PERSPECTIVES ON COMMONS AND CULTURE KRYTYKA POLITYCZNA EUROPEAN CULTURAL FOUNDATION Table of Contents 11 Introduction 14 Agnieszka Wiśniewska, Culture WITH People, Not Just FOR People! 19 Charlie Tims, A Rough Guide to the Commons: Who Likes It and Who Doesn’t 32 Dougald Hine, Friendship is a Commons (excerpt) 38 El Buen Vivir and the Commons: A Conversation Between Gustavo Soto Santiesteban and Silke Helfrich (excerpts) 44 Ugo Mattei, The State, the Market and Some Preliminary Questions about the Commons (excerpts) 48 Michel Bauwens, Understanding Peer to Peer as a Relational Dynamics (excerpt) 54 Christian Siefkes, The Boom of Commons-based Peer Production (excerpts) 60 Dimitris Parsanoglou, Nicos Trimikliniotis, Vassilis Tsianos, Mobile Commons, Migrant Digitalities and the Right to the City (excerpts) 63 James Bridle, All Cameras are Police Cameras 76 Carlos Delclós, Class Discourse in the Metropolis 80 Dan Hancox, How to Stop Gentrification in London: What We Can Learn from Spain’s New Rebel Mayors Table of Contents 6 86 Charlie Tims, Watching Radical Democracy 102 Dougald Hine, Commoning in the City 108 Adrien Krauz, Transition Towns, Or the Desire for an Urban Alternative 118 Nikos A. Salingaros and Federico Mena-Quintero, A Brief History of P2P Urbanism (excerpts) 124 Richard Sennett, Stimulating Dissonances 132 Tessy Britton, Creative and Collaborative 137 LabGov — Laboratory for the Governance of the Commons: A Discussion between Michel Bauwens and Christian Iaione 147 Neal Gorenflo, Bologna Celebrates One Year of a Bold Experiment in Urban Commoning 153 Doina Petrescu and Constantin Petcou, R-URBAN or How to Co-produce a Resilient City 1st( excerpt) 160 Noel Hatch, From Lamp Posts to Phone Booths: Using Technology to create Civic Spaces 164 Pelin Tan, The Civic Public as a Constellation 172 Vitalie Sprinceana, The City Belongs to Everybody: Claiming Public Spaces in Chisinau 197 Vladimir Us, Chisinau Civic Center (excerpts) 208 Igor Stokfiszewski, Culture for Democracy: A Central European Perspective Table of Contents 7 218 Isabelle Frémeaux and John Jordan in conversation with Rob Hopkins, Isabelle Frémeaux, John Jordan and the Rise of the Insurrectionary Imagination 230 Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, Not Sustainable Development but Sustainable Co-living 240 Excerpt from a speech given by Madjiguène Cissé on the occasion of her receipt of the Wilhelmine von Bayreuth Prize 2011 245 Doina Petrescu and Constantin Petcou, R-URBAN or How to Co-produce a Resilient City 2nd( excerpt) 252 Carmen Lozano-Bright, Kicking Off a Year of “P2P Plazas” Research and Cartography 258 Carmen Lozano-Bright, Between Random and Democratic Practices: The Commons Board Game 264 Claudia Ciobanu, From Public Space to Common Good: Poland’s Urban Political Activism 270 Sophie Bloemen, A Commons-Intergroup Takes Off in the EU Parliament (excerpt) 272 Julie Ward MEP, Reclaiming the Commons through Culture and Arts 276 Tinni Ernsjöö Rappe, Culture Hunters 279 Philippe Eynaud and Sam Khebizi, Participatory Art as a Vector of Innovative Governance: Reflexivity at the Heart of the Formalisation Process 295 Katarina Pavić, New Models of Governance of Culture 305 Michel Bauwens in conversation with Arthur de Grave, The Transition Will Not Be Smooth Sailing Introduction by the Editors This publication is a special collabo- professional backgrounds. We believe ration between Krytyka Polityczna, that it is important to share and the European Cultural Foundation explore methods, solutions and and ECF Labs, with Subtopia (Sweden), technologies that can help to build Les Têtes de l’Art (France), Oberliht more humane and environmentally (Moldova), Culture2Commons (Croatia) friendly cities and communities, and Platoniq (Spain), partners in our where people not only co-exist but action-research network: Connected truly live together. Action for the Commons. Together, Through our research we found we strive for a new understanding many interesting texts, studies, inter- of what the commons means to us in views and cultural examples of what different areas of Europe, in our cities we see happening in our cities and and in our cultural practices. their wider regions across Europe: Much has been written recently a powerful bottom-up movement led about the phenomenon of the ‘Com- by citizens themselves, developing mons’, and from many different angles. new participatory democratic practices But culture’s contribution to the spe- that shape our cities and empower us cific notion of collaborative practices to govern them in a different, collabo- for the common goods in and of our rative way. cities requires further exploration. It is inspiring and motivating While this publication cannot ful- to witness and support the growing ly show how the concepts of culture, number of local initiatives — be it communities, democracy and the city cultural-social centres, cooperatives, are intertwined, it does rediscover, neighbourhood communities — reframe and reconsider previously that experiment with new models published historical, artistic, partici- and challenge existing structures and patory and theoretical perspectives habits. Urban movements are becoming on the subject by a wide variety of au- legitimate agents for change and chal- thors from different geographical and lenge the status quo on a larger scale. Introduction � the Editors 12 They show the urgent need for a para- that affect their surroundings, digm shift in city policies. their neighbourhoods and their lives. Here we present articles, inter- With this publication we aim to fuel views and visual materials that fo- further debate among citizens, cultural cus on the commons from different practitioners, city developers and all viewpoints, discuss the relationships those interested in the commons, between commons and peer-to-peer culture and the future of our cities. production or transition towns, examine the class divisions in relation to commons and test political possibi- A note from the editors lities opened up by mobilising people in support of the commons. Most This publication draws heavily importantly we present examples on texts, links and images posted of the ways in which citizens organise in ECF Labs (ecflabs.org) — the online themselves and act to bring about community platform developed by a new reality that can mirror their the European Cultural Foundation. attempts todeepen democracy and Several articles in the reader were freedom for everything that we hold posted by the community in ECF Labs, in common. or linked to a post in one of the labs We believe in culture as an innova- (e.g. From Lamp Posts to Phone Booths tive terrain for new forms of demo- by Noel Hatch, R-Urban on how to pro- cratic, institutional, social, political duce a resilient city — Doina Petrescu and existential experimentations, and Constantin Petcou). Some con- and believe it is important to underline tributors also moderate labs, the- and further explore its central role in matic spaces open to everybody (e.g. ongoing struggles over the commons Charlie Tims — Occupolitics!, Carmen against the backdrop of an ever-chang- Lozano-Bright — p2p Square!). ECF ing changing city landscape. ‘Build Labs is an ‘engine for communi- the City’ is about people coming to- ties’ and an important knowledge gether through culture to reclaim their resource for the Connected Action cities and take control of the decisions for the Commons network. � “The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights.” — David Harvey, The Right to the City Culture WITH People, Not Just FOR People! by Agnieszka Wiśniewska What culture do we need? Artists meet sociologists, Agnieszka A culture that’s inclusive, anthropologists, historians. Wiśniewska is a member of a culture that creates bonds, This is not limited to Warsaw: Krytyka Polityczna on a local level and in touch in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, (krytykapolityczna. with people. a town with some 70,000 pl), one of the hubs in the inhabitants, cultural activists European Cul- made an exhibition reminding tural Foundation’s Culture as action people about a workers’ colony Networked Pro- gramme — Con­ founded in the city nearly 100 nected Action for On a local, neighbourhood years ago. They consulted his- the Commons. level, culture has become torians and worked with tools a language for describing used in recording oral history. reality, for making the his- The exhibition was staged in torical past familiar, for ex- the middle of the town square. ploring one’s surroundings. This is the kind of culture Art has entered public space we need: made in touch with not merely as decoration but people, in collaboration with as commentary, inspiring them, together; accessible dialogue and reflection on to as many people as possi ble. the role of that space (as in Only half a year earlier the the case of Joanna Rajkowska’s very same activists initiated Oxygenator), or as a form a debate about the renovated of warfare (best represented town square. Some time be- in Julita Wójcik’s Rainbow, re- fore, the authorities had gone peatedly burned by homopho- to considerable lengths to have bic and nationalist hooligans the square paved with granite, and renovated by volunteers). having forgotten to include in Culture WITH People, Not Just FOR People! � Agnieszka Wiśniewska 15 their scheme the needs of the locals. people typically do. These people who The square was turned into a granite have stayed behind or who are coming desert. The activists reacted: they suc- back to their hometowns after study- ceeded in calling an open debate with ing etc. are inviting artists and cultural the mayor where ideas to reclaim activists from other places to share the town square for people were pre- their knowledge and experience. sented. One was to turn the square into a place that welcomes culture, meaning not an occasional concert by a celebrity Culture as inclusion star from Warsaw, as is often the case in provincial towns, but actions that The most thrilling phenomena in cul- are not as much “aimed at” the public ture in recent years have taken place as they are performed “in collaboration in the key sphere where culture is no with” them.