upscaling, training, commoning book 0_1 Upscaling, Training, commoning upscaling, training, commoning book 0_2 BOOK 0: Upscaling, Training, cOmmOning STEALTH.unlimited (Ana Džokić and Marc Neelen) With contributions by: Dougald Hine, Martijn Jeroen van der Linden, Ana Méndez de Andés, Iva Marčetić and Paul Currion This six-chapter book takes the nine years since the outbreak of the fnancial crisis in 2008 as a period of refection. At that time, in 2008, STEALTH.unlimited co-curated the project Archiphoenix – Faculties for Architecture, at the Dutch Pavilion at Architecture Biennale in Venice, an attempt to collectively imagine a curriculum for an architecture profession beyond the speculative and proft-driven (over)production of urbanity. While not immediately evident, that year would prove to be a turning point not just for STEALTH, as it would have an immense efect on the entire ‘spatial’ profession. In the Netherlands, for instance, the number of practicing architects halved and many of its architecture and urban planning related institutions were dissolved. Ever since it has become clear how deeply entrenched the unsustainability of urban production has remained. Meanwhile, a growing number of practices started to underline the necessity of a profoundly diferent approach, beyond the broken neo-liberal dogma. This introductory book outlines the context of the practice-based research that STEALTH has set of in 2011. It investigates a possible role and capacity for spatial practice(s) by transforming STEALTH’s own feld of work in the process – towards direct and long-term engagements. sTEalTH.unlimitEd (2000) is the practice of Ana Džokić (1970) and marc nEElen (1970). They live and work between Rotterdam and Belgrade. Initially trained as architects, for over 15 years they are equally active in the context of contemporary art and culture. Looking back, they realise that there have been distinct periods in their work, shifing every seven-eight years. Their initial interest in the ‘stealth’ urban processes (those which operate below the urban planning radar) manifested itself in a series of research and mapping projects. Sometime around 2008 they became increasingly involved in curatorial projects and public events which they used to explore and expose the potential of collective citizen capacity to confront the privatisation and fnancialisation of space, in a bid to mobilise diferent future horizons. Inspired by their fndings, but also aware of the limitations of artistic/cultural led involvements in the urban domain, sometime around 2012 in Belgrade and Rotterdam they involved in setting-up long-term engagements to deal with the spaces and spatiality of production and (social) reproduction, particularly in the domain of housing. book 0_3 may 3, 2011. This afTernoon, a crowd has gaThered aT sTockholm’s archiTecTUre mUseUm for an evenT enTiTled alTernaTive Most of ‘us’ cautiously navigate the promise of the ‘alternative’, wary of making too bold a statement. And not 1 without reason, as the series of discussions literally takes archiTecTUre. mplace osamongst theT daunting ghostly exhibits of an earlier promise labelled ‘radical architecture and design’ – the show Environments and Counter Environments – featuring groups from the 1960s and 1970s. Some of these ‘radicals’ noTable among wouldT hoselater develop careers we’d rather not be reminded of: misfts have become re-fts. A well-placed warning? That night, the two of us cram ourselves into the belly presenT is The groof one of the hostelUp boats of at Stockholm’s quays. We get some restless sleep, and prepare next morning for our interview. In the breakfast room on the boat, a fellow guest is apparently doing the same. It will be the frst ever pracTiTioners represen‘job interview’ we engage ourselves Tin, anding we are visibly uneasy with the occasion – and so it seems is the guy sitting across the long table. This alTernaTive.Afer the interview for the Royal Institute of Art, we lef feeling unsure as to what to make of it. Is this indeed the ‘alternative’ we have been searching for? We travel some 200 km up north to team up with group we were with the day before. On the way, we hear that the Faculty of Architecture in Stockholm is on fre, black smoke billowing out of its workshops. Another warning? Over the next two days, the group discusses various outlooks on the future. It is not easy to project far ahead. We are in the backroom of the laboratory-turned-pub of a former steel factory, the place is reminiscent of a 1980s disco. Much time is devoted to the plan to set up a common pension trust for our precarious practices. Are we forced to already be thinking about retirement now the alternative got into the limelight? This thought will not leave us for some time to come. 1 Produced by Architecture Museum, Stockholm in collaboration with October 5, 2011, Bordeaux. It is the afernoon just before architecture practices Economy (Sweden), Raumlabor Berlin (Germany) the opening of the exhibition Once Upon a Future. We and Testbedstudio (Sweden). With Bruit du Frigo (France), Cityförster (Germany/Netherlands), Celine Condorelli (UK), Exyzt (France), FAT (UK), stretch ourselves in the middle of the huge circular exhibit IFAU (Germany), Modulorbeat (Germany), Meike Schalk and Apolonia set on the grounds of a soon-to-be-terminated abattoir. Šušteršić (Sweden/Netherlands), STEALTH.unlimited (Serbia/Netherlands), Suddenly, we realise that we are not only exhausted, Studio Basar (Romania), Uglycute (Sweden). but that we have most likely exhausted this approach to upscaling, training, commoning book 0_4 providing alternatives. Exhausted from doing research that ends up in books or exhibitions, exhausted by short term projects that challenge the current state of things and have a doubtful potential to spill into reality, exhausted of running around. The corrosive edge might be gone. We have to move on. upscaling, training, commoning book 0_5 Upscaling, Training, commoning This dissertation has been carried out and supervised within the graduate programme in Fine Arts at Kungl. Konsthögskolan/Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm. The dissertation is presented at Lund University in the framework of the cooperation agreement between the Malmö Faculty of Fine and Performing Arts, Lund University, and the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm regarding doctoral education in the subject Fine Arts in the context of Konstnärliga forskarskolan. upscaling, training, commoning book 0_6 colophon Ana Džokić and Marc Neelen (STEALTH.unlimited) With contributions by: Dougald Hine Martijn Jeroen van der Linden Ana Méndez de Andés Iva Marčetić Future fction by: Paul Currion Copy editing: Mark Brogan Images: STEALTH.unlimited (unless stated otherwise) Graphic design: Katarina Popović cc-By-Nc 2017 ISBN: 978-91-7753-273-6 (print) ISBN: 978-91-7753-274-3 (electronic) upscaling, training, commoning book 0_7 content BooK 0: Upscaling, training, commoning 1 CONTENT 7 BEyOND 2008 9 A PROFESSIONAL LANDScAPE ‘SLASHED’ 10 NEW cHANcES, NEW OPPORTUNITIES... NEW cAREER PATHS? 12 UPScALING, TRAINING, cOMMONING 14 A READING GUIDE 15 AcKNOWLEDGEMENTS 20 TRAVEL LOG 25 REFERENCES 36 BooK 1: WeaK signals, fUtUre signs, Wildcards: hoW it coUld WorK 37 BIENNIAL/TRIENNIAL cONTEXT 45 cITy AGENDAS (2030, 2050) 45 BEyOND THE KNOWN 47 A NEEDED (POLITIcAL) AcT? 49 THE AcT OF NARRATING 55 UNFOLDING INTO REALITy 56 Dougald Hine: FROM THE DEAD CENTRE OF THE PRESENT 59 ONCE UPON A FUTURE 61 THE REPORT 68 ENCOUNTERS 73 BooK 2: economies of endUrance: Why We engage (and disengage) 77 TOXIc ASSETS 81 AN EXISTENTIAL cRISIS 81 AN ‘EXcELLENT’ STARTING POINT 82 PROSPEcTS OF A ‘POOL OF TOXIcITy’ 83 SITES FOR (TEMPORARy) SURVIVAL 83 TRAINING GROUNDS FOR A DIFFERENT LIVING 84 ELAPSING FROM THE SPEcULATIVE SPIRAL 94 Martijn Jeroen van der Linden: DISCOVERING NEW ECONOMIC 98 THINKING STAD IN THE MAAK 101 ENCOUNTERS 111 upscaling, training, commoning book 0_8 BooK 3: Re-constituting poWeR: for Whom is the city 117 SPAcE(S) FOR EXcEPTION 125 A STORAGE FOR DO-IT-yOURSELF AcTIVISTS 126 WITHDRAWAL AS AN ENABLING FAcTOR 126 A PLAyGROUND FOR SOLITARy INDIVIDUALS? 128 WE ARE DEVELOPERS TOO. REALLy? 129 WHO’S cITy? 131 IN WHAT DO WE GROUND THESE UPHILL BATTLES? 137 Ana Méndez de Andés: WHO WE ARE – OR WHAT WE ARE TO 138 BE(COME)? (DIS)ASSEMBLED 141 cONSTITUTION FOR THE INTERIM 145 ENCOUNTERS 151 BooK 4: Re-claiming housing: What maKes the impossiBle possiBle 157 AN IMPOSSIBLE cATcH 161 TWO SHORTcUTS 161 yOURSELF IN WHAT IS yOURS? 164 DEcONSTRUcTING THE HOME, TO cONSTRUcT AN 173 APARTMENT BUILDING WHERE DOES SMARTNESS RESIDE? 174 AN UNEXPEcTED, PRIVATE REScUE 175 OUT INTO THE OPEN 176 FROM A SMOULDERING ISSUE INTO AN OPEN FIRE 177 A (yET) UNFULFILLED PROMISE 177 Iva Marčetić: – 180 PAMETNIJA ZGRADA 181 DOBRO DOŠLI U STAMBENI PAKAO 186 ENCOUNTERS 191 BooK 5: What matters 197 by Paul Currion 2018 – FIRE, SMOKE, cOUGHING AND LOVE 199 2019 – THESEUS IN ROTTERDAM 203 2021 – TURBULENcE 207 2023 – THE REcLAMATION 213 2025 – BOARD THE FUTURELAND EXPRESS 219 upscaling, training, commoning book 0_9 crisis’ made its start. It had been an ominous year. The beyond 2008 months before had witnessed the peak of a construction For the start of this journey we need to go back to 2008. frenzy, fuelled by real-estate speculation and sky-rocketing real-estate prices. Even if the event of Lehman Brother’s When on September 18, 2008 the newspaper NRC collapse itself came as a surprise of sorts, for many the Handelsblad features a review of the Dutch Pavilion at the signs had already been out there that this was to crash 11th Architecture Biennale in Venice, the tone of the article in on us. In Venice, a substantial group of ‘alternative’ is somewhat whiny, as if someone has unjustly denied the practices (many featured in the Italian Pavilion, curated author a covert pleasure. The article ridicules the attitude by Emiliano Gandolf) had taken the Biennale’s theme Out to refrain from featuring the ongoing construction frenzy There: Architecture Beyond Building as an opportunity to (and ‘starchitecture’).