Levinas, Ethics and the Encounter with an Art Object

In order to look at the issue of the possibility of the ‘ethical’ encounter with an art object a logical starting point is the work of Emmanuel Levinas. Rather than metaphysical ontology, Levinas maintained that ethics was the ‘first philosophy’ as it was the interaction with the ‘Other’ that gave meaning to our existence. Levinas’ work, beginning with the Totality and Infinity (1961) is a critique of Western philosophy, in particular Heidegger and Husserl. Levinas’ concern is that Western philosophy has been preoccupied with Being and the self, at the expense of what is otherwise than Being, what lies outside the self as infinite and alterior, the Other. The term ‘Other’ can also be found in the work of Hegel who introduced it as an important part of self-consciousness¹.

Levinas discusses the possibility of the ethical encounter with the ‘Other’ and places particular importance on the face-to-face relationship between it and the self. Being face-to-face with the Other forbids a reduction to sameness and simultaneously creates a responsibility for the other in the self. As human beings we are not inherently ethical, with our most primal desire being to kill the other and remove the threat of the unknown, as Hegel puts in Phenomenology of Spirit (1977) ‘each consciousness pursues the death of the other’². Levinas argues that by putting ourselves face-to-face with the other we are unable to carry out this desire, as by turning to face the Other we are acknowledging their demand of ‘thou shalt not kill me’. We should hold the belief that we are all responsible for all others but I (the self) am more responsible than all others. In accordance with Levinas the Other is superior or prior to the self and the mere presence of the Other makes demands before one can respond by either helping or ignoring them. At this point, one may draw parallels between these moral concerns and that of the Bible, ‘turning the other cheek’ being of particular relevance.

For Levinas, the Other is always unknowable and cannot be made into an object of the self. There is inherent asymmetry to the Other: the Other is and shall always remain ‘other’. In attempting to appropriate and grasp the character of the Other we are in a sense killing it, ceasing to allow it to exist as other. Gwendolyn Bays (1948) puts it rather succinctly when she writes ‘in understanding my friend's mind I must first "freeze" it, encompass it, and in this sense kill it’³. She writes this in reference to Simone de Beauvoir’s novel L'Invitee (1943) (often translated as ‘She Came to Stay’) which charts the relationship of Pierre and Francoise (widely accepted to be a thinly veiled representation of Beauvior herself and Jean-Paul Satre) and the damaged caused by a young girl named Xaviere who threatens to break them apart. The character of Francoise can choose to exile Xaviere or take her under her wing, and it is by her ‘adoption of Xaviere (that) she had pursued the younger girl's death, and her generous acceptance of Xaviere's competition had itself been a strategy of containment.’⁴

Another important element to make reference to in the work of Levinas is the differentiation that is made between the act of ‘saying’ and the ‘said’. The two are distinguished in that the ‘saying’ is irreducible to one meaning and infinite, it is the act of communication, whereas the ‘said’ is what is conveyed in the saying and can is normally reduced to something finite (there is obviously the potential for misinterpretation but this is of little consequence). In short, it is the act of communication that is more important than the information that is being communicated. The act of paying attention to the ‘saying’ is ethical in that it shows non-indifference to the Other, regardless of what is being ‘said’. The ‘said’ is potentially of little relevance, it is allowing the Other the opportunity to say that is our responsibility, not interpreting and making assessments of the ‘said’. An example, which allows us to relate to this, is perhaps that of banal conversation. It is the act of engaging with someone, of acknowledging them and allowing them the time and space to speak to us that is of importance, not the content of the day-to-day pleasantries that are being exchanged. It is the act of friendship, not the comments about the weather that are meaningful in such a scenario.

Now let us expand upon this idea of the ethical encounter. If we take the concept of the Other to mean not just the rest of mankind but in fact to all objects that are outside ourselves, and move away from the idea of the encounter as being a social one, could we perhaps apply the idea of the ethical encounter to the encounter with an art object, with the art object as the ‘Other’? Let us look at how such an application might work. Initially it could be said that any attempt to be face-to-face with the art object, to acknowledge its’ attempt at ‘saying’ is the basis for an ethical encounter. By allowing it to make demands of us (our time, turning and facing it) we are allowing the art object to be prior to ourselves, which Levinas suggests, is ethically sound. So far, so good. This however, is rarely the extent of our encounter with the art object. There is undeniably, consciously or otherwise an attempt on the viewer’s part to make sense of the meaning of a piece of work, an attempt to decipher the ‘said’, to draw conclusions about the status of the object as ‘other’.

If we are to agree with Levinas, then surely this is the making of an unethical encounter, attempting to conceive the other and take it on as a part of the self. Expecting to leave an encounter with an art object with a coherent understanding of what it is that has been ‘said’ is effectively destroying it’s ‘otherness’. Not only this, but upon assessing what we believe to have been ‘said’ we make judgements as to the competency of the ‘saying’. It is also true to say that on occasion, we may deny an art object a face-to-face encounter because of what we believe the content of the said to be. If we believe that a work may be offensive or irrelevant, we may decide to avoid seeing it, denying it the potential of saying. On occasion we may turn away from a work that we deem unworthy of our time, in which case are we not shying away from Levinas’ plea that we must be responsible for the Other more than the Other must be responsible for us? We are punishing the Other for not giving us what we hoped it might, this itself cannot be seen to be ethical, nor can imposing limits upon it’s worth and value. Perhaps then the most ethical way to encounter an art object is to ask nothing of the object, to expect to learn nothing and place the importance on the fact that the art object is ‘saying’ something, regardless of what that is. However, if we were to function in such a manner then surely no art work could be held as being of higher merit than any other, that fact that an art object was ‘saying’ something, regardless of how banal would be enough for it to be heralded as worthy of our time. While this may seem an ethical practice, it seems deeply counterintuitive and potentially rather destructive. If all work was to deemed of the same merit, what would be the incentive to create something truly exceptional. Levinas, it seems, is already causing us problems.

If we take this idea, potentially unwisely, yet further, could it be said that by hailing an art object as one of artistic merit we are making premature assumptions of its’ meaning and worth? This could be seen as an example of placing too much emphasis on the ‘said’ than on the ‘saying’. We are placing upon it our own pre-existing expectation that it will have some meaningful content or contribution higher than alternative objects or Others. Perhaps in differentiating between an object and an art object we are claiming to know something definitive about the ‘unknowable’, in which case our encounter becomes unethical as soon as we ascribe the label ‘art’. We believe that a painting will have something more relevant to tell us than a table, so the painting is placed in a specially designed space and the table is reduced to a servant, forgotten under a pile of papers and coffee mugs. What is the solution, do we spend our time having ‘encounters’ with tables, or should we use ‘David with the Head of Goliath’⁵ as a handy place to balance a beverage?

If we are to extrapolate (somewhat uncompromisingly perhaps) Levinas’ ideas into the world of art we seem to be at risk of writing off criticism, theory and curation and any encounter with an art object as inherently unethical. A critic should not make any judgements about a piece of work, because one Other should surely not be held in higher regard than another. Art Theory could be seen as trying to make claims about the otherness of Other, and in doing so the Other is destroyed and effectively killed, leading us into deeply unethical territory. Curating an exhibition is making claims as to knowledge of otherness and of the ‘said’ as being meaningful in some way and worthy of the title of ‘art’. So what is the answer, do we allow Levinas’ ethics to chip away at the foundation of art appreciation and criticism?

There seem to be two possible ways to escape from the bind into which Levinas, his ethics and this line of enquiry seem to have placed us. Firstly we may choose to reassess the relationship we should expect to have with the Other and question whether asymmetry really is the most ethical relationship to expect to have. Zizek’s ‘Neighbor and Other Monsters’(2005)⁶ leads us to look at symmetry in a slightly different way. If asymmetry leads us to always be more responsible for the Other than they are for us, we are placing ourselves in a privileged position. We are claiming to be the ones with moral responsibility, which could be seen as claiming to be the higher being. Further to this point, surely an ethical relationship with the Other should rely upon a balance of equality, with equal responsibility on both sides and a free exchange of ideas and knowledge. One could argue that the ethical way to encounter the Other is by engaging from a level playing field and recognising the shared experience we have with the Other who exists within the same time and space as us. This could lead us into difficulty again however as it would be hard to claim this is the relationship we have with an art object, while we may expect to gain something from our encounter with an art object, one cannot reasonably claim that the art object gains anything from us.

The second route to take perhaps to abandon the idea that an encounter with an art object must necessarily be ethical. Let us cast an eye over the life of an art object. In the creation of a work in the first place an artist is claiming to have something of relevance to say, something that we need to hear. Surely these potential delusions of grandeur are not particularly ethical and could be, (in fact often are) judged to be misplaced. Questions could be asked as to how ethically sound it is for one to self-appoint as someone whose voice should be more loudly heard than that of others’, surely this is not placing the demands of the Other as prior to the self.

The subject matter of an art work is another topic in which ethical considerations come into play. An often contentious issue is that of nudity and sexual explicit content, where the line falls between art and pornography, if indeed there is one. An example of a casualty of such debate is a photograph by Nan Goldin that was part of her ‘Thanksgiving’ series, which was seized by police after the image of a naked child was deemed ‘pornographic’ and potentially criminal⁷. Ethical issues are by no means confined to the subject matter of a work of art, the way in which such work has been created does not escape scrutiny. Austrian artist Valie Export was trialed in 1977 for cruelty to animals after tying a bird to a perch and pouring hot wax over it as part of a performance⁸.

Other areas of the ‘art world’ can hardly be seen to be entirely ethical, the cut throat world of art business is surely one that cannot be said to be always ruled by ethical and moral ideals. The selling and acquiring of works is sure to have winner and losers. In March of this year New York based art dealer Lawrence Salander pleaded guilty to grand larceny and fraud after admitting to selling artworks he didn’t own up the value of $120 million, little of which is expected to be recovered⁹. If this is the background to the object we encounter, it seems to me that to expect that encounter to be a purely ethical one may be a little naïve, or at least a little idealistic. To place the confines of ethicality on an artwork, as we perhaps limiting its potential of ‘saying’?

Also, in engaging with an encounter with an art object it is fair to say that we are already expecting something of it. The relationship will always be a little one sided, we have nothing to offer it, aside from our attention and yet we are anticipating that it will be able to do something remarkable for us. We hope that it will convey some truth, uncover a secret or hand us some precious wisdom or insight and ask for little in return. This is potentially unethical, yes, but to make the demand that we abandon these expectations in order to restore our ethics seems to be to destroy the encounter itself.

Perhaps it is that Levinas is potentially the ideal, an existence in which we have no prejudicial ideas. No expectations exist of a person or object or our encounter with either and we continue to respect the idea that the Other will remain ‘other’. This instinctively is a aspiration for the social encounter, to not expect anything from another person, to not wish to reduce their differences into something that we can understand and conceive, although this could be potentially lonely existence. One in which we do not expect anything from anyone else and all moral responsibility falls at our feet. While it may be wrong to try to fully conceive the Other, our relationship with the Other seems important in order to be able to gain anything from our encounter with it. To attempt to extrapolate this in regards to the encounter with an art object does not seem to be a workable example. If the Other was always the unknown, and works of art were seen as the Other, then art, literature music and indeed the rest of mankind would be able to teach us nothing, and to allow it to would be to destroy it. We would be left unmoved and mystified by any such encounter and even if it is supposedly ethical, it doesn’t seem to be in any way desirable.

Maybe it is wrong to be looking to have an ethical encounter with such an object. Perhaps the ethical encounter should have no more pre-requisites than that we allow ourselves to give time to the art object, that we allow it to do it’s saying. Whether we manage to grasp the ‘said’ is hugely subjective, some work will shout at us, others will whisper quietly in a language that is barely decipherable, and there are some that will remain mute. It is my belief that the most rewarding encounter with an artwork shocks us, haunts us, unsettles us and disrupts us, and where does one begin to look for the ethical in that?

1 Hegel, G. W. F. (1977) Phenomenology of spirit. Trans. A. V. Miller. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2 Hegel, G. W. F. (1977). Phenomenology of spirit. Trans. A. V. Miller. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (pp. 113)

3 Bays, G. (1948) Simone de Beauvoir: Ethics and art, Yale French Studies, vol. 1, pp. 107.

4 Bays, G. (1948) Simone de Beauvoir: Ethics and art, Yale French Studies, vol. 1, pp. 108.

5 Caravaggio, M. M. (1609-1610) David with the Head of Goliath [Painting]. Galleria Borghese, Rome.

6 Zizek, S. (2005) ‘The neighbor and other monsters’, in Zizek, L., Slanter, E. L and Reinhard, K. The Neighbor: Three Inquiries in Political Theology, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

7 http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article2537080.ece [10 Nov 2010]

8 http://viennanet.info/polemics/valie-export-in-belvedere [14 Nov 2010]

9 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5983268.ece [14 Nov 2010]

The Crowd (Extract)

The Crowd

There is something to be gained in creating boundaries and marking ones territory. If we are looking at the revolution in terms of what Arendt defines as a gathering of those with the same, shared goal, then we find ourselves looking out onto a crowd of revolutionaries. Elias Canetti (1962) writes extensively on 'The Crowd', how it forms and functions, its structure and goals. The goal exists before the words to define it, in a sense it exists before the formulation of its concept. The formation of the crowd is sudden, it appears spontaneously where before there was nothing. It can spawn from a few people standing together, but nothing is expected, nothing has been announced.

As soon as the crowd exists, its yearning is to grow and seize every other body that lies within its reach. This crowd is defined as the open crowd, what Canetti calls the ‘natural’ crowd and it is open in the fullest sense of the word. It knows and respects no boundaries, it seeks to grow in every direction that it can. The open crowd can only claim existence in so long as it is growing, if it stops growing it will disappear. The openness and desire to expand is its greatest strength while at the same time constituting its greatest weakness. It survives through rapid increase, but there is always a lingering sense of the threat of disintegration. There is something inevitable about its demise, its aim is to absorb everyone but once this has been achieved it will fall to pieces. Without the prospect of growth it cannot continue to exist.

Canetti contrasts this with what he describes as the closed crowd. The closed crowd rejects the instability that inevitably comes with the insatiable desire for growth, in favour of achieving permanence. It sets its own boundary, a space for it to fill and rather than a yearning to extend beyond these parameters, its motivation is to defend and maintain these boundaries. There is a limit to its size and once this has been reached anyone on the outside of the boundary can never be more than a spectator, regardless of their proximity.

The self-imposed boundary of the closed crowd prevents disorderly increase, but in so doing the rate of any dispersal is stilted. Growth is in effect sacrificed for potential longevity. The goal of the closed crowd has shifted to repetition rather than to absorb greater numbers. It hopes that it might be able to meet again, to refill the same boundaries that it has set for itself. Closed crowds of the past have been able to become institutions in their own right, but this also marks an absorption into the situation.

Mapping a revolutionary moment appears to be instrumental in, or at least indicative of, this transformation from an open to a closed crowd. This awareness that growth must be sacrificed, at least for the immediate future, in order for the potential for repetition to exist. It is an example of disappearance in order to avoid death. In order for the potential to hang in the air clandestine until it can re-emerge, at a time that may be safer.

The open crowd is the ‘true’ crowd, in a state of abandonment, answering only to its natural desire for growth. It has no set desire in terms of its size or gain, it only knows that it wants to absorb all and everyone that it can. Canetti maintains that in this state the crowd is subject to its looming and inevitable disintegration. He reaches for the word ‘eruption’ as a name for the sudden transition from a stable closed to this transient open crowd. This eruption should not, he claims, be understood as something purely spatial. A crowd often outgrows its boundaries and spills out onto the streets, but more important than this external event is the inner movement ‘the dissatisfaction with the limitation of the number of participants, the sudden will to attract, the passionate determination to reach all men.’¹

‘Each eruption from a closed locality means that the crowd desires to regain its old pleasure in sudden, rapid and unlimited growth’²

Canetti is careful to express the importance of the insatiable nature of the crowd, it remains hungry as long as individuals remain that it has not yet reached. It is this that gives it is desire to grow, it aims to satisfy itself even though doing so will make its end.

This growth cannot be maintained forever. The crowd carries the sense of its impending demise, it knows that once it stops growing it is doomed. ‘The final disintegration and scattering of this crowd is made somewhat less painful by being determined in advance. It is known, too, that the beaten side will have an opportunity of taking its revenge; everything is not over for good.’³ There is something to be said for taking to ground. Removing oneself from the sight line of those one is fighting, a chance to regroup and protect oneself from death. Once death has occurred there is no chance for resurrection, in disappearing there is always the potential to re-emerge. The open crowd grows but is running full pelt towards its own doom, the closed crowd does not grow and may disintegrate, but there is always the chance for repetition, for the forces to re-gather with the same desires and aims. If the crowd or revolutionary facilitates its own demise then there is still the potential for repetition.

The fate of the invisible crowd pg 53 ‘In spite of their former numbers, they are no longer to be found anywhere in their familiar shape. But they have left their traces.’ Here again, emerges the concept of the trace. How is the revolutionary trace maintained?

In times of a double crowd, we find ourselves at war, ‘The closer in power and intensity the rivals are, the longer both of them will stay alive.’⁴ 

In order to compare these mapping practices and their effect on revolutionary activity it is beneficial perhaps for the purpose of this study to focus on one geographical space in particular. French history is scattered with ‘revolutions’ and as its capital city, Paris is no stranger to uprisings and moments of revolutionary political action. Examples of moments of rupture and conflict played out in the streets are easy to find, as are the attempts to map and analyse these moments. These examples will be looked at, with attention paid to how the mapping might constitute the transition from a open crowd to closed, a disappearance or a death.

1 Canetti, E. (1960) Crowds and Power (trans Carol Stewart) New York: Viking, p. 23

2 p. 23

3 p. 40

4 p. 24

ININLAND talk for Camberwell Arts Week.

The Olympic Park and the Instability of the Mise En Abyme - Notes

Mise En Abyme

The point of departure for these sessions at InINland was the notion of Mise en Abyme.

For the benefit of those who are not familiar with this term I wanted to briefly discuss it.

The definition is a complex one, but perhaps the most straight forward example is the idea of placing two mirrors in front of each other, so their panes create an infinite reflection of their own image as well as that of the other mirror.In a sense, the mise en abyme contains more than just a reflection of itself, it reaches outside itself and draws in that which surrounds it. In literary and artist terms, mise en abyme is the work within a work, the play within a play of Hamlet, the painting or mirror within a painting in the case of Las Meninas.

From French writer Andre Gide we get the comparison of the coat of arms, within the shield sits a smaller version of a shield, placed in the centre, a position known as En Abyme. It can be said that the internal representations that occur within these works are reductive, despite giving the illusion of infinity, at some level, determined by scale, there is a vanishing point. All of these representations are smaller, polarised and lacking in the complexity of what it appears within.

Phenomena of Olympic Site

Rather than react directly to the structure that has been built within this space, I have chosen extrapolate the basic notion of mise en abyme in order to engage with the unique phenomena that is the construction of an olympic city.The structure we currently find ourselves in began life as a representation of the key features of the space it inhabits. The angles of the walls, the size and shape of the void it creates are all subtly informed by the space that spawned it.

An olympic city is seen as its own entity. It provides the illusion of self sufficiency, while being hugely reliant on the infrastructure of the host city. It is in some ways a polished version of the host city within itself, a structural mise en abyme. In a document entitled Designing for Legacy produced in 2009 by London's Olympic Delivery Authority states this desire clearly saying:

“In 2012 the eyes of the world will be on us. It will be a opportunity to show everything that is great about London and the UK. That includes the quality and inventiveness of British architecture, design, construction and engineering.”

Rather than being a response to need, as one may hope would be the case in most urban development the olympic city is brought about by the desire to showcase the host city to the rest of the world. Within it, there are subtle markers that alude to the message that the host city hopes will transmit to the millions of viewers around the world. A strong example of this in the ArcelorMittal sponsored Orbit tower designed by Anish Kapoor, with all its cultural legacy brownie points. Attaching the name of a Turner Prize winning artist to the site seems a considered move.

In an ideal scenario, development would be based on the assessment of local need, building up from the ground, working with the community. In the case of an olympic city, there is a top down approach taken. The need of the Olympic Games are predetermined, there is little room for flexibility in terms of the facilities that are required, and it is the job of the host city to clear a space for these.

It is also the time scale that makes the Olympic City so unique, in the case of London, the bid was accepted in 2005, with the games due to take place in Summer 2012. In a remarkably short space of time, and with a seemingly endless budget, and entire development is constructed.

London 2012

London's Olympic Park is situated in Stratford in East London, spanning 2.5 square km. It can clearly be seen on a ariel view map. Nestled on the outskirts of London.

It is home to 8 venues including the olympic stadium, velodrome and the aquatic centre. It is also where Kapoor's viewing tower can be found.

Statford train station is to be the main access to the olympic park, the station itself has received a huge makeover and is served by the underground and overground trains.

Another fixture of the site is of course the huge Westfield shopping centre, a climate-less development designed so that visitors to the site need to pass through its vastness in order to reach their destination.

This seems to be the most obvious nod to the desire to transform Stratford into a destination outside of the olympics. However, the huge losses that the Westfields in London's White City was reported as having suffered may shake the belief that a shopping centre will draw in the crowds. Time, as they say, will tell.

Greece 2004

When discussing the instability of an olympic park development, Athens is perhaps the most obvious example. Perhaps the spiritual home of the games, Athens was distraught to lose it's bid to host the 1996 centennial games to Atlanta.

In 1997 they won the bid to host the 2004 olympics and from that moment the pressure was on to make it a huge success. The olympics itself ran smoothly there were notable improvements to the city as a result, most notably the subway. The same cannot be said of the legacy of the olympic site. Venues that were built to meet the requirements of sports federations were of little use to Athenians, with most of them now standing empty. It has been estimated that 2004 cost Greece 13 Billion Euros cumulatively and by 2008 500million had been spent on 'upkeep', which is difficult to believe if you consider the current state of the site.

It would be incredibly reductionist to claim that the blame of the collapse of Greece's economy lies soley at the foot of the the 2004 games, but it would be equally short sighted not to acknowledge that it played a significant role. Speaking in 2011 Dr Samatas a professor from the University of Crete and an expert on the 2004 Athens security operation stated that

“Τhe cumulative costs of the Athens 2004 Olympics is most definitely a prime reason for the Greek state’s dramatic financial crisis. Olympic spending left Greece with a hefty budget deficit in 2004, reaching 6.1% of Gross National Product, more than doubling the EU’s cap of 3%. Olympic spending also pushed up public borrowing in 2004 to 43 billion from an earlier target of 35 billion. Since then, Greek public debt has exploded exponentially. In 2010, it reached a stunning figure of $469.8 billion (142.8% of GDP).”

Our Legacy

It is too early to have any indication as to the fate of the London site. We can hope that lessons will have been learned from the catastrophe of Greece. 'Before during and after: Making the most of the 2012 games' is a document that sets out five of what it calls 'promises as to the scale of our ambition'

The cynic in me can't help but think ambition is perhaps a useful word in this instance

The five points are as follows:

Make the UK a world-leading sporting nation

Transform the heart of East London

Inspire a generation of young people to take part in local volunteering, cultural and physical activity.

Make the Olympic park a blueprint for sustainable living

Demonstrate the UK is a creative, inclusive and welcoming place to live in, visit and for business

It is perhaps the last line that is significant. 'Demonstrate'. The fear is that this investments made on the site will be ploughed into posturing. Anish Kapoor's Orbit is perhaps a good example of this. Whatever you think of the aesthetics of the structure, it is a clear symbol of the aspired cultural heritage of the olympic site.

One thing is for certain, London has never been somewhere that needs help in attracting tourists or putting itself on the cultural map. Once our industry all but dried up, hospitality and tourism has been our saving grace, and say what you like about the Queen, but her jubilee, and the legacy of the monarchy, in combination with the draw of our great writers and poets, has been instrumental in drawing visitors to the UK.

Another important point to make is about the housing legacy of the olympic site

There has been a lot of coverage of the compulsory purchase orders that were served in order to make the Stratford site happen. In particular, the Carpenter Estate, which is adjacent to the olympic park, which Newham council have decided to demolish 'decanting' hundreds of residents in the process. In doing so they have destroyed community, perhaps a struggling one, but genuine social space that had been produced by social interaction.

With millions of pounds of investment to be made in residential towers in both Stratford city and the olympic development, the area is at huge risk of polarisation, privatisation and fragmentation. Disrupting any sense of community in the area and effectively creating a space where those from different backgrounds live in different worlds.The olympic site has provided a catalyst for regeneration on a dramatic time scale. What is desperately needed in the area is affordable housing, but the realities of meeting this need are difficult.

Private investors are needed to continue development on the olympic site after the cameras have turned away, and initially, the pledges of 25-35 percent affordable housing seem reasonable (the 50 percent set by the labour party in london was scrapped when Boris Johnson came to power in 2008). But when we consider that the definition of affordable housing can be anywhere up to 85 percent of the market rate, this within London, does not seem so affordable. I could be seen to increase the risk that the legacy will be high cost, aspirational developments, out of the reach of local residents. This does not sit well with the idea that the urban regeneration of Statford will be of most benefit to those who already live there.

Conclusion

The city within a city, built in an inorganic top down way lacks the roots are needed to support most urban developments. Social relations produce their own space and in this case the social relations do not exist. The olympic park was built to satisfy short term needs.When the cameras have gone, the division of the site begins, what was once a coherent whole, the London we wished to show the world, risks becoming an unstable relic, a NEW RUIN.

That is not to say that something cannot be made out of an Olympic Site, even in the case of Greece, what has been left behind is an improved infrastructure, most strikingly transport, but it is hard not to question how much longer this will be the case if the financial backing is not there to support it.

The Olympic site, will continue to be a contentious issue. Such a huge outlay of money in such a small period of time will always attract criticism and the host city is inviting the scrutiny of the world. In creating a city within a city, sparking new developments and aiding the regeneration of a previously neglected area, there is a lot to be gained.

We must be mindful, however of the instability of the development and the potential that this shiny example of all that great about London will become a modern relic. Without careful investment it its future, the mise en abyme of the olympic site will be nothing more than an empty symbol of London's olympic ambitions.

A map says to you, "Read me carefully, follow me closely, doubt me not." It says, "I am the earth in the palm of your hand. Without me, you are alone and lost." And indeed you are. Were all the maps in this world destroyed and vanished under the direction of some malevolent hand, each man would be blind again, each city be made a stranger to the next, each landmark become a meaningless signpost pointing to nothing.

- J. B. Harley

UTOPIA REVISTED.

Film of the Heygate Estate in Elephant and Castle, by Dan Tassell.

A victim of Southwark Council's doomed 'regeneration' project.

Utopia Revisited from Dan Tassell on Vimeo.

DREAMLAND.

"The politics of economic reform was based on a fabrication. It depended on the idea that the economy existed as a space that could be surveyed and mapped... It imagined the economy as a territory whose boundaries could be drawn and whose separate elements could be located, transcribed, enumerated , and reorganised."

- Timothy Mitchell

SATURDAY.

Experimenting with Harmony, an online drawing tool by designer Ricardo Cabello.