(published in Domus Dec 2005 and Bauwelt #46 2005)
Especially in view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, proven to be a testing ground for extreme spatial conditions, and in view of the most recent violence in the French ghettos, the conference “Archipelago of Exception” at the CCCB in Barcelona, reviewing aspects of sovereignty and extraterritoriality from a spatial perspective, was as timely as possible. Organized by the architect Eyal Weizman, heading the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths College, Anselm Franke, curator and exhibition director at Kunst-Werke, and Thomas Keenan, professor of Comparative Literature at Bard College, NY, and referring to Giorgio Agamben's writing, the conference opened with the master himself lecturing on the origins of the state of exception and its spatial pendent - the camp - contrasting Carl Schmitt's 'political theology' with an 'economical theology' which Agamben traced back to earliest Christianity. After Tariq Ali's rather journalistic talk, working the evil of the empire through all possible categories, from US global military presence to its outsourcing of torture, the following panel entitled 'architecture of extraterritoriality' showed how spatial agents can go beyond the mere narrative of the wicked. Presentations by Keller Easterling, Laura Kurgan, Teddy Cruz, Eyal Sivan and Eyal Weizman showed the critical power of mapping with a number of case studies of biopolitical conditions, where spatial form is a direct result of political forces acting on the ground. Stephen Graham presented the new technologies of weaponry, embodying fantasies of (white) omnipotence and a push of racist imaginary geography. The fiercest discussions arose around the presentation of Shimon Naveh, director of the Operational Theory Research Institute showing his work on new complex military strategies within the urban fabric, borrowing on cybernetics, after narrating stories from the war room - soldiers discussing the tactics for attacking Balata refugee camp. Coming himself obviously under attack by most of the participants for his 'unhappy' stance - not critical enough, to take the consequences of his own thoughts - it raised an intense discussion on the role of the agent in the field of the state of exception and techniques of containment. Anselm Franke pointed to the understanding of power today through form and the “marks” left on the ground. Politics is a practice of how to do things with space, therefore spatial practitioners become important agents making aware of the zones of exclusion and the spaces where people become recipients of bio-politics, and then offering tools for overcoming these conditions. The conference showed the important urge to step beyond the mere identification of the camp, which would amount to a resignation of the condition at stake. Not a politics for governing, but a politics by and of the governed going further than the recognition of 'Agambian' conditions. Once the governed subjects, the Homo Sacer, develop their own agency, the camp can become a laboratory for change.
M Herz ©