Godofredo Pereira and Samaneh Moafi, 2014
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Volume 47 25 Latent City Yaohua Wang 2 Editorial 49 Cycles of Creativity Arjen Oosterman 32 The Project Jan Jongert interview of a Collective Line 4 Mining Value Godofredo Enes 55 Metabolic Wastebelts Lionel Devlieger Pereira for Suburbia interview Alan M. Berger et al. 39 Neck of the Moon and MIT Center for 13 Resist, Release, Design Earth Advanced Urbanism Retire, Repeat Debbie Chen 43 Cos mic Cir cuitry 61 Logistical Hijack Sasha Engelmann Clare Lyster 21 Expanding Dredge Geologics 65 Global Security Neeraj Bhatia / Pipeline The Open Workshop Nick Axel 69 Acceleration and Rationalization Francesco Marullo 79 Rewiring Territories THE The Petropolis of Tomorrow SYSTEM 87 Polysynthetic Reclamation Bruno De Meulder and Kelly Shannon 122 Coup De Grâce Patrik Schumacher 92 Unknown Unknowns 101 Revolution as Rob Holmes a Techni cal Question 125 Infinite Circulation Amador Fernández- Ross Exo Adams 96 Open Supply Savater Blockchains 130 Babel Guy James 104 Geographies Edwin Gardner and of Uncertainty Christiaan Fruneaux 99 Deposition Effects Ghazal Jafari Jesse LeCavalier 134 Sample and Hold 109 Two Liquids Robert Gerard Pietrusko Tom Fox 140 Protocols of Interplay 116 Back to the Source Keller Easterling Thomas Rau interview ‘The system’ is oft lamented to little leveraging To position ones efforts effect. Aside from something out of our within a system so that its outcomes hands, what is ‘the system’, anyways? are multiplied by the system itself. And how out of our hands is it, really? short-circuiting. To modulate In this issue of Volume, we’re collecting resistance so that either excessive a series of definitions, maps and or insufficient current flows. strategies for intervening in it. disrupting To develop alternative processes and replace existing Volume 47 Volume technologies. 1 infecting To introduce an alien and viral presence. V47_BW_1MRT16-new grid-BIG-_JN_IB.indd 1 7/03/16 12:41 THE GREAT SOUTH AMERICAN PIPELINE by Godofredo Pereira and Samaneh Moafi, 2014. Volume 47 Volume 32 33 V47_BW_1MRT16-new grid-BIG-_JN_IB.indd 32 4/03/16 11:47 GODOFREDO ENES PEREIRA LATIN AMERICA IS A PLACE, BUT IT’S ALSO A PROJECT. ITS HISTORY AS A COLONIAL In 2006 Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, PROJECT GAVE BIRTH TO A RADICAL ONE Brazilian President Lula da Silva and Argentinean OF DECOLONIZATION. WITH REVOLUTION President Néstor Kirchner proposed the con- ARIES LIKE SIMÓN BOLÍVAR AND JOSÉ struction of a gas pipeline connecting Venezuela DE SAN MARTÍN, THE IDEA OF LATIN AMERICA to Brazil and Argentina, called the Gran Gaso AS A COLLECTIVE WHOLE EMERGED AND duto del Sur. Although the project was never HAS PERSISTED UP TO THIS DAY. GODOFREDO built, its path through the Amazon rain forest PEREIRA LOOKS AT THE FAILED PROPOSAL foregrounds the violent nature of resource extrac- OF A PIPELINE RUNNING BETWEEN THREE tion. At the same time, the project raised unique COUNTRIES TO QUESTION WHETHER SUCH questions regarding the architecture of collec- A MECHANISM CAN’T BE USED TO REALIZE tive politics, particularly if understood in the SUCH A PROJECT, THAT OF LATIN AMERICA context of the last fifteen years of political trans- ITSELF. for mations throughout Latin America. organizations emerged during these decades as important political actors. Examples such Neo-extractivism as the popular uprising known as the Caracazo We are now in the end of a cycle that in Venezuela in 1989, the Zapatista struggles witnessed during the past fifteen years a ‘turn in Mexico in 1994, the prominence gained by the to the left’ in Latin America. We can see this MST in Brazil from the mid-eighties,2 the CONAIE in the elections of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, in Ecuador and other indigenous organizations Lula da Silva and Dilma Rouseff in Brasil, Evo in Peru and Bolivia were instrumental both Morales in Bolivia, Nestor and Cristina Kirchner in resisting previously implemented economic in Argentina, Tabaré Vásquez and Pepe Mujica and political models and in maintaining the in Uruguay, Fernando Lugo in Paraguay and struggle for a different form of politics alive.3 Rafael Correa in Ecuador. Most of these elec- These and many other social movements were tor al victories emerged not only due to a dis- part of broad coalitions without which govern- course against colonial exploitation and post- mental elections would have never been won. colonial expropriation – a feeling of injustice It is from within this context that sociologist Eduardo Gudynas coined the term neo extractivism. The term refers to this wave of left-leaning or ‘progressive’ govern ments and how they have adopted inter ven tion- THE ist policies around resource extraction, such as strengthening the role of the state, changing contractual arrangements with PROJECT transnational investors, raising rents and taxation regimes, etc.4 In so doing, govern- ments like those of Kirchner and Chávez managed to wrest some degree of con- OF A trol over their sovereign territories away from transnational corporations and fund a series of re-distributive policies. COLLEC- Venezuela was paradigmatic in this sense. In the eyes of the government elected in 1999 under the leadership of Hugo Chávez, oil would allow not only TIVE LINE a radical break with the economic models underlined in the book Open Veins of Latin of the 1990s, but the opportunity to imple ment a America1 – but also due to the continent’s series of political shifts at multiple scales: from submission in the eighties and nineties to the broad social programs to the re-struc turing of Washington Consensus and its policies of the agricultural sector; from the upgrading of liberalization and free trade, implemented national infrastructure to the establishing Volume 47 Volume by governments subservient to the IMF, World of new global partnerships. As in many other 32 33 Bank and US external policies.1 Against this, global cases, underground resources were social movements and popular non-governmental seen as the motor of development and a way V47_BW_1MRT16-new grid-BIG-_JN_IB.indd 33 4/03/16 11:47 to exit the condition of colonial dependency a project. The inherently modernist nature that Venezuela had been stuck in for so many of such a gesture foregrounds what has been years. But to do so it needed to create condi- a key political dispute within the left in Latin tions to insulate itself from the constant politi- America: on the one hand, a common political cal pressure and power of its main trading project of national and regional sovereignty partner, the US. Contrary to previous govern- based on resource nationalization and, on the ments, with Chávez, the availability of oil other, massive social movements of landless enabled the development of a ‘multi-polar’ peasants, indigenous populations and environ- geopolitical strategy and the development mental activists, fighting back against the of – by way of financing – regional alliances expansion of these very extractive economies. and partnerships at the scale of the global The sheer immensity of the very idea of the South. Within this new frame Venezuela rein- Gran Gasoducto del Sur project makes evident forced its position in OPEC, became a partner not only the dubious ecological impact of of MERCOSUR, participated in the creation a politi cal project based on resource extraction of UNASUR, and created ALBA, an organization but also the tensions inherent between popular that promotes economic integration based power and progressive governments. It could on social welfare in response to the liberal be said that the tension between a modernizing policies of FTAA.5 Important trading partners desire to guarantee autonomy against neo- were found outside of Latin America too, such liberal policies by way of resource extraction as Russia, Iran and China. Considering that and the proposals for alternative (non-modern) these partnerships rely heavily on oil and gas forms of development brought forth by multiple trading, they can be seen as an extended social movements are an unresolved feature map of oil’s ‘political affordances’. In this sense, of every country in the area. the Chávez government’s establishment of PetroCaribe, PetroSur and PetroAndes was The Gran Gasoducto del Sur project didn’t clearly directed towards cementing ties with keep the image of the straight line that was drawn the three main cultural areas that influence by Chávez and Kirchner. In its most advanced Venezuela – Caribbean, South American and stage it connected key Brazilian cities such Andean countries. as Fortaleza and Brasilia (avoiding the Amazon rainforest) and from there to Montevideo in Uruguay and finally to Buenos Aires in Argentina. Gran Gasoducto del Sur In the end the project was abandoned, partially The Gran Gasoducto del Sur was a pro- due to indigenous and environmentalist pro- posal first formalized at the XXIX MERCOSUR tests, and partially due to Brazil’s state-owned meeting in Montevideo on 9 December 2005. oil company Petrobras backing out. In any In this meeting, energy ministers from Venezuela, case, its implicit construction of a ‘collective Argentina and Brazil signed a deal for the devel- line’ can be read in two opposing ways: opment of an 8000–15000km gas pipeline to con- As Venezuelan sociologist Garcia Gaudilla nect the three countries. On the 19 January 2006, notes, most of the institutions and intergovern- presidents Hugo Chávez, Nestor Kirchner and mental partnerships of regional integration Lula da Silva approved the project and gave it its created by South American governments were name in a meeting in Brasilia. The gigantic gas thought as mechanisms for their integration duct would connect Puerto Ordaz in Venezuela into the global economy and emphasized the to Buenos Aires in Argentina. In addition to this, need for trade liberalization amongst members.6 it would allow pipelines to be connected to other For example, one of the common features to South American nations.