User:Luisa Moura/research/abstract tutorial

MADNESS | DISCIPLINE “Discipline and Punish”, “Madness and Civilization” and “Prince” (Machiavelli): interest in the control that individuals exert upon each other and how classification, judgment and manipulation come to being. FOOD | CITIES | CIVILIZATION “Hungry City” (…) desire of detachment that the individual has from his basic needs. The urge to get rid of dirt, death, finitude, difficulty: how much are we willing to pay to keep all that away from our minds? Relationship between urban shape, infrastructure and control

POVERTY | EXPLOITATION | IMAGE “Enjoy Poverty” Renzo Martens “Tower David” photographs Ivan Baan Favelas, occupied buildings, organic settlements of the most various kinds, appear to exert a tremendous attraction to architects, urban planners, photographers, artists and public in general Artists might be looking for the depth of vulnerability, present in people that don’t have much choice, cannot protect their privacy and are willing to do a lot just to have a bit of attention and money. Does misery fascinates? Everything that we fear framed by art and sold to us, gives us a feeling of cleanliness and detachment from our obscure organism.

VOYEURISM In the specific case of architecture and urban planning, all the studies being done on “organic settlements”, where are they heading to? What is actually being done with it? How much from it is commercial, voyeuristic value? In a contemporary practice lead by real estate agents, great investors and housing corporations, what is this humanistic and academic knowledge used for? These settlements grow out of a deep governmental, sociological and economical void and get no support from any field of expertise while being built. Doesn’t it feel unethical to go over it later to dissect its smart, spontaneous growth? Intellectual and commercial value is being assigned to a field of research that raises sensitive social and economical issues, are those being addressed properly?

EMPATHY Are these communities less marginalized since they became present on extensive studies, publications, workshops, art pieces? Is empathy being created between the normalized society and the segregated communities?

INTERVENTION Interventions: mechanisms for gentrification or cutting through for territorial control? (…) Eyal Weizman and the Hollow Land