德国艺术家Ulrike JOHANNSEN8月份访问家作坊的时候跟Emi UEMURA（植村絵美）合拍了一部“口袋短片”关于城市园艺。这个月底她们将在维也纳播放她们的DIY“种子炸弹”教育短片，但你可以先在这里看看我们的迷你模糊版本～

Liebe Freunde, Freundinnen und Interessierte, Vienna-based artist Ulrike JOHANNSEN made a short video with buddy Emi UEMURA during her stay at HomeShop, taking off as the first contribution to the CAPITAL archive (stay tuned for more details…). Their pocket film on seed bombing in Beijing will be shown at the upcoming mini-fest “Urban Gardening & Pocket Films” in Vienna, but here’s the blurry mini version for you first.

STADTPFLANZEN UND TASCHENFILME
FR 24.9 – SO 3.10
Wienstation, Lerchenfelder Gürtel Bogen 28, 1080 Wien

Songs of the Donkey

The reading club meeting, involving three texts somewhat innocent of each other’s connections, was held in the shop in Caochangdi. The texts—”The Burdens of Linearity: Donkey Urbanism” by Catherine Ingraham (1999), “Lethal Theory” by Eyal Weizman (2006) and “The Shanghai Gang” by Richard MacGregor (2010)—encompassed a broad range of issues whose relations could potentially crisscross and veer in various directions, for and against the grain of theory, out of or in the range of empirical topic. These texts were all further intertwined by their being chosen within the frame of the Donkey Institute of Contemporary Art’s Co-Director Michael Yuen, inviting speculation on applied theory or grounded discussion.

Within the sequence, the first text to be discussed was Weizman’s, which happened to be about the use of theory by the Israeli military in dealing with or rather in “interpreting” architecture, in their raids on Palestinian towns and settlements. The discussion led us from the “radical” technique of walking through walls, which is done by creating holes in existing architecture to make new paths through private spaces, and the supposedly non-hierarchical swarming techniques by which individual Israeli  soldiers carry out their tasks independently and in no particular order, to tactical specificity (targeting particular individuals for capture or assassination), all ostensibly based on ideas derived from theorists such as Foucault, Deleuze and Tschumi. But that is not to say these techniques or theories, though they explain the complexity of contemporary built environments, populations and conflicts, are any less traumatic or destructive than conventional warfare. Consider the upending of the categories of private and public, which, after seeming like a novel shift in print, is utterly destabilizing when your house becomes a thoroughfare. We talked about  how implicated theory itself was in this outcome, and whether such outcomes mandated changes in the way theory would be written.

Meanwhile Michael had to run outside because the donkey was getting some grief from one of the caretakers at the gate for trying to enter the brick art district. DICA had arrived, but for the moment, we pressed on with the texts.

Ingraham’s article counterposed a number of texts to draw out the subject of the beast in Modern architecture’s scheme of things. Beginning with Le Corbusier, who ridiculed the distractedness of the donkey vis à vis the straight intentional lines of Modern man and his cities; and continuing with Claude Lévi-Strauss’ description of getting lost on his mule in the jungle, which in the end becomes a revelation of his views of the relationship between writing systems, architecture, human organization and therefore mass violence; Ingraham’s account thereby leads its winding way to Jacques Derrida and to the subject of writing. To the ideas of the “origins” of straight lines and their import for urbanism. Ingraham says: “Urbanism and architecture, as we have already seen through the strange narratives of Le Corbusier and Lévi-Strauss, come (in a state of considerable hegemony) to the geometric (straight) line in the immediate presence of the animal (swerving, making a path), which irrevocably perturbs the hegemonic and the straight. And, lest we forget, the animal is not “The Animal,” but the principle of animality that belongs entirely to human culture.”

We took a group trip to the roadside display of books currently on view in DICA. A small crowd had gathered even on this side street, but this is the curious custom of the institute. The books were all translated with post-it notes, but there was one Chinese reader with his shirt off slowly, systematically orating aloud the English captions of David Shrigley’s red book. Someone stroked the animal’s muzzle (in fact, it looked like a bit like a horse). It’s interesting to see DICA at rest, because it is one of the rare moments when an institution can be seen to be loitering, waiting for the next thing, to move on, the cart owners squatting in the hot sun.

Finally, returning to the air-conditioned interior, we discussed the urban state of Beijing. To some degree the straight lines of Beijing were already unstraight from the beginning based on behavior like opposing traffic, bringing the intimate to the sidewalk; and the city’s fabric was already porous, plurally interpreted, multipurpose, because of the means and necessities of daily life, in the spaces of difference between the so-called privileged and underprivileged and the state and reality, most poignantly felt in the reducing to rubble of communities and erection of new developments within no time at all. And history. And some are happy, others angry, some come up with entrepreneurial solutions and some flee and some bear brunts. And yet as far as those people in the reading club meeting were aware, there is not much theory to support these observations, to reflect on the new perceptual and cognitive spaces that make up contemporary reality from this point of view. Not even co-opted theory. The last text was a chapter from Richard McGregor’s book about the inside of the Communist Party, a not-so-well understood organization. This chapter by McGregor, a financial journalist in his day-job, concerned the anti-corruption campaigns that targeted Shanghai’s dizzy urban developers and their government friends, marking the period of politcal turnover from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao, while it also demonstrated the difficulties facing anyone on a lower level trying to expose corruption using official bureaucratic channels. The philosophy behind this situation is challenging, because it is often not outwardly debated or addressed; but looking around at the cityscape, the effects of this hidden philosophy—visible at least in deed beneath the bold slogans—certainly seemed materially manifest. Perhaps the theory of the donkey can only be just such a blunt confrontation of material, and the reading group’s radar could simply not pick it up. When one person present, who was a local, was asked what happened to the people who get displaced when the buildings come down, he said he didn’t know.

(image is from 黄伟凯 HUANG Wei Kai’s documentary Disorder)

There are things that can or should be controlled and other that can’t or shouldn’t or who cares?

Here is a topic that has been floating into my mind for a while, and that I’d like to start as a project. Ideally it would be great to have feedbacks from cities all over the world, but let’s be modest for now and see how it works.
Recent rumors about demolition in Gulou made me think  about the balance between order and disorder that shapes every city. The Gulou project is yet another proof that Beijing authorities want the city to be ordered. And commercial development is a way to achieve this. I do think that order is necessary to make things work, but isn’t too much order a way of ruining urban potential? Take Nanluoguxiang: at the beginning it was an interesting initiative, because the general process of ordering the city somehow created the conditions that allowed individual initiatives: Passby bar, and the followings. That street stayed for a couple of years in a subtle balance between order and disorder. But now it has clearly taken the way of (commercial) order, therefore killing individual’s initiative rather than creating new opportunities.
But what is order, and disorder? How is it defined, by whom and for which reasons?
I have chosen some quotes, coming from interviews or simple conversations, about the order/disorder couple:

1. “In Beijing, you can encounter every kind of person, every kind of situation. In Western cities, everything is nice, you can’t see this mess. But it’s a creative mess.”
2. “Sometimes, I really need to escape from Beijing. here everything is controlled. I like to go to smaller cities, there you can drink beer on the streets, everyone is outside eating chuan’r. I like that.” And a little later, in the same conversation, he told me in a very disregarding way that people in smaller cities aren’t civilized at all. But isn’t it part of the same process? It seems that in beijing, being civilized means not to eat chuan’r on the sidewalks.
3. “London is very oppressive. I really don’t like it. It is supposed to be one of the most creative cities, but here everything is well planned, there are cameras and CCTV everywhere, there is no disorder, and I find it quite disturbing. Look at Tel Aviv, there is much more disorder, people don’t care that much.”
4. “One of the things that I wanted to do, (but then the green revolution started, so I couldn’t), was to go around without head scarf and have friends film me. I don’t know how people would react. Maybe they would say something, disapprove. After more than 30 years of being ruled by religious law, people have integrated these values. But at the same time, women would be very happy to get rid of that scarf.” So people are negotiating their own being incoherent, between what you consider that should be ordered and what could be your own disorder.

I do think that every city has its own way of managing order/disorder. But I would be curious to explore these different ways of defining it and see also how they allow, or not, individuals to have initiatives. What kinds of order/disorder do we need to be stimulated, structure our urban life?

…to be continued

Happy Friends Reading Club will be meeting on Saturday, the 31st of July at the shop in Caochangdi with special guests Donkey Institute of Contemporary Art. A description is below.

If you would like to receive links to the texts or for more information, please email: eddy at vitamincreativespace dot com.

For directions to the current location of the shop see here.

A set of donkey essays from the Donkey Institute of Contemporary Art to Happy Friends Reading Club, with short texts by Catherine Ingraham, Eyal Weizman and Richard MacGregor compiled by DICA Co-Founder Michael Yuen.

Says Yuen: “By choosing short texts about the Communist Party, one about donkeys in architecture and one about the Israel-Palestine conflict, the point is not to be obtuse nor to be topically provocative. Instead, I see in these texts detailed analyses, at times conceptual traps, ways forward and a devastating look at various ideological agendas played out in the city. And, these themes play out in Paris, the West Bank and Shanghai.”

Two essays were omitted from this collection. They are Borges’ “The Art of Verbal Abuse” and Pier Vittorio Aureli’s “The Project of Autonomy”. Including these would have made the amount of reading onerous. But, also briefly mentioning them here can give us some insight. Aureli’s essay on architecture begins with its main thesis from the Greek-French rightist philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis: the agenda of the French intellectual left of dismantling hierarchies has become an ideology of conforming. Aureli and Castoriadis attack a philosophy that they see as no longer a radical–it is itself another, having become another hierarchy. As for Borges’s essay, here we find ways of acting or maybe ways of speaking: humour, lightness, imagination and intelligence. These are parts of Borges’ writing some continental philosophers forgot.

As a way of closing this short introduction, a few words about ‘cities’. It is clear to me, our old ways of viewing cities are dying. Around us we continually see people reconfirming recognizable ideas. This reconfirming leads us nowhere. And, as we look for new visions for cities, we must avoid merely proposing programs. Perhaps, there is value in remembering this as you read the programs detailed in the following essays and chapter excerpts.”

For more information about the Donkey Institute of Contemporary Art, see: http://www.donkeyinstitute.net/

姓名： 江老焉儿 （左）／ 百利 （右）
年龄： 江老焉儿：22 ／ 百利：22
你从什么地方来的？ 江老焉儿：北京人 ／ 百利：一样
你们在这里作什么？ 江老焉儿：开网店，做vintage服饰 ／ 百利：学设计
你早上穿衣服的时候，什么更重要——自己穿得舒服（包括心理）或者从外面看起来好看？ 江老焉儿：心理感受比较重要吧
当你今天穿上这身衣服的时候是什么感觉？ 江老焉儿：舒服范儿 ／ 百利：是那种随时可以去睡觉的感觉。
关于你今天穿的衣服有没有什么故 事或者特别的回忆？请给大家描绘一下。 江老焉儿：有什么特别的话，那就是上衣是我妈妈的，估计是她年轻时的衣服。还有，我手里的这个蓝色包，是去上缝纫课用的，里面都是上课用到的布和乱七八糟的材料。

Jianglaoyan’r and Baili are 22 year-old newskool Beijingers. We found them passing by hipster/tourist-laden Nanluoguxiang, reunited arm-in-arm after a long half-year of not hanging out together. Jianglaoyan’r passes her days with an online vintage shop on Taobao and tailoring classes on the side (her blue bag is filled with her latest sewing project); Baili is studying design. The number of vintage shops that have sprung up in the neighbourhood in the last year is indeed a sign of the trendy rising (fall of the old superstitions…); all of our post-80’s born friends are just so nostalgic over histories that they haven’t had yet.

After a prolonged research and analysis period highly implicated by HomeShop’s recent search for a new space, our newfound expertise has led to the temporary return of the current space at Xiaojingchang hutong to its former status as real estate agency (pre-2007 era). We are pleased to inform you that we are taking up a new role as an offshoot office of the well-known chain 我爱我家 Wo Ai Wo Jia (“I Love My Home”), henceforth named 我爱你家 Wo Ai Ni Jia (“I Love Your Home”). If you are looking for a new house or office within Beijing’s old city centre or are merely interested to learn more about the real estate market and private life in the capital, our multilingual agents can offer free advice and direction regarding a selection of some of Beijing’s hottest properties. We do not take commission, and while our services may be limited, our knowledge is vast. Please stop by HomeShop or telephone to make an appointment. You may reach us at any time by mobile phone at 137 1855 6089.

Thank you! We are here waiting for your trust!

—–
“我爱你家 I Love Your Home” is a project of 何颖雅 Elaine W. HO and Fotini LAZARIDOU-HATZIGOGA for HomeShop. On view from 24 May 2010.

经过家作坊对寻找新空间的一段旷日持久地研究和分析，我们现在在小经厂胡同的空间暂时回到了它过去的房产中介公司状态（2007年早期）。我们很高兴的通知您，我们现在成为了著名连锁机构“我爱我家”的分店之一，并从此叫做“我爱你家”。如果您正在北京老城区的中心地带寻找房子或者办公室，或者至少对首都房地产市场和个人生活感兴趣的话，我们多语言的服务团队将为您提供免费咨询以及对某些北京最热房产的指南。我们不收取中介费，虽然服务项目有限，但我们的知识很丰富。请在家作坊门前留步，或电话预约。您可以在任何时间通过这个手机号码找到我们：13718556089。

谢谢！我们期待您的信任！

——
“我爱你家 I Love Your Home” 是由何颖雅 Elaine W. HO 及 Fotini LAZARIDOU-HATZIGOGA为家作坊做的一个项目。从2010年5月24日开始。

ranking cities is quite popular these days! beijing is of course no exception and decided to measure its wenming-ness by observing, for example, if people are disciplined in queuing, crossing roads, etc. But last week, during an interview, someone made an interesting comment, saying that the difference between Beijing and Paris or Berlin, is that here, you can’t just borrow a cigarette from some random people in the street. I noticed that in Scandinavian countries too, and the reason is that cigarettes are so expensive there, that you would not even think about asking! but here the reason seems quite different: you can’t  – apparantly – trust anybody. who knows, the cigarette might as well contain some drugs! it’s probably not the case, but I think this small thing says quite a lot about how people “live together” in cities. what is trust built upon? and how far is it important to make cities more urban? maybe this could be an interesting way to compare cities and think about the implications of such a small, daily fact.

it seems ridiculous to play the 关系 game sometimes, in the sense of it’s sometimes cunning regard for strategy and alterior motivations, but on the other hand, it also seems awkward to 挖 a 关系 with someone whom you have no specific thing to ask of, without an alterior motive and only the hint that you may have certain interests in common. is it just me?

anyhow, bea, just someone i took note of… came online across a U. of Pennsylvania department of Geography doctoral student named Melissa Rock. She posted a paper that looks right up our hutong (嘿嘿 bad pun) at a conference last year, here is the abstract:

Commodification and Gentrification: Hutongs of “Old Beijing”

According to the Beijing Urban Master Plan (2005-2020), the preparatory construction for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games marks only the first wave of urban redevelopment, transforming China’s capital in to a “world-class city”. The promise and process of this transformation calls for significant de- and re-construction of Beijing’s physical landscape as well as its socio-economic, historic, and cultural configurations. China’s progressive transition towards a market economy, in conjunction with Beijing’s expedited city restructuring to host the Olympics, has triggered city-center land valuation and housing speculation. As a result, thousands of Beijing hutongs have been demolished in favor of high-rise commercial and residential buildings; former neighborhoods become spatially fragmented and former residents are displaced. The demographic splintering of these hutongs marks a simultaneous disruption to socio-spatial practice, culture, community, and identity. However, in the rush to modernize, Beijing has not overlooked the cultural and historic value of the Old City. The Beijing city government has designated at least twenty-five hutong districts as cultural heritage conservation sites. Measures regarding hutong conservation include stipulations on residential density and architectural style. Nonetheless, conflict and contradictions abound as the commodification of hutongs precipitates the gentrification of Beijing’s city-center, prompting the question: do history, culture, and identity reside in place-specific architecture or in the socio-spatial practices of the residents who inhabit and traverse it? Through analysis of Beijing’s urban redevelopment and image-making process, this paper examines how place meanings are constructed through the dynamics of representational discourses, spatial configurations, as well as socio-economic and cultural institutions.

The question of place versus practice is one familiar to you, i think, as it came up a lot in your proposal for Sichuan, and this element of practice—-the doing of daily life—-is something highly important to HomeShop. Going back to the question of context, it’s not merely a question of time and place, but situation specificity, whereby culture and identity seem to be largely determined, by “the matter at hand” and giving oneself—-when there is no real sense of security (in the State)—-to matters as they are. Perhaps a lot of Buddhist values are inscripted here, but non-action (on one hand) and utter passivity (on another) is in such a way, perhaps a very active kind of being.

I was thinking about our discussion on Olympics, events at 家作坊 and public space. I don’t know how far we can explore the way the Olympics have actually changed the practices of urban public space during that period…or at least, this is probably not a question that can be answered yet but will request some time and distance before finding an answer.

What we could explore, though, is how far the Olympics, as a public event, have allowed you to produce events at your place that were justified…precisely because of the high publicity of the Olympics. Would these events have been possible otherwise? It is sure that the Olympics have raised many restrictions about the use of public space, yet they have also allowed community restrictions to loosen (and thus made you organize parties in the hutong without major problems). I find this negotiation between restrictions and freedom very interesting…definitely needs some more research!

Here is a piece of an article published by Ash Amin ［(2008) ‘Collective culture and urban public space’, City, 12:1, 5 – 24], where the author explores how public space is actually working (or not), which are the dimensions and interactions between humans —- but also between humans and materiality —- that allow encounters in the public space. Can send you the paper if you like.

The ethics of the situation, if we can put it in these terms, are neither uniform nor positive in every setting of thrown-togetherness. The swirl of the crowd can all too frequently generate social pathologies of avoidance, self preservation, intolerance and harm, especially when the space is under-girded by uneven power dynamics and exclusionary practices. My second claim, thus, is that the compulsion of civic virtue in urban public space stems from a particular kind of spatial arrangement, when streets, markets, parks, buses, town halls are marked by non-hierarchical relations, openness to new influence and change, and a surfeit of diversity, so that the dynamic of multiplicity or the promise of plenitude is allowed free reign. There are resonances of situated multiplicity/plenitude that have a significant bearing on the nature of social and civic practice. At least five that merit conceptual and practical attention can be mentioned.

The first resonance is that of surplus itself, experienced by humans as a sense of bewilderment, awe and totality in situations that place individuals and groups in minor relation to the space and other bodies within them. What Simmel tried to explain in terms of behavioural response among strangers when placed together in close proximity in urban space-from bewilderment and avoidance to indifference and inquisitiveness–might be reinterpreted as the shock of situated surplus, experienced as space that presents more than the familiar or the manageable, is in continual flux and always plural, weaves together flesh, stone and other material, and demands social tactics of adjustment and accommodation to the situation (including imaginative ways of negotiating space without disrupting other established modes, as shown in Figure 2). The resonance of situated surplus, formed out of the entanglements of bodies in motion and the environmental conditions and physical architecture of a given space, is collectively experienced as a form of tacit, neurological and sensory knowing (Pile, 2005; Thrift, 2005a), quietly contributing to a civic culture of ease in the face of urban diversity and the surprises of multiplicity.

These surprises are rarely disorienting, for a second resonance of situated multiplicity is territorialization; repetitions of spatial demarcation based on daily patterns of usage and orientation. The movement of humans and non-humans in public spaces is not random but guided by habit, purposeful orientation, and the instructions of objects and signs. The repetition of these rhythms results in the conversion of public space into a patterned ground that proves essential for actors to make sense of the space, their place within it and their way through it. Such patterning is the way in which a public space is domesticated, not only as a social map of the possible and the permissible, but also as an experience of freedom through the neutralization of antipathies of demarcation and division–from gating to surveillance–by naturalizations of repetition. The lines of power and separation somehow disappear in a heavily patterned ground, as the ground springs back as a space of multiple uses, multiple trajectories and multiple publics, simultaneously freeing and circumscribing social experience of the urban commons.

A third and related resonance of situated multiplicity is emplacement. This is not just everything appearing in its right place as a consequence of the routines and demarcations of territorialization. The rhythms of use and passage are also a mode of domesticating time. Public spaces are marked by multiple temporalities, ranging from the slow walk of some and the frenzied passage of others, to variations in opening and closing times, and the different temporalities of modernity, tradition, memory and transformation. Yet, on the whole, and this is what needs explaining, the pressures of temporal variety and change within public spaces do not stack up to overwhelm social action. They are not a source of anxiety, confusion and inaction, and this is largely because of the domestication of time by the routines and structures of public space. The placement of time through materialization (in concrete, clocks, schedules, traffic signals), repetition and rhythmic regularity (so that even the fast and the fleeting come round again), and juxtaposition (so that multiple temporalities are witnessed as normal) is its taming. Accordingly, what might otherwise (and elsewhere) generate social bewilderment becomes an urban capacity to negotiate complexity. The repetitions and regularities of situated multiplicity, however, are never settled. This is because a fourth resonance of thrown-togetherness is emergence. Following complexity theory, it can be argued that the interaction of bodies in public space is simultaneously a process of ordering and disruption. Settled rhythms are constantly broken or radically altered by combinations that generate novelty. While some of this novelty is the result of purposeful action, such as new uses and new rules of public space, emergence properly understood is largely unpredictable in timing, shape and duration, since it is the result of elements combining together in unanticipated ways to yield unexpected novelties (DeLanda, 2006). Public spaces marked by the unfettered circulation of bodies constitute such a field of emergence, constantly producing new rhythms from the many relational possibilities. This is what gives such spaces an edgy and innovative feel, liked by some and feared by others, but still an urban resonance that people come to live with and frequently learn to negotiate. This is what Jacobs (1961) celebrated when championing the dissonance of open space, receptive to the surprises of density and diversity, manifest in the unexpected encounter, the chance discovery, the innovation largely taken into the stride of public life.

A final resonance can be mentioned. We could call it symbolic projection. It is in public space that the currents and moods of public culture are frequently formed and given symbolic expression. The iconography of public space, from the quality of spatial design and architectural expression to the displays of consumption and advertising, along with the routines of usage and public gathering, can be read as a powerful symbolic and sensory code of public culture. It is an active code, both summarizing cultural trends as well as shaping public opinion and expectation, but essentially in the background as a kind of atmospheric influence. This is why so frequently, symbolic projections in public space–lifted out of the many and varied material practices on the ground–have been interpreted as proxies of the urban, sometimes human, condition. There is a long and illustrious history of work, from that of Benjamin and Freud to that of Baudrillard and Jacobs that has sought to summarize modernity from the symbols of urban public space, telling of progress, emancipation, decadence, hedonism, alienation and wonderment (Amin, 2007b). Similarly, politicians, planners and practitioners have long sought to influence public opinion and public behaviour through the displays of public space.

The Games 2008 series is continuing. The Paralympics are still coming, even if the feeling of event spectacle is over. Of course we can admit obvious issues regarding the status of the handicapped, but is it also reasonable to say that we simply cannot sustain the prolonged excitement of this culmination of seven years of anticipation? What happens to our sense of time now, in this period between the Olympic games and the straddled Paralympics? The stadium stays closed to the public. Incoming and outgoing post is on intense inspection and delay. Yet we already reminisce on buses and subway cars as we watch constant replays of the Games and its opening/closing ceremonies. All major western media had already pre-prepared the requisite article for print the day after the closing ceremonies—-tag phrases including “Olympic Reflections“, “Where to go post-Olympics“, “The Day After Verdict” (yes, we are being tried here) and “Afterglow of Games, what’s Next for China?”  There is an intensely compressed sense of time to be noted here—-one that is self-conscious and thrusting outward with pointed fingers—-that is the more precise point in question about the current state of affairs.

I am still trying to catch up, two weeks behind updating the latest news, what should be a daily log of hutong life during the Beijing Olympics. Circling through and around wide-eyed impressions and an attempted absorption of the 16-day countdown, anxious about making sure the next days were organised, layering and folding the blog posts and the nows with the question of “what happens next?” The New York Times asks and Baudrillard, too, as in the joke of the man who leans quietly out of the group in the midst of a wild orgy: “So what do we do after the orgy?” Well, isn’t it exactly that which we’ve forgotten, perhaps necessarily so, that part about getting on with our everyday lives? Those of us living in Beijing at this moment know that this period is by no means “daily life”. Or is it? This was a mega world event, certain to be extrapolated out from the context of a larger global politics. But under the magnifying glass of this attempted map, what is the ergon, the “being-in-operative” that points to the simultaneous inoperability and “pure potentiality” that we have as everyday citizens or human beings (for these are not the same)? [1] What has simultaneity done to our senses of space in this map of Beijing? It is this “being-in-operative” that renders the map ridiculous and clunky, for we were merely attempting to go with the flow, Olympics/politics aside. But actually, because politics and our subjectification as citizens can never be merely aside, can we affect-ively trace a new map therein?

——–

[1] Giorgio Agamben references here Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics:

For just as the goodness and performance of a flute player, a sculptor, [Olympic athlete] or any kind of expert, and generally of anyone who fulfills some function or performs some action, are thought to reside in his proper function [ergon], so the goodness and performance of man would seem to reside in whatever is his proper function. Is it then possible that while a carpenter and a shoemaker have their own proper function and spheres of action, man as man has none, but was left by nature a good-for-nothing without a function [argōs]?

Giorgio Agamben. “In this Exile (Italian Diary 1992-94)”. from Means Without End: Notes on Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 2000. pp. 140-141.