cultural facilities (e.g. Rote Fabrik)

The essence of protest is to disrupt.

Disruptions through protest can apply to different established systems in society. The Black Panthers did so by establishing an alternative infrastructure and by simply being present in spaces of white power structures.

The Zurich youth did so by occupation of buildings and direct confrontation with the police. The Black Lives Matter Movement, though appearing peaceful, never the less disrupts through the sheer scale of its protests e.g. public transport and events.

It also takes over social media coverage by hashtag-activism. This also includes the taking down of counter-hashtags. Other tools of digital activism apply to maintaining the safety of the activists themselves. These could be physical barricades and smoke bombs to cover up identities and hold off police violence, but could also work on a digital scale. Digital shields are for example apps suchs as the messenger app ‘Signal’ which works with end-to-end encryption, which means each message is scrambled so that it can only be deciphered by the sender and the intended recipient.41 Another digital service, helping protesters to find police presences is scanmap. A collaboratively led digital map, which filters information about the localisation of police activity and surveillance devices in cities so activists can avoid direct confrontation with the police.

All of these tools and devices therefore

count as disruptions in space and system to interfere and at least temporarily stop a system: Infrastructural disruption Spatial disruption Disruption of the governing system Digital disruptions (e.g. hacking) Communicational disruption (e.g. phone signal) Economical disruptions (e.g. worker strikes) Temporary disruptions Transport disruptions Occupational disruptions Political disruptions Disruption through noise Cultural disruption (e.g. dismantling of a monument/statue) For one there is the action of disturbances, the other constant action is a defence action.

These two main activities during a protest have to happen hand in hand, could they however both function as one item in space?

- One question this proposal is enquiring.

By doing so and making the stages of protests visible the proposal disrupts the city on many levels. The threshold, being in constant movement must show the attempts of crossing it and shaping its boundaries through protest. Restrictions which in current times prevent many people to even take part in physical protests due to the Covid-19 Pandemic therefore also prevent significant/influential impacts in disturbing the system. Streets these days certainly appear as boundaries instead of the ideal and final place to carry ones demands. They are restricted through CCTV, private ownership and policing. The streets as stages during protest therefore are the threshold towards the final expression of opinions.

41

46

apply to physical space, or as in Black Lives Matter and the Pandemic, digital space as well as physical street space. The taking over of space, the interfering, means disturbing the boundaries and challenging hierarchical systems of it. Ergo: The bigger and more urgent the demand grows, the more space gets disrupted.

Emily Seger, ‘Black Lives Matter: New Digital Activism

Strategies | Stylus’, Stylus | Innovation Research & Advisory <https://www.stylus.com/rewiring-digital-activism> [accessed 6 November 2020].

just as well

49 ‘Use Signal’, a graffiti in the US. The protesters communicate through the messenger app ‘Signal’ as it has an end-to-end encryption, hiding the protesters identities and location.

47

50 Other apps and websites, e.g. pixelate protestors faces whilst taking photos to hide identities.

There is no need to spend six months putting together a single rally when a hashtag could be used to summon protesters into the streets; no need to deal with the complexities of logistics when crowdfunding and online spreadsheets can do

TOOLS OF PROTEST Elements of Communication & Demands

Stage 1 - individual interference

Stage 2 - s

The first stage of protests often happen on smaller individual scales. It surfaces and interferes with society through spatial statements and the tool of written word, or through creative expression / uniformal clothing on the individual. It recruits new protestors as well as influencing the position of the individual.

Systematic in ground and native system creates a new the ideals of occupation o and care stru

1 - 3 ‘Vandalism’ 1 We the blacks must rise

Graffiti in Oakland 1964 on bridge wall. Showing the clear demand of the Black Civil Rights movement.

2 Wir sind wieder da

Zürich 1980. ‘We are back again’ written on an electric distribution panel as a reminder of the revolts of the youth in the city in 1968 - still demanding the same as 12 years ago. Space in the city.

2

1

24

3 Panther Power

Oakland 1967. The power anthem of the Black Panthers in West Oakland.

15

4 - 10 Print media 4 self-immolation

Zürich 1980. Statement towards the self-immolation incident during the protest as a poster.

5 Gesucht wegen tötung der bewegung

Spatial

3

System

Leaflet ‘Wanted for killing of the movement’. Portraits of local politicians and heads of police.

Zürich 1980.

17

6 distribution of black panther newspaper and books

6

Oakland 1967. Set up in front of the Black Panther Headquarters distributing info material. The Black Panther Newspaper and leaflets.

16

4

7 Es geht weiter

5

Newspaper printed by the youth movement in Zürich (RFV). Two men reading ‘It continues’ on a bench.

8 Knabenschießen 1980

‘Boy-shooting’. A clear critizism towards the police targeting youth in the city. As a poster design in Zürich 1980.

18 7

9 Grossdemo 1. August

Poster advertising a gathering/ demonstration in Zürich 1980.

10 Black Panther Newspaper

10

Distribution A member of The Black Panthers distributing the newspaper (illustrated by Emory Douglas)

19 20 38

9

8

11 - 14 Signs, Clothing, buttons 11 Black power salute

The signature hand salute of the Black Power movement - raising the right fist. The raised fist, or the clenched fist, is a universal symbol of solidarity and support. It is also used as a salute to express unity, strength, defiance, or resistance.

11

12 Black panther ‘uniform’

21

The Black Panther uniform included a black leather jacket and a black baret. Often used were batches/buttons expressing political statements and demands.

12

22

13

13 black panther buttons

Digita

Buttons worn by The Black Panthers and their supporters.

Expressions of political statements, demands and agreement.

14

The 10 point programme of the black panthers also found supporters in other minority groups. e.g. the supporting party

22 Ten Point Programme White Panthers

21 autonomous state

Zürich Youth started to claim space and self-governance starting from the late 60s (1968 movement) onwards for an autonomous system in which they are free to express themselves culturally.

20 liberation schools

Also part of theit philosphy was the motto of ‘education is power’. They founded Liberation schools who taught Black children their true history and the role in the present-day society.

19 Free health service

The Panthers 10 Point Programme included the demand of free healthcare for Black and oppressed people. The Party launched its own service with own ambulances and health centres.

18 Free food programme

Through their assessment of the social and economic conditions in their community the Black Panthers created the 10 Point Programme. Their demands became their philosophical backbone of the party. It is based on the concept of socialism. Their free food programme was also part of a campaign of Bobby Seal canidating for mayor of Oakland.

18 - 22 protest through alternative infrastructure

Zürich has a long history of building occupations by the city’s young. An example was the building in Venedigstrasse which was claimed back by the city in order to demolish it and build a new development.

17 Venedigstrasse 17 zürich

16 Almada Court oakland

To proclaim their opinions and protest against wrongful incarceration of member Huey Newton the Black Panthers marched through the city of Oakland to occupy the entrance steps and be present as an opposing party.

15 AJZ Zürich

The autonomous youth centre in Zürich has been occupied various times before during and reclaimed after the riots. Zürich 1979-81.

Zürich youth rioters having crafted a sarcastic statement towards the conservative swiss society in the city.

15 - 17 Occupation

14 Protesters with crafted protest uniform

systematic interference

Stage 3 - temporary interferance

Stage 4 - defence interference

47 - 54 defence

nterference happens in the backis often composed of an alterm opposing the existing one. It w kind of infrastructure based on f the movements. This includes the of space and creates own politics uctures.

Temporary interferances are structured as protests, riots and rallies. They influence the city primarily on a spatial scale, appear with an intensity and are a direct communication of demands through gatherings and acting as a group rather than individuals.

The final stage of interferance is a direct confrontation against the institutions and police.

These consist of the tool of the obsicle, barricades, damages and opposing actions against the body of surveillance. These might be seen as defence or damage.

47 & 48 smoke bombs

Protesters using smoke bombs and explosives against the police as a barricade. Zürich, 1980.

49 & 50 Barricades

Blocking off streets and areas to occupy or to simply slow down police. Zürich 1980.

51 burning bin

23

Seen as a tool of defence or direct protest through destruction.

Zürich 1980.

52 protesters pushing against police

Direct confrontation against police and their targes, Zürich 1980.

53 Scanmap

crowdsourced live map of police communication which expanded to various american cities.

54 Signal

Encrypts messages without saving metadata, introduced a facial-blurring feature for users sending photos in the app.

25

26

47

38 - 46 Speech, culture & Media 38 Protest bongo players

The Lumpen, the Panthers’ singing group, performs at the boycott of Bill’s Liquors.

27

39 Free huey rally singers

49

Free Huey rally. Singers on stage.

Performing power anthems.

40 AJZ punk Concert

The autonomous youth centre has been drawing in the city’s young to concerts and other cultural events.

The music, like in every subcultural movement was portraying the struggles and criticised the system.

28 31

30 29

41 Bobby seal speech

48

Bobby Seale giving an organised speech during a Free Huey rally in Frampton Park, Oakland.

32

42 Fred Hampton giving a speech to press

A spontaneous speech given to the gathering and media.

50

43 & 44 Protestor with megaphone, Zürich 1980 45 Zürich documentation of the protest

35 36

33

both the panthers and the youth movement in Zürich, as many other movements, have been portrayed by participants through film and media. the perspective from within the struggle has been exhibited on platforms, carried on to different audiences and functioned as material of proof towards institutions.

34

37 51

46 Hashtags & Youtube

Social Media platforms creating Hashtag pushbacks & trends

41

39 40

32 - 37 Signs & Banners

52

32 Free Huey Formation

A member of the Panthers waving a ‘Free Huey’ Flag in formation.

43

33 wir sind die kulturleichen der stadt We are the culture-corpeses of the city. Zürich’s youth having not given the realm to express themselves culturally call themself the city’s corpses.

45 42

34 broken swiss flag

44

al

A protestor waving a broken swiss flag. They don’t want to be part of the country’s institutional society.

54 53

35 Ich bin eine verbotene Versammlung

I am an illigal gathering. Zürich protestor in front of police.

46

31 New Haven county court

New Haven County Courthouse at a demonstration during the Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggins trial. Two boys on the statue, one raising the Black Power fist.

30 Zürich opra house

Three boys fixing a banner to the Zürich Opra House. 1980

29 Zürich child on street sign

Protestors listening to a speech, Boy leaning on a street sign to be able to see & be present.

After a protest at the university of Zürich - a sign ficed to the entrance statue. Graffiti saying ‘Zürich - shithole’

28 Zürich Universität Sign & Spray

28 - 31 use of Street furniture and monuments

The youth in Zürich found new ways of provoking attention in a conservative city. E.g. handing out if leaflets naked.

27 Zürich 1980, naked protest

September 8, 1965, united protest against oppression and misstreatment of latino farmworkers in the us. The black panthers supported other minority groups.

26 Protest against safeway supermarket (Black Panthers & AWOC)

Black Panther supporters and members marching towards Alamda Court Oakland to protest against the wrong trial against Huey Newton.

25 black panthers ‘free huey’ ralley towards alamda court

24 züri bränn, ajz 1980

Through the occupation of the AJZ youth centre in Zürich and various events, the amount of people proposes a convincing argument.

23 Züri brännt 1980

March through the city centreo of Zürich in 1980. Occupying the street.

23 - 27 body as a tool of protest

of the white panthers, creating a network of support around the country.

36 Free Huey

Protestor on a ‘Free Huey’ rally where hundreds held the same sign up, creating a mass effect.

37 Opernhaus raus aus der roten Fabrik

Opra house leave the Rote Fabrik. The orpa house held temporary concerts in the building used as an autonomous youth centre by the city’s young and therefore chased the young away.

Static

Domestic Progress of Resistance

Individual Interference

Systematic Interference

51

Public

Portable Defence Interference 52

Temporary Interference

Rebel Rebel The Proposal

Digital Placemaking - Dangers and Risks of physical and digital protest

What can no longer be ignored in the spatial practice of architecture is the presence and impact of digital space. It has become clear that protest itself nowadays starts digitally. It no is no longer the m a i n media which manipulates and censors unrest but social media which uncovers opinions, networks and activism on a world wide scale. ‘Online platforms have architectures just as our cities, roads and buildings do, and those architectures affect how we navigate them. If you cannot find people, you cannot form a community with them.’42 Protest very often can already be seen as a form of digital spacemaking by itself as it is carried out as spatial protest in the process of interferences.

‘There is no need to spend six months putting together a single rally when a hashtag could be used to summon protesters into the streets; no need to deal with the complexities of logistics when crowdfunding and online spreadsheets can do just as well.’43 It is also argued that online activism reflects ‘broader concerns and visions around community safety, accessibility, and accountability.’44 The Black Lives Matter movement has gathered and organised thousands of protests through

53

long-term action’. Zeynep Tufekci argues in her book ‘Twitter and Tear Gas that after a swift expansion, movements are often prone to what she calls ‘tactical freezes’ as they often lack ‘both the culture and the infrastructure for making collective decisions’ as there is no room for negotiating demands. Online activism also creates a medium which can easily be used against the activists themselves. She further argues that networked protest has a certain kind of fragility. That ‘whereas a social movement has to persuade people to act, a government or a powerful group defending the status quo only has to create enough confusion to paralyze people into inaction. The internet’s relatively chaotic nature, with too much information and weak gatekeepers, can asymmetrically empower governments by allowing them to develop new forms of censorship based not on

51 The Black Lives Matter Movement has established street murals which can be seen by google maps. It also started to rename street names across the US. By interferences which are not only meant to be temporary the protesters are making themselves part of the city making.

42 Jane Hu, ‘The Second Act of Social-Media Activism’, The New Yorker.

43 cf. Zeynep Tufekci, Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest (Yale University Press, 2017).

44 cf. Jane Hu, ‘The Second Act of Social-Media Activism’, The

54

the path of online activism. Especially during lockdown, social media has seen a rise in use with people staying home and spending more time on various platforms. However, online activism struggles in some aspects of their final stages of protests. ‘Besides taking care of tasks, the drudgery of traditional organizing helps create collective decision-making capabilities, sometimes through formal and informal leadership structures, and builds a collective capacities among movement participants through shared experience and tribulation. The expressive, often humorous style of networked protests attracts many participants and thrives both online and offline, but movements falter in the long term unless they create the capacity to navigate the inevitable challenges.’45 Movements falter because of lacks in depth and collective decision making and ‘strategic,

New Yorker.

45 cf. Zeynep Tufekci, Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest (Yale University Press, 2017).

46 Ibid.

blocking information, but on making available information unusable.’46 I can not be denied that online activism, though carrying the biggest potential of power against opposing governing bodies, it also depicts a partly disorganised and unsafe space with no outlet to carry their demands collectively to the public realm.

And though the presence of bodies in the

public realm fueld by hashtag activism presents a form of digital spacemaking, it is helpful to look at other more direct ways of bridging information into physical space.

As a most obvious example in history it is writing which exists amongst ‘the earliest technologies that changed the relationship between our words and the passage of time.’47

53 Chaos Computer Club’s Haus des Lehrer’s installation ‘Blinkenlights’

54 Liam Young’s Where the City can’t see

52 Cedric Price’s Fun Palace. A cultural space which not only adapts to the community’s needs but also gathers information from its surroundings in order to change ceiling and wall panels.

47 cf. Zeynep Tufekci, Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fra-

56

Online platforms have architectures just as our cities, roads and buildings do, and those architectures affect how we navigate them. If you cannot find people, you cannot form a community with them (...)

An expression which first came up in 1940 was cybernetics. It describes a self-replicating entity which reacts to their immediate surrounds based on the information it gathers.

‘These innovations — the neural network and the logics behind self-replication — are at the core of cybernetic architecture and adaptive architectural systems which use information processing, machine learning and artificial intelligence. After all, cybernetics inspired architects and designers to take these ideas and use them to understand the relationship between humans and machines.’ The design which often originated from that especially in the 1960s and 1970s were utopian proposals which were constantly ‘informed by continuous feedback from both technology and people’. ‘In particular, these spaces served as architectural investigations that explored how architecture could reflect society.’48 The concept of digital information has been incorporated into fabrication technologies and robots. Which today is known as laser cutting, 3D printing or similar.

Looking at how digital information has been implemented into architectural and urban structures there are various ways of spatially depicting signals.

Cedric Price’s Fun Palace for the Joan Littlewood Project in Stratford East, London has been described as the university of the streets which gathers information in its intermediate surrounding and way of use

gility of Networked Protest (Yale University Press, 2017).

48 cf. Mollie Claypool, ‘The Digital in Architecture: Then, Now

and in the Future’, SPACE10, 2019.

49 Ibid.

57

and translates it into changing façades/panels in the building.49 The digital movement of the 1990s and 2000s brought new ideas into digital placemaking. The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) founded in West Berlin in 1981 created a pixel imitating light installation at Haus des Lehrers in Berlin by transforming it into a giant computer screen which was able to be operated by anonymous partakers through sending in messages and calls which were gathered collectively and filtered into the installation.50 Similar works have been done by hackitecture in 2006. The WikiPlaza at Plaza de las Libertades in Sevilla was a project which worked with practices and tools used by digital communities to the construction of a hybrid public space. It ‘consists of a topological, fluid, non-hierarchical space. The contribution of Hackitectura.net is related to the incorporation of a multi-layered architecture of networks, hardware, software and digital data that permit the social, participatory production of a public space, as imagined by Lefebvre or the Situationists.’51 Liam Young as one of the most known architects experimenting with digital space describes a new reality in his film ‘Where the City can’t see’. The film itself is shot solely on laser scanning technology, creating space through digital space. The story itself describes a reality in which Google maps, urban management systems and CCTV surveillance are not only mapping our cities, but ruling them.52 A young cooperative of Bristol and Bath architecture students are also working on new ways of incorporating digital space information into the urban realm. ‘The Digital Placemaking prototypes call asked for ideas which explore questions of belonging, safety, hope and power in public spaces, expanding our understanding of the role of culture in the new digital infrastructure and the intersection of digital and physical space.’ They work with tools of

emerging technologies, e.g. 5G, hologram, motion capture, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, robotics, projection mapping, locationbased content, augmented and spatial audio.53 Concluding from all case studies - for a very long time it has been tried to include digital space into physical space through cultural, art, installation, architecture practices. The impact these projects potentially have on making statements and including collective decision making is an immense one. However none of these projects have been seen as serious enough to earn more than recognition and therefore haven’t been implemented into urban space. The sheer force online activism and protest shows has got the ultimate potential to be translated into urban space as it is the tool of disturbance which must be made visible in order to gain attention.

Combining the flexible tool of digital impact with the unpredictable element of surprise a protest must show in order to succeed against surveillance and censor tactics from governmental bodies, ‘Rebel Rebel’ shows that it is time to finally implement digital space making as a new spatial practice into the school of architecture.

It is not proposing a physical space which statically exists in urban space but a digital space made spatial. Not least because we are unable to design protest in the first place as it needs to happen naturally and be able to react flexible to opposing forces. It proposes a line of disruption through various fields of a capitalist infrastructure along the street as its matrix to prevent spatial censorships as well as physical counteractions and therefore creates freedom of expression through bridging digital and physical protest.

Rising Unrest

Full use of devices along the network to enable protest & free use of projections / safety aspect

Pressing/urgent demands seen through fully disturbing the infrastructure through projection & spatial occupation

Enabling spatial translation of unrest through expansion of the device (first disturbances)

Enabling spatial presence through implementing the device into the urban fabric Giving a voice - screen to opinions

50 cf. Media Art Net, ‘Media Art Net | Chaos Computer Club e.V.:

58

Blinkenlights’ (Media Art Net, 2020).

51 miguel, ‘WikiPlaza / Plaza de Las Libertades, Sevilla, 2006.

52 cf. ‘» Liam Young: Where The City Can’t See- University of

Salford Art Collection’.

53 cf. ‘Digital Placemaking’, Bristol & Bath Creative R&D.

Structures of Interference

55 Ant Farm’s inflatable room by their ‘Inflatable Cookbook’ plans. 1971

60 Cedric Price’s Generator - Cubes which adapt to their surrounding needs & space

56 Haus Rucker Co. Oase 7 at Kassel’s Documenta, 1972

61 Raumlabor, Bang Bang portable community centre

57 ‘PROLET The Lenin

6 1

59

62 Prada Poole - Instant City, Ibiza 1971

58 ‘‘Red cornfield’’ Magazine for art & culture during the October Revolution, 1930

59 Haus-rucker co ‘middle finger’ Roomscraper infaltable

63 Prada Poole - Pamplona Encounters, Pamplona 1972

60

TARIAN’ - “paper architecture” Tribune by El Lissitzky, 1920

64 Prada Poole construction theories ‘Fundament - Building upon’

61

65 Ant Farm’s constructio

62

on theories - closed structure ‘pillow’

63

64

Rebel Rebel (Riot Riot)

‘Rebel Rebel’ works with the impact of digital activism and translates digital interference into spatial interference ‘cybernetically’. The work focusses on a dissolution/ interference of hierarchies in p u b l i c space (the right of presence, freedom of movement) through breaking boundaries by disturbing infrastructures and communication networks in a system which doesn’t serve the youth. A structural, unfolding dome, with the street as its most influential matrix, gradually occupies more urban space with growing digital unrest. By filtering activism information, e.g. algorithms, hashtags, petitions and direct messages it creates pressure towards the governing system to pay attention to. The information gathering depicts the first safe space - it happens anonymously to hide identities. By being projected into physical space (projection mapping), the information works as a surface (curtain) to hide protesters through distraction. The space occupied enables the youth to create not only a safe digital but also physical network across the city and constructs an alternative infrastructure as a further stage of protest. ‘Rebel Rebel’ creates an urgently needed bridge between digital and physical space which can no longer be ignored and by doing so introduces a new spatial practice to the school of architecture. A digital space in the urban fabric, a rebellious tool of freedom and safety. ‘Rebel Rebel’ is a ‘stateless’ safe space which enables opinions to be heard and seen, and a motivator to re-imagine the city as a space of equality - overthrowing the spatial systems of oppression through radical digital and spatial rebellion/resistance.

Multiscalar Disturbances Spatial translation of Digital Protest

67

68

filtering th

cyber disturbance

cultural & educational disturbance

urban â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;bubbleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; network

Infrastructural disturbanc (Economy, transport, comm

69

hrough algorithm into Spatial disturbance

ce munication)

70

Political disturbance

‘‘Graceland by Chris Abani (includes) the use of literary realism to show how capitalism’s relationship with urbanisation creates infrastructural inequaties in cities; resulting in the urban poor being forced to adapt. He illustrates that when the ruling class are able to shape cities to their benefits, 54 cities become commodities.’’

66 Cedric Price’s Oxford House proposal for an unrealized project for a public communications and learning centre, a twenty-four-hour “information hive” He explored a wide range of technological devices that could function as educational and training aids: the Eidophor projection system that could project televised programming onto large outdoor screens in full daylight.

71

54 https://www.instagram.com/p/CGRua_SJSw6/

Everday

Digital Activism

Spatial Protest

linear/flat structure canvas

expanding structure disturbance

72

protest device interference / safety

Rebel Box Including: Battery Digital Activism Software Projector Fan

Flat carbon tube ring (as elements to plug together - decide on size) storing the Rebel Bubble

Rebel Rebel Elements & Construction

73

74

Digital Activism activates Softwear & battery >> Inflatable + projection

Rebel Rebel Disturbance Modes

Stage 1 - Planting into the urban fabric (street)

Stage 2 - Expansion of the device

Setting up as a guerilla element, first looking ordinary

Creating occupational space through disturbance, lighting up

Passers by recognise the item as information / an everyday item

Disturbing the infrastructure on a medium level projection unable to ignore

75

Digital activism is rising - element gets installed by collective activists decisions (guerrilla action) & fed by growing involvement & information

Growing activ therefore imp governing mod

Stage 4 - Protest mode, unlocking of device

Creation of safe space, projection of demands (unrest)

Device can be used to block of street, projection can be directed towards buildings (both ways)

Safe space for protestors/speeches, projection & space occupation fully disturbing urban infrastructure (bringing to a halt)

Protection of protestors, urban landscape can be transformed throughout a protest across the network

vism means growing disturbance and pact on the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s infrastructure and del

Rebel Rebel creates disturbance through expansion, and erects a collective safe space from surveillance devices

76

Stage 3 - Full expansion of the device

Final stage of Rebel Rebel

77

78

The Question of the spatial emergence of the Rebel Rebel is only part of creating a network of interference. The organisation - formerly a collective gathering through headquarters implemented in urban life - has now shifted to the digital space. This enables greater numbers of people to communicate, organise and impact decision making.

Rebel Rebel is a device, which should be accessible to everyone, all over the world to disturb urban governances. It therefore proposes a concept like the one made by Ant Farm in 1971, the Inflatocookbook - the one of Open Source. Ant Farm stated, that an inflatable could be constructed by anyone, even children.

Rebel Rebel, in its construction elements is simple and ordinary in appearance: - Carbon tubes elements (similar to the ones used in tents) - Transparent foil (folded) - A box including fan, battery, software, projector It is easy to assemble, transport, set up and quickly to dissemble and take away.

The Question of Ownership and Distribution Emerging Networks

79

Has a group of activists decided to interfere, it assembles â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Rebel Rebelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, or more than one and plants them across the city in a guerilla action, local to the demands and the places of interference - this can also be various activist groups with different demands. The software is programmed to collect target hashtags, petitions and other information and grows through anonymous impact across the city and the country - possibly even world wide.

The origin of disturbance will not be able to be tracked .

80 67 Open Source concept of distributing the knowledge of inflatable spaces through the ‘Inflatocookbook’ with easy instructions as to how to build one owns inflatable

68 Black Lives Matter mural in front of NY Trump Tower.

A massive street art mural - directly applied to the street.

81

69 A projection on the new Whitney Museum shortly after it opened, Guerrilla Girls, 2015 Compared to Street Art, projections are no damage to property and therefore hard to be prosecuted under the same law. - No removal?

Walter Benjamin might have argued, it is the shock of the encounter between the passers-by and streetscape in which the “art” of street art inheres. It follows that it is the capacity to be shocked or engaged by the streets that legal definitions of street art or interventions to regulate it must address. The provenance of street art is the street, and the expectation that it is produced “illegally” is part of its essential identity.

70 ‘If graffiti changed anything it would be illegal,’ Banksy Political protest & street art. Street art, more than often, is a tool to protests agains a political system. Depending on the cultural value (e.g. Banksy) it is allowed to stay or will be removed.

Tatiana Flessas and Linda Mulcahy, ‘Limiting Law: Art in the Street and Street in the

Art’:, Law, Culture and the Humanities, 2016

71 The way of setting up and starting off interference as seen in Reclaim the Streets - by crashing two cars into each other - made disturbance visible immediatelly

<https://doi.org/10.1177/1743872115625951>.

85

86

Green Lanes is part of A105, one of the longest streets in London, connecting central London (Cannonbury) with Enfield Town (North) - disturbing this important street cuts off some important economical routes, public transport and neighbourhoods

87

88

The Network expands across the city depending on where inequalities and demands erupt and interference is needed. A final ‘Rebel Rebel’ is implemented at the city centre. Following the pattern of former protests, it is the government building, the institution which is the final point of impact. The software gathers all actions (expansions) across the city and feeds it into the mega ‘Rebel Rebel’ - putting ultimate pressure on the political system by disturbing their space.

Rebel Rebel at Turnpike Lane Station, Haringey Street: A105

Rebel Rebel at Houses of Parliament, Central London Westminster

A shared memory of a common world (even when severely shaken) can play an important role in shaping practices of commoning. - Stavrides55 The long history of protests, with the essence of disruption is showing the importance to make use of the right to do so. The Abolishion of Slavery, Women’s Sufferage, Civil Rights, the protest against the Vietnam War, the Stonewall Uprising, Act Up (Government Inaction towards AIDS), WTO Protests, Occupy Wall Street, the youth led Climate Strike, Black Lives Matter - the list is endless. Collective actions as such have been studied at great length and for good reason: they can change history.

What can be concluded is, that there is no right way to protest, neither is there a way to design protest or predict its course, but it’s clear that protest needs to be able to keep its participants safe and enable the maximum impact in the urban fabric and therefore on the system. The maximum impact means disruption, and disruption as such is seen as a highly negatively associated act. The more disruption, the more attention, the more impact - but also the more negative stigmatisation (see Riots).

93

riot noun

protest noun

C1 [ C ] an occasion when a large number of people behave in a noisy, violent, and uncontrolled way in public, often as a protest

[ C or U ] a strong complaint expressing disagreement, disapproval, or opposition

interfere verb [ I ]

disturbance noun [ C or U ]

B2 to involve yourself in a situation when your involvement is not wanted or is not helpful

C1 something that interrupts someone or makes someone feel worried

72 Cambridge Dictionary definitions

Conclusion What disruptions actually enable, is the influence of a community on redefining the meaning and structure of an oppressing system by interfering with it or dismantling it in ways unintended by architects, planners and policy makers. This has been done by new generations over centuries, as it is the young on whose shoulders not only the mistakes of the past fall, but as it is them who are the most over-governed group in our society. To quote Huey P. Newton once again - ‘The revolution has always been in the hands of the young. The young always inherit the revolution.’56 In the times of a worldwide pandemic which impacts the lives of young people immensely, it is a common demand for freedom and a better life, not only back to what it has been before 2020, but to change a faulty system, excluding minorities - the young, the poor, the Black, etc. Protesting for this will never be completely safe, as otherwise there won’t be an impact. Disruptions bring risks. But one can strive for improvements in safety for all, beginning with the most pressing need of current times. Anonymity from surveillance and tracking - overpolicing.

“Anyway I don’t think we can rely on governments, regardless of who is in power, to do the work that only mass movements can do.”

Angela Davis57 ‘Rock als Revolte’ in Zurich, Switzerland was founded as a collective group to chisel out freedom in an existing system and

The chance of digital place-making can no longer be ignored. The sheer force online activism creates, the number of people it mobilizes and the potential impact is has on space-making is able to change a system.

Recently this has been proven by the Black Lives Matter movement.

This proposal does not want to present a final solution to a problem as such, but a though provoking impulse towards what should be done and with that highlight an oppressing capitalist system. Further it urges architectural schools and practices to regain the motivation towards the inclusion of digital tools beyond the use of a 3D printer, towards a future which benefits the direct impact of communities in the process of city making.

If the pandemic has made one thing clear - it is that current systems need to be urged to be rethought and overthrown by communities.

Unite - disturb - revolt - rebel.

revolt verb (PROTEST) C2 [ I ] If a large number of people revolt, they refuse to be controlled or ruled, and take action against authority, often violent action rebel noun [ C ] B2 a person who is opposed to the political system in their country and tries to change it using force

55 Stavros Stavrides, Common Space: The City as Commons, p.203.

56 Huey P. Newton, War Against the Panthers: A Study of Repression in America (London: Writers & Readers, 2000).

57 Angela Davis, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement (Haymarket Books, 2016), p.58.

58 Matthew Allen, ‘Im heissen Sommer 1980, als Zürich brannte’, SWI

94

You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.

Angela Davis59

73 Cambridge Dictionary definitions

occupy space for cultural expression. ‘One fought for freedom because one wanted to live in it’58 Freedom in German translates into ‘free(dom) room’. Riot Riot aims to create such a freedom room. In an era of various challenges, it brings with it a chance to mend. ‘The protests, whether on the street or on the page, are offering paths to do so. But to walk those paths we have to grapple with the issues baked into the way our cities operate (and find a way to) build them anew.’59

swissinfo.ch <https://www.swissinfo.ch/ger/im-heissen-sommer-1980--

als-zuerich-brannte/8968762> [accessed 20 October 2020].

59 Angela Davis, Talk At Southern Illinois University Carbondale, 2014.

97

Rebel Rebel projecting into two directions.

Creating a safe space internally and projecting its demands onto the Houses of Parliament into the other direction. The box is able to accommodate various devices and can be upgraded towards new systems/ sofwares & hardwares.

98

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Picture Index

1 https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/ ds8NGccZkfZxvXFXEvrf_2HSQWU=/0x0:4988x2804/ 1440x810/media/img/mt/2019/06/RTS2IC2X/ original.jpg 2 thedailymail.co.uk 3 culturearchives.co.uk 4 thesun.co.uk 5 sundaytimes.co.uk 6 own source 7 https://libcom.org/files/images/history/ Welling-1993_0.jpg 8 riba.com 9 https://ssl.c.photoshelter.com/img-get/ I0000aTT5LsJNDAY/s/1200/I0000aTT5LsJNDAY.jpg 10 https://ssl.c.photoshelter.com/img-get2/ I0000_wJteT6qvDQ/fit=1000x750/HOFFMAN-bwarchive-022.jpg 11 https://www.victorianlondon.org/houses/ princealbertsmodel.gif 12 theguardian.co.uk 13 https://libcom.org/files/images/ library/428075123_3d3ab4af60_o.jpg 14 https://mmo.aiircdn.com/326/5ee8d0dceedb0. jpeg 15 culturearchives.com 16 culturearchives.com 17 culturearchives.com 18 https://nonstopagainstapartheid. files.wordpress.com/2013/10/ img_0776-e1382700602321.jpg 19 https://pasttenseblog.files.wordpress. com/2019/05/camden-rts-95.jpg?w=709 20 https://i.pinimg.com/originals/87/48/ a2/8748a238d38c76cfd85b8917c7c6204c.jpg 21 Street Life: Youth, culture and competing uses of public space 22 https://i2-prod.liverpoolecho.co.uk/ incoming/article17185296.ece/ALTERNATES/ s1227b/0_GL775535.jpg

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tourists-in-carnaby-street-london-10thaugust-1969-ERTD6J.jpg 24 https://djmag.com/sites/default/files/ article/image/hacienda-live-stream_0.jpg 25 https://i.pinimg.com/originals/88/6b/ b3/886bb3a596eb6e9515defb56b8d98053.jpg 26 https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/ default/ 27 https://www.phillytrib.com/commentary/ coard-todays-blm-protesters-must-updateblack-panther-partys-10-point-platform/ article_4143d6e9-b82b-5580-925a63c5d38bdfa5.html 28 https://digitalcollections-image.library. ucsc.edu/iiif/2/jq_08_5k_35_k/full/800,/0/ default.jpg 29 https://revolution.berkeley.edu/assets/ IYI.BlackPantherImage-496x702.png 30 nytimes.com 31 https://i.guim.co.uk/img/ media/07635694683052 32 https://www.zinnedproject.org/ wp-content/uploads/2018/08/BPPclass_ GettyImages-514865740.jpg 33 https://www.swissinfo.ch/resource/ image/8965444/landscape_ratio3x2/880/587/ e2831dd96ac51cbb9e5b4f0beab855b6/bD/ 34 https://img.nzz.ch/2016/10/7/19ba358c27ec-4fec-bc05-bcdbecd77440.jpeg 35 https://www.sozialarchiv.ch/wp-content/ uploads/2020/03/Züri_brännt11_Web-scaled. jpg36 37 https://img.nzz.ch/2020/5/30/845719ebfb07-4217-9155-251b47f7b205.jpeg 38 https://production-livingdocs-bluewin-ch. imgix.net/2020/5/6/64beffb8-dfc6-4832-a7b3c7d3cfed69cb.jpeg 39 https://ktla.com/wp-content/uploads/ sites/4/2020/06/GettyImages-1249624304.jpg 40 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ EaFiyPyUMAADMR3.jpg 41 https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod. s3.amazonaws.com/images/names-blm-roomfirst-look-1-copy-1595329023.png

42 https://www.ebony.com/wp-content/ uploads/2016/08/Polaris05451213_ original_57436.jpg 43 https://digitalcollections-image.library. ucsc.edu/iiif/2/8c_97_kq_67_k/full/800,/0/ default.jpg 44 https://www.abc.net.au/cm/ rimage/12315758-3x2-xlarge.jpg 45 https://www.bild-video-ton.ch/ansicht/ gross/124891.jpg 46 https://koninordmann.ch/media/ images/2016/05/K_3_1980_Jugendunruhen_13.jpg 47 https://d28vr35rno8k21.cloudfront.net/ images/kKXb5tis_angela.png 48 https://img.nzz.ch/2016/10/7/75de63f4d599-4529-9e98-088e3a7227a0.jpeg 49 https://api.time.com/wp-content/ uploads/2020/09/signal-app-encryptionprivacy.jpg 50 https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/ uploads/2020/06/IMG_7872-41.jpeg 51 https://media2.s-nbcnews.com/i/ newscms/2020_28/3395298/200707-martinez-caaerial-blm-mural-ac-1035p_0ba420316d96a72db7 cc7ccf4a168190.jpg 52 https://space10io-zhjgfejx8sl.netdna-ssl. com/content/uploads/2019/10/CH03-FunPalace1920x1275.jpg 53 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ commons/thumb/4/4f/Blinkenlights_CCC_ at_22C3.jpg

uploads/2019/08/mas_context_prada_poole_ instant_ibiza_exterior_02.jpg 63 https://www.mascontext.com/wp-content/ uploads/2019/08/mas_context_prada_poole_ encuentros_pamplona_exterior.jpg 64 https://ferrater.com/wp-content/ uploads/2019/06/P-INSTANT-CITY-P25.jpg 65 Inflatocookbook, Ant Farm 66 https://www.atlasofplaces.com/atlasof-places-images/_scaled/ATLAS-OF-PLACESCEDRIC-PRICE-OXFORD-CORNER-HOUSE-GPH-2.jpg 67 Inflatocookbook, Ant Farm 68 https://www.refinery29.com/ images/9906405.jpg 69 https://static01.nyt.com/ images/2015/08/09/arts/09GUERRILLAJP5SUB/09G UERRILLAJP5SUB-jumbo-v3.jpg 70 https://www.thenatureofcities.com/TNOC/ wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Banksy-streetart-london-3-650x540.jpg 71 https://pasttenseblog.files.wordpress. com/2019/05/camden-rts-95.jpg 72 Cambridge Dictionary 73 Cambridge Dictionary 74 https://www.zamp-kelp.com/wp-content/ uploads/2019/05/18-Roomscraper-imFenster1969_small.jpg

54 https://artcollection.salford.ac.uk/wpcontent/uploads/sites/54/2016/11/young.jpg 55 https://calisphere.org/crop/ 56 https://walker-web.imgix.net/cms/Oase_7_ gW.jpg 57 https://www.cca.qc.ca/img/jSf1Z-nYQONkP5V A6tijCnWHt6w=/1920x0/6043/5484/PH1984_0124. jpg 58 https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/ images/BN-SM097_EXHIBI_FR_20170314133855.jpg 59 https://www.creativeaustria. at/2018/08/28/schluss-mit-der-wirklichkeitavantgarde-architektur-revolution-1968/330hausrucker/ 60 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ CtWU9IGWYAAxl-R.jpg

62 https://www.mascontext.com/wp-content/

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I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this master thesis and that I have not used any sources other than those listed in the Bibliography

74 Middle Finger Inflatable Roomscraper - Haus Rucker Co. 1969