1 - Synopsis
The title was taken from a book from Denis Hollier on the writings of Georges Bataille. For Bataille the edifice was an oppressive representation of a transcendent power that exerts control on its inhabitants. Within the context of this performance, we use the term Architecture as a metaphor for the “theological” structure of theatrical representation, in which the bodies of performers are inscribed by the desires of a master that transcends the object of his creation.
With this work we construct a parallel between the theories of The Situationist International (a movement composed by a group of activists that under the direction of Guy Debord, fought against the alienation in society created by what they called “the society of the spectacle”), and the despotic machinery of theatrical representation, that conflicts with the performers aspiration to attain unity with the work of art.
In Against Architecture two performers reveal the friction between their identity and the role they undertake. Against Architecture aims to question choreography ontology and the politics of its making.

2 - Context and Motivation (Constant Nieuwenhuys, Guy Debord and the BwO)
“Revolution is not showing life to people, but making them live.” - Guy Debord
In the spring of 2005 I choreographed for the Norwegian contemporary dance company Nye Carte Blanche a work titled Homo Ludens Nomadic Machines based on the work of the Dutch anti-modernist architect Constant Nieuwenhuys. Constant idealized the construction of a city (New Babylon) with the goal to develop a society centred on freedom, creativity and desire. A place inhabited by nomads who liberated from confines of labour, were free to be creative and given access to power to transform the atmosphere by constructing, shaping and adjusting the spaces of the city as they desired.
The habitants of this city to whom Constant named Homo Ludens, would take an active conscious posture with its surroundings; seeking to interfere, to change things creating a dynamic space; travelling at length and leaving traces of its ludic activities. For Homo Ludens space would be a toy. As an outcome New Babylon would become a dynamic labyrinth that unlike the classic labyrinth could not be designed by a single architect and would not have a single route leading to a fixed point. The only goal would be welcoming the unexpected.
In Homo Ludens Nomadic Machines I used the idea of the labyrinth shaped by desire without a single rout to a fixed goal, as toolbox for creating experiments to produce the choreography. As a logical follow up of this choreography, I wished to create a new work where I would draw inspiration from the theory of the dérive created by the avant-garde group Situationist International.
Formed in 1957 and disbanded in 1972 the Situationist International was composed by a group of activists (including Constant Nieuwenhuys), that under the direction of Guy Debord fought against the spectacular in culture, and that means against the alienation and passivity in society. The solution that they proposed for a society of spectacle would be to implement the active participation of its participants in all levels o social life, principally in culture. The term “situation” was partly originated from Jean Paul Satre existentialism. It was connected to his theories on freedom, choice and responsibility. Satre described “situation” as a sense of self-consciousness of existence within a particular setting and atmosphere. Guy Debord wished to bring this idea further. Situationism entailed not the passive acceptance of situations but the active creation of new situations. A Situationist report describes their activity as “the concrete construction of contemporary settings of life and their transformation in a higher, passionate nature”.
Situationists had a major interest in urbanism since they looked at it as action field for the production of new forms of intervention and fight against monotony and the lack of passion characteristic of modern quotidian life. The Situationists denied a static conception of the city, like the conversion of the cities in “museums” that transformed the cities in non-participative spectacles for tourists. The Situationists were also the first that attacked the modern movements in architecture and urbanism (such as the Cartesian rationality of Le Corbusier) because of their functionalistic proposals that compartmentalized and homogenised the way inhabitants of the cities lived.
In alternative to the static and modern conception the city the Situationists defended a unitary urbanism (unitary stands here against the separation of modern function), that was not a new doctrine of urbanism but a critic to urbanism itself, since the basic fundaments of urbanism were radically questioned. One of the activities promoted by the Situationists was the creation of dérives, which were long walks by foot, taxi or metro (sometimes taking to 3 months) were Situationists drifted without goal exploring the psychological ambiences that cities provoked. The experiences undergone through this walks would be registered in detail in psycogeographic maps, which were maps composed by “informal” drawings and photo collages.
This dérives were not completely left to chance, there was an element of planning combined with spontaneous action. Debord borrowed ideas of military tactics which made dérives be characterised by “calculated action determined by the absence focus”. The power of dérives laid in the combination of objective and subjective experiences. Situationists believed that these experiences would advance civilization by helping this one to rediscover the exoticness of reality.
One aspect that attracted to me to the Situationists theories of unitary urbanism was that an analogy could be traced between this one and the Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari interpretation of Antonin Artaud’s notion of a Body without Organs that in the past I have tried to apply as a tool for conceptualizing my work. For Deleuze and Guatttari the BwO is the point in which all the flows, that constitute the world, flow totally free, each into the others, so that no distinctions exist among them any longer. (By flows Deleuze and Guattari do not mean only air, blood, electrical energy, lava, water, oil, but as well ideas, people, culture, books, conversations, etc).  Although distinct, both theories, unitary urbanism and BwO, react to the compartmentalisations created by rationalism and utilitarian functionalism, and both propose a perceptual reconfiguration of the actualized reality.
The Situationists did not only attempt to eliminate the separation of functions provoked by post-war urbanism and bureaucracy, they also wished to destroy the separation between art and everyday life. For them regular art productions nurtured the society of spectacle, since the spectator turns into a passive consumer. Therefore, Situationists disapproved contemporary artists for “doing art as ones business”. In their perspective the ultimate work of art should be the creation of ones life, where philosophy, creativity and action would turn into revolutionary practice itself.
Both theories, the ones of the Situationists and of Deleuze and Guattari BwO have influenced the critic of representation that I have pursued in my past performances.
 
3 - Creative Process and Approach (Becoming Debord)
Aware of Guy Debord aversion to the economy of art and to the artifice of representation itself, I developed the performance material based on the Situationists tone and philosophy (which can be witnessed in their statements through actions, publications, and films produced to destabilise the conformity of commodity society). I have attempted to modulate the work envisaging how Debord would create an (anti)-spectacle that would undermine the “society of spectacle” while flirting with the representational limit of the performance itself.
By means of experiments in juxtaposition, disjunction and détournements (term created by the Situationists) of choreographic motifs, the material slowly gave expression to the performer’s psychology and public the production of new subjectivity. During the piece the spectator can witness performer’s desire for subversion of the power that exploits them, together with the desire to affirm fresh creative alternatives. 
 
4 - The Representation Against Architecture
The title of the piece was  taken from  a  book  from  Denis  Hollier with  the  title Against  Architecture - On the  Writings  of Georges  Bataille. For Bataille the edifice, especially the monumental one was an oppressive representation of a transcendent power that exerts control on its inhabitants.
With this work I aimed to construct a parallel between the theories of The Situationist International and the despotic machinery of theatrical representation, that conflicts with the performers aspiration to attain unity with the work of art (that is the condition in which the gap between thought and action would be inexistent). Therefore within the context we use the term architecture as a metaphor for the “theological” structure of theatrical performance, in which the bodies of performers are inscribed by the desires of a master that transcends the object of his creation.
In Against Architecture two female performers reveal the friction between their apprehension of self and their role as performers. They exhaust representation through the tools of representation, creating a theatrical edifice that dismantles itself. Making through this manner the audience experience the performers impossibility of partaking in an immanent creative project within predetermined choreography. The frustration that is evident on the interpreters it is partly “de-individualized” and does not corresponds solely to their personal experience. It is rather a concentration of a collective “lament”. The performers reveal their lost autonomy and their subjugated condition to the economy cycle (production- consumption) of the production of the work of art.
The red high heel shoes of one of the performers stand for hierarchical structure and status (the desire to territorialize and dominate). The orange work helmet and the drilling machine make a humorously connotation to the subjugated condition of the working class, the dog appears as an icon of conformity (the loss of a fundamental instinct in favour of a neutralizing domestication).
There is a point within the piece that the viewers can witness Guy Debord appearing as a clumsy phantom returning back from the dead in order to consume one of the performers in a post-mortem cannibalistic act. At this moment the viewers may wonder: Why the one that once fought against the transcendence and the alienated (the ghosting) is reintroduced back to the spectacular as his transcending double? With this scene I wish to point to the following parallel. Debord the one who once attacked commodity society, it is currently being merchandized in the market that exploits subversion as difference. The system that Debord once vehemently fought appropriates of his critic and introduces this into the normalized economy. His work is perpetuated but solely as spectacular transcendence. Remaining only a subversion that reinforces the transcendent and the representational.
The performance Against Architecture does not only aims to question transcendence as an expression of control, but as well the ontology of choreography, the politics of its creation and its position within the cultural context.

Bruno Listopad 2011 ©