When Erbil Votes
All the prevailing models are exhausted...Art, Architecture, Politics, Economic and so on.
Art always thinks like this...presupposing a crisis. So anything that is lacking imagination appears as problematic.
Role of art and its ontological extension is the core issue. How to appear as Now/ New?
Every epoch appears as now/ new and in this sense Modern is defined again and again (an ongoing process)...
Russian Modernism (Constructivism) rejected the idea of art for arts sake in favor of art as a practice directed towards social purpose; where the space of artwork becomes a radical and ideological space for new social relations. This era of heroic anthems was followed by the songs of activism; not to invent a (new) subversive model but to intervene within the existing framework; where (artist/ viewer's) body becomes a tool for idiosyncratic experience. The 'social interstice' model within the networks of contemporary art is both extension and reinterpretation of 'ideological space' and 'idiosyncratic experience'; where the production of artworks and exhibitions are engaged with spatial and socio-political concerns in terms of topographical, topological and geopolitical orientations. Today, Site specific/ in Situ projects are becoming common practice and formula.
Speculating the idea of production of space (Lefebvre) and space of production (Marxist factory) is urgent and relevant in present conditions. My intension is to underline correlation between Lefebvre's spatial concepts and Marxist economic/ production model; where Historical space = space of Feudalism, Abstract space = space of Capitalism and Differential space = space of Communism.
Marx's theory of social change marks dialectical configuration; where each part (nature, technology, economy, mode of production, mental conception, reproduction and daily life) appears in dialectical relation to one another. David Harvey deploys this Marxist strategy in his criticism of prevailing neo-liberalism (within the capitalist mode of production) where the bourgeois desire for restoration of class power appears reestablished through the accumulation of wealth (within the capitalist mode of production). He also argues that American imperialism, neo-liberalism, private property, free market and trade and so on has its affinity with the bourgeois interests.
The idea of 3rd world (historical space/ a place without history) and post-worldwar geopolitical constellation has emerged and governed by the dialectical relationship between capitalist (1st world) and communist (2nd world) ideologies. From 'Moon mission' (1969) to the collapse of Berlin wall (1989) and 'Credit crunch' (2009), cold-war politics and globalization policies have transformed the global image into image capitalism. The triad of historical, abstract and differential space is no more a system of differentiation that determines our identities within a perticular socio-economic edifice but only appears as fractured whole. Every first world has a third world within and vice versa.
The abstract space (Lefebvre) of homogenization, hierarchization and social fragmentation created by neo-liberal capitalism has become our reality of social, racial, religious and ethnic conflicts and violence. The liberal policies, NGO politics and activism of the left attempts to repair the disasters within this abstract space through environmental awareness, human-rights, social justice and minority participatory/ emancipatory programs. Repair as a strategy is a symbolic space of tolerance and requires real actions based on progressive structure (social, economical and political reforms) and infrastructure (water, food, electricity, education, healthcare, employment, corruption, transportation and so on). The idea is not to alter or repair the existing system but to invent a subversive possibility such as differential space (Lefebvre) that can disrupt and affect the existing framework.
Therefore in the midst of crisis the role of art and architecture as spatial categories is to imagine radical spatial categories.