September 10, 2007, 4:39 pm

What does it mean to have a seemingly endless stream of available virtual communities when we do not know our neighbours' names? I think I've somehow missed the excited surge of social networking, that is to say, I'm not on facebook, do not participate in last.fm, or digg, etc, etc. It's not for a lack of interest, but I think I feel anxious at the thought of losing another piece of my physical consciousness to the digital. It seems, perhaps, even stranger that I have such a real and emotional fear of something so cold, artificial, another simulacrum.

I envision moments of communities being reunited, though I realistically understand that the current lack of a sense of emergency is keeping us separated. The urgency of the social consciousness of the decades past seem unattainable, and yet ever-present in thinking about social action today. Reading about the redefinitions of cities are extraordinarily exciting, and yet often clearly illegal. I have to wonder the reasons behind whatever legalities that keep many proposed actions towards the cityscape, uh, inadvisable.

There is a difficulty in understanding how exactly to situate what is and is not off-limits. Is public infrastructure that only safe bet for public action? Reading a short excerpt from Bourriaud's Postproduction makes me think, suddenly, otherwise. "No public image should benefit from impunity, for whatever reason: a logo belongs to public space, since it exists in the streets and appears on objects we use." Do my public aesthetic needs not come before commercial interests? How do I combat the visual invasion of horrid architecture, bland bricks, unforgiving pavement and invasive scars of non-native plants on the remaining natural surroundings? Do I not reserve the right to affect change?

Of course, there are a multitude of opinions on the ugliness of "uniformity" of architecture, of clean straight sidewalks and begonias. This becomes the new catalyst for community action and involvement.

The time-shifting potential of spaces must also be harnessed. Taking back the night should be an activity for the entire community, enjoying and experiencing the night without the sense of fear in the air, opening spaces closed by darkness. Karen Moss suggests the same idea, keeping art spaces open throughout the night changes the space just by allowing it to be active during a time that it has never been active. So, I'm proposing a public performance, with flashlights, binoculars and lots of bodies.

Physical connections in real spaces is the only way to reactive the democratic potential of our communities.

By justin | 0 COMMENTS | POSTED IN: text

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