Proposal for "Contrapolis; or Flexible Accumulation, Enclosures and Creativity in Today's City"

"Displacement of residents, whether they are gentrifying artists priced out of Soho or the poor and
unemployed excluded from New York altogether, is no random by-product of gentrification but its structural
condition. Decay, disinvestment, abandonment . . .prepare the way for profitable reinvestment . . . Like all
the social relations that art supposedly transcends, housing is one of the historical circumstances of its
existence". Rosalyn Deutsche, "Alternative Space"

"And howsoever oppositional we architects may be, as long as we fail to challenge basic elements of society,
such as the concept of private property, nothing will improve. This is a great paradox for me". Achim Felz,
"IKAS: An Experiment in Extra-Parliamentary Architectural Opposition"

Description of Event
A weekend of workshops, discussions, walks, presentations, installations and screenings that articulate
approaches and experiences around the contentious nexus of culture and urban regeneration in Rotterdam,
Amsterdam, London, Glasgow and Barcelona. The weekend is envisioned to take place in March 2008.

Although the whole of Rotterdam will be the terrain of the weekend's activities, ideally the workshops,
artworks, documentation and public debates will take place at the Netherlands Architecture Institute and
either the Poortgebouw near Erasmusbrug or a warehouse in the Heijplaat workers' village in Rotterdam
harbour (see further info below). Artists, activists, scholars, architects, planners, designers and local people
will be invited to contribute their ideas in separate workshops devoted to topics such as informal planning,
the role of creativity in urban development policy, and the conditions for art-based intervention. A public
discussion is also scheduled. The aim of the workshops is to develop perspectives including, but going
beyond, the variously instrumentalised, palliative or autonomous roles for culture in urban transformation as
framed in contemporary analyses. We will compare the urban development framework in each of the five
cities by focusing on an overall tendency in neoliberal city planning to prioritize elite consumption, tourism,
privatisation and micro-management of public space. In addition, we will look at the ways in which the
promotion of 'culture' or 'creativity' slots into these agendas. Other topics will include: the prospects for
'counter-planning', 'planning from below' and struggles against the dispossession and eviction of
marginalised communities in the regenerated European city. While all these phenomena are locally situated,
they can be said to share certain features such as methods of organising autonomously and scepticism
towards the market and private property as the engines of economic growth and social life in the city.

"Contrapolis" is intended as a platform for exchange of tactics, experiences and analysis.

The core question of the event would be "how is art, and cultural production more broadly, at once driving
capitalist valorisation in the city and able to project forms of social relations that do not produce value for
capital?"

Departing from the structure of an academic symposium, this event provides two days of informal but
rigorously mapped interaction and exploration and will culminate with an evening of screenings and a public
debate at the NAi which will build on the discussions of that weekend as well each participant's field of
practice. Participants will be expected to participate in all the workshops and walks, although only the
concluding session of public debate will be mandatory and actively promoted as open to the public.

Background
The culture-led regeneration of European and American cities has been amply documented over the past
two decades (Brenner and Theodore, 2002; Deutsche, 1996; Harvey, 1989, 2001; Castells, 1977; Zukin,
1987; Smith, 1996; Ley, 1996; Davis, 2002; Butler, 2003; BAVO, 2006, 2007; del Olmo, 2004, London
Particular, 2002 – present). Also known as 'gentrification' or 'revitalisation', 'regeneration' is a more palatable
term for policies designed to address urban contradictions frequently stemming from decades of under-
investment and a flagging economy through the upgrading of facilities and housing provision that rely on an
expanded tax base and private investment, with the result that low-income residents are displaced from their
neighbourhoods and cut off from public services that have passed into profit-making ownership. Cities
whose economies were formerly predicated on industry or manufacture look to heritage, tourism, flagship
architectural developments and 'cultural quarters' to attract investment or mobilise local attributes in an era
where capital flows and accumulation are becoming 'immaterial' (Castells, year; Negri and Hardt, year).
Large metropolises increasingly view inner-city neighbourhoods with mixed- or low-income demographics
living primarily in social housing as under-used resources which can be profitably turned around, frequently
with the unwitting collaboration of local cultural producers, into edgy, and eventually homogenous,
destinations for developers, global corporations and middle-to-upper income professional homebuyers. The
're-valorisation' by artists of unpromising urban outposts as a harbinger of gentrification is well-established as
a development process. 'City branding', the Olympics and other examples of the 'experience economy' can
also be considered in their relationship to the marketing of culture, new and abiding forms of accumulation
and the capitalization of space.

However, given the role of a chronically under-specified 'culture' or 'creativity' in legitimating profit-driven
redevelopment, it is also interesting to look at these signifiers as material practices with specific capacities
for disclosing conflict and antagonism in the token consensus of 'regeneration'. 'Creativity' can also mean
innovative ways of doing politics and appropriating the devices of 'planning' to ends which are neither
predetermined nor in line with the prevailing reductive economistic logic. Rather than 'socially engaged art
practice', how could artmaking participate in contesting the very scenarios it is more than often called upon to
passively validate, and function as a mode of social doing that enacts an 'otherwise' to the current state of
the situation, rather than modelling a 'public sphere' or utopia contingent on its non-realisation?

Key Terms
For this project, I am interested in deploying the following terms in the analysis of regeneration and its others
in the contemporary European city:

-Enclosures – Antagonism – Culture

An expanded application of the Marxian concepts of 'enclosures' and 'antagonism'. Enclosures can be
defined as the disposession or privatisation of public resources, originally cited by Marx in his genealogy of
early capitalism as 'primitive accumulation' proceeding through the English enclosures of common land, but
which is increasingly used to describe contemporary and ongoing global processes of value extraction that
apply to everything from public space to genetic material. The city as a locus of social, political, cultural and
economic contestation over vital resources such as space and housing is at issue here. 'Antagonism' here
denotes a set of practices that position themselves oppositionally to the dominant agendas of gentrification ,
but also generate or prefigure ways of organising social life that rupture or exceed the logics of enclosure
and accommodation of enclosures. In this context, the symptomatic category of 'culture' will be deployed as
the terrain where some of these practices may arise, as it is also the key legitimacy mechanism driving urban
transformation across Europe to the material advantage of speculation, class cleansing and tourist-facing
commodification of the local:

Most crucially, what kinds of social activity can 'culture' encompass in the production of commons when it
comes to public space, housing and property in contemporary cities, if 'culture' has become such a strategic
category? Is there still a symbolic valence to 'culture' that can advance, rather, than stymie, initiatives to
collectively self-determine access to housing and public space, or is it unequivocally compromised by its
association with the apologetics of contemporary urban planning?

"But this is not the same as saying that culture is ultimately a product of economic determination; instead it is
employed in a complex relationship, partly determined by material conditions and partly the attempt to
overcome determination." (Anthony Iles and Tom Roberts, "All Knees and Elbows of Susceptibility and
Refusal", 2007)

The caesuras and contradictions operative in 'culture-driven' urban regeneration will provide a framework for
exchange as well as the impetus to extend critical analysis and experiences of practical struggles exploiting
these contradictions beyond their current discursive and practical parameters.

Workshops
I would like to hold three workshops over the duration of the weekend, two on Saturday and one on Sunday.
The workshops will be open to all participants and the public. They will be framed on the basis of three
questions, and moderated by the participant whose research area and practice is most congruent to the
question (please see Appendix C for list of projected participants – all to be confirmed upon confirmation of
venue).

Workshop 1 – Creative Dispossession

With state-supported finance capital as the dominant social actor in the contemporary urban fabric, 'creativity'
and 'property' become interchangeable as rich sources of speculation. Although Negri and other post-
autonomist theorists have put forward that 'real subsumption', or, the integration of life (emotion, sociability,
imagination) into the production process heralds a 'loss of measure' that can be emancipatory, this is more
frequently experienced as commodification and enclosure of resources that once had some horizon of
personal and collective development beyond exchange value – in other words, the law of value persists,
making more and more drastic stratifications between 'low-value' and 'self-valorising' subjects. If 'creativity'
is the watchword of urban re-development in cities like Rotterdam, whose 'creativity' is desireable, and on
what terms? It has often been noted that 'uneven development' is not just a byproduct, but a condition of
capitalist exchange: if 'development' is structurally reliant on 'under-development' elsewhere, and sometimes
next-door, can 'creative' approaches challenge or only patch up, the effects? Is it the 'creativity' mobilised by
government, semi-government and private interests to eliminate 'unproductive' sectors of city life such as
social housing and community spaces? Is 'creativity' only acceptable as a commodity, lest it become a
channel to resist, recompose and reclaim a right to the city?

Workshop 2 – Informality and Ideology

Between a high-gloss urbanism beholden to the logic of the market on the one hand, and the endeavours to
valorise low-impact and improvised solutions to housing shortages that can be called 'informal urbanism', a
zone of indiscernibility comes into view. When architects and planners, frequently in the employ of NGOs,
advise impoverished communities how to make the best, most sustainable use of their meager
infrastructures, is this 'counter-planning' or reinforcement of the social organisation that destined them to
self-managed squalor in the first place? Is it pragmatism or a resignation to a smaller and smaller portion for
greater and greater numbers of people of the social wealth produced in cities? Is there a relationship
between envisaging the slum inhabitant as a 'social enterpreneur' (cited in Mike Davis, 2005) and the reign of
enterpreneuralism as ideology that seems to exponentially generate slum conditions? What is the fractious
dialectic between self-exploitation and self-organisation, and what are the prospects for a politics of housing
which is neither reliant on social gurantees that will not re-appear nor content to hand over the institutional
terrain to unaccountable private interests?

Workshop 3 – Once Again, the Real Estate Show

The original "Real Estate Show" was organised by Co-Lab Projects in an occupied building on New York's
Lower East Side in 1980. (http://www.lehman.cuny.edu/gallery/talkback/fmlippard.html). That project, as well
as Martha Rosler's "If You Lived Here" in 1989, focused on gentrification and evictions, property, capital and
the art market, community organising, and the role of artists in and about these processes. In 1997, Maria
Eichhorn's contribution to the Skulptur Projects in Muenster saw her buying a plot of land with the exhibition
money and giving it to a local community housing group. Nowadays, the art market and the property market
rise and converge when it comes to the re-valorisation of 'blighted' inner-city and suburban neighbourhoods.
Additionally, independent and publicly-subsidised art initiatives frequently come under pressure from a
spectrum of policy and business actors to 'engage' with constituencies and address social contradictions that
those same actors are busy exacerbating through redevelopment and privatisation. With the much-discussed
limitations of 'socially engaged practice', how could artmaking participate in contesting the very scenarios it is
more than often called upon to passively validate, and function as a mode of social doing that enacts an
'otherwise' to the current state of the situation? Is a homeopathic criticality for the 'progressive' institutions
the last best hope for practices that resist the imperatives of social work?

Walks
Andreas Müller of An Architektur will devise an itinerary for Delfshaven; Krijn Christiaansen for Heijplaat and
the Quarantine Village; someone from the BBSH (Bond Behoud Social Huisvesting) for Crooswijk; Wim
Cuyvers tbc.

Follow-Up
A contextual reader will be issued in the month or two following the event. The Jan van Eyck Academie will
be the publisher, although the NAi will be invited to collaborate. A follow-up event in Maastricht and Liege will
culminate with a book launch, speculatively at the NAi/Maastricht.
Appendix A: SCHEDULE and SITES

Provisional Schedule for the First Day

10am – 12pm: Breakfast and Assembly at NAi
Exhibition Visit at NAi

12pm – 4pm: Walk in Delfshaven

Lunch (in Rotterdam)
Walk in Crooswijk

4.30pm – 9pm: Workshops 1 and 2 at Poortgebouw

9pm: Dinner (in Rotterdam)

Provisional Schedule for Second Day:

10am – 12pm: Breakfast and Assembly at NAi
Exhibition Visit at NAi

12.30pm – 2pm: Walk in Heijplaat/Quarantine Village

2:30pm: Lunch (in Rotterdam)

3.30 – 5pm: Workshop 3 in Poortgebouw

6pm – 7.30pm: Screening at NAi (Theater)

8pm -10pm: Public Debate/Final Session at NAi (Theater)

10pm: Dinner (in Rotterdam) or Drinks (in NAi Bar)

Sites
I intend to use two sites over the duration of the weekend, one for informal workshops, discussions and as a
base for walks in Heijplaat, Delfshaven and Crooswijk, and one for a more structured and accessible public
debate on the evening of the final day, a screening programme, and a small exhibition and documentation
point. At the moment, I would like to use the Poortgebouw as the first site and the NAi as the second.
Should the Poortgebouw become unavailable by December due to an adverse outcome in their court case, I
have another possibility – a warehouse in the Heijplaat.

option a: Poortgebouw: The Poortgebouw is a historically self-organised community occupying a disused

19th century customs house near the Erasmusbrug in Rotterdam Harbour for the past 30 years. Besides
providing cheap and spacious accommodation to local and international residents, it hosts a number of
activities including a cafe, a venue for performances and meeting spaces. Originally squatted, the
Poortgebouw has passed from government property into private hands a few years ago, and since then the
residents have been engaged in a legal case with the developer, who is interested in evicting the residents
and converting the property to commercial or upmarket residential use, in line with the other development in
that area. For more information, please see: www.poortgebouw.nl

option B: Heijplaat: The Heijplaat is a neighbourhood in Rotterdam harbour constructed for dockworkers
and their families in 1934 (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heijplaat) . In collaboration with the public space
designer Krijn Christiaansen, I have the possibility of using one of the former shipbuilding warehouses as
one of the two 'Contrapolis' sites. The layout of the warehouse facilitates both large group discussions and
smaller workshops, as it has plenty of open space as well as a number of shipping containers that have been
re-purposed as workspaces. In addition, this site will furnish an invaluable opportunity to see the transition
from the port economy and the traditional dockworkers' community to a more heterogeneous makeup of
architects, designers, and other media professionals alongside the diminishing shipbuilding industries, and a
residential workforce increasingly composed of migrant workers from Eastern Europe and North Africa,
reflecting many of the bigger structural changes affecting Rotterdam as a whole. As another indicator of the
changing face of Heijplaat, nearby is also the 'Quarantine Village', formerly occupied by squatters who have
now acquired regular status, and featuring among its residents renowned figures such as Erik van Lieshout.

Krijn Christiaansen will also organise a guided tour of the area for participants.
Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi): As the pre-eminent institution producing, shaping and disseminating
discourse on the built environment in the Netherlands, with its central location and architectural visibility, the
NAi seems to be by far the most appropriate milieu to stage a public event around urban regeneration
policies and the plurality of ways 'culture' can be articulated within and beyond these. Its extensive library of
publications and materials on architecture and urban planning would be a strong incentive for further
research by participants in the event. A more formal concluding event to the weekend of workshops and
discussions, organised as a public debate with a screening component, would ideally take place at the NAi,
and it would also provide the public access point for the documentation, publications, and artwork
commissioned for, or collected at, the event for the two days.

Appendix B: CITIES

The choice of five cities as a descriptive sample owes its logic to the following considerations:

-Rotterdam: an industrial port city, with a still-economically viable harbour, which is currently being re-
positioned as a 'creative hub' in competition with Amsterdam. Historically low housing prices and
predominance of worker's/social housing that is quickly disappearing or being turned over to public-private
management agencies. Emergence of luxury residential/consumption developments such as Lloyd's
Quartier. Also, significant influence of squatting and 'anti-squatting' in the housing market for low-income and
'creative' workers.

-Amsterdam: also curently experiencing upgrading and demolition of traditionally social-housing

neighbourhoods. Office/retail development Zuidas, reasearched comprehensively by Jan van Eyck-based
public space designers Logo Parc. Contact with Amsterdam-based housing activists and researrchers
Greenpepper/Flexmens magazine (Merjin Oudenampsen).

-London: my background as a researcher and activist is in the ongoing culture-driven regeneration of East
London, where I have observed firsthand many of the processes delineated earlier in this proposal. The
2012 Olympics is accelerating what has been noted by many commentators as 'enclosures' (see especially
http://www.gamesmonitor.org.uk/node/322, "Of Lammas Land and Olympic Dreams" by Anthony Iles, and
http://www.gamesmonitor.org.uk/node/333 "A Beginner's Guide to the Social Impacts of the Olympics")
resulting in the mass displacement of low-income, immigrant and Traveller ('gypsy') communities and
environmental damage.

-Glasgow: regeneration generated by many of the same agendas, objectives and methods as in London. In
the last few months, the Glasgow City Council voted to sell off all the remaining publicly owned and managed
facilities in the city (libraries, parks, administrative offices) to a private charity. This decision is currently
facing a challenge in the European Court of Human Rights. Allegedly, Glasgow has similar 'Right to
Housing' legislation as has just been adopted in France, but it has never been invoked in cases where
tenants have been dispossessed of their social housing nor is any housing activist with whom I've been in
contact aware of this law.

-Barcelona: since the 1992 Olympics, Barcelona has been an emblematic instance of 'city branding',
successfully commodifying its image for domestic and international consumption while living standards for
many of its inhabitants deteriorate via an escalating housing market, growing suppression of non-market
housing solutions, and high-profile encroachments on public space and/or residential neighbourhoods such
as the Forum des Culturas.