Structural Adjustment.
Photograph by Simon Thorogood.
The current renovation work on the Jubilee Column in Stuttgart has transformed it from historical memorial to something more abstracted and intriguing. No longer a conventional public monument, the dressed structure now presents itself as a catechism, inviting us to question the nature and purpose of public buildings, spaces and interventions. It stands as a reminder that, like the column itself, our take on the world should be perpetually subject to renovation and adjustment.
The very first time I visited Stuttgart, some 16 years or so ago, I remember it being a miserable day, with a bleached out white sky. I remember, too, being captivated by the Jubiläumssäule, or Jubilee Column, in the city’s Schlossplatz. It was undergoing extensive renovation works and was covered in a steely web of scaffolding poles, walkways and ladders.
The memorial, about 35 metres in height, was built between 1841-1846 to commemorate the 60th birthday of King Wilhelm I of Württemberg. The column has four reliefs to its base depicting historical scenes, flanked by four allegorical figures, and with two attendant water fountains. The pillar is crowned with a figurative sculpture of Concordia, the Roman Goddess of virtue, loyalty, peace, justice, honour and happiness.
As it so happened, I was in Stuttgart a week or so ago on much the same type of day as before – a cold, bleak day with the same bleached out sky. Strangely enough the Jubilee Column was undergoing exactly the same renovations as before, with the same imposing scaffolding framework in place. Once again, the column’s details, reliefs and figurines could only be partially determined through the metallic mesh, which assumed differing compositions and configurations as one wandered around it.
It struck me that my engagement with the Jubilee Column has always been a peculiar one, where I have only really regarded it during episodes of restoration. For me, it has remained a strange mediation – not quite monument, not quite renovation, not quite architecture, not quite community project, not quite sculpture, not quite art; yet all of these things at the same time.
As a delusion, fabrication or chimera even, a ‘thing’ composed of different parts and understandings, the monument encapsulates all that I subscribe to in the arts. It conveys a particular alchemy conjured up through contradiction and unfinishedness; a thing having no clear starting or end point. But, more than just a compelling physical structure, its real potency is as conceptual trigger or motivating idea that can take us ‘elsewhere.’
If the monument is therefore hypothetical, of course it is not alone in this operation. Many other buildings in the city might function similarly, where they are not necessarily just examples of civic architecture – a town hall, a shopping centre, or a train station, for example.
So, the Domkirche St. Eberhard in Königstraße, is no less a concept than the distended Jubilee Column. Not only is it a refined modernist Catholic church, re-built in 1955 for local parishioners to attend mass again following its destruction by bombing in WW2, it also serves as a conduit for spiritual and philosophical energy and interpretation. The church provides physical shelter for its congregation but it also affords conceptual harborage for collective belief, faith, and matters of the mind. Its role, then, is to administer imaginary affordances – arguably the principal function of any religious site or place of worship, or any art gallery, theatre, cinema, or library.
And, as an aside, if the responsibility of religious architecture (or perhaps all architecture) is to make visible the invisible, is its task also to render the visible invisible?
Sometimes however, perhaps due to conditions of extended familiarity, we can fail to acknowledge a building, development or form as something more than architectural exercise, however modest, imposing, unsightly or visually impressive it may be. We can forget that a building, especially where this might be implied by a lesser-seen interior, can purposefully prevail as figment, premise, or hypothesis.
And that is why the ‘vested’ Jubilee Column resonated with me so much. On the two separate occasions I experienced it, I found the monument to be neither quite one thing nor another. But, through its eccentricity it became something far more stimulating, something far more expedient, and something far more useful.
I am reminded, then, how important exercising one’s imagination is as a medium of invention and discovery. As we might agree upon, a creative procedure is very often not about fully understanding something, but about a strategic encounter that is able to reveal or ‘renovate’ something within us. Engaging Martin Heidegger’s notion of ‘stimmung,’ or attunement, the aggrandized Jubilee Column can immediately speak of many other things in the world - the appalling and ongoing conflict in Ukraine, for instance.
But for me, the monument is distinguished as negotiator of an uncertain relationship between an uncertain structure and an uncertain observer facing an uncertain future.
The Wild Ones.
Photos by Simon Thorogood.
The German Swabian-Alemannic Fastnacht or Fasnet carnival, as featured in a previous post, culminates in the Fasching or ‘eve of Lent’ festival.
With pagan folk traditions that hark back to Medieval times, Fasching serves as a last coming together of local Fastnacht communities before Lent – the 40 day stretch of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, which represents an important religious observance in the German liturgical calendar. The original imperative for the carnival, the processions, costumes and masks was a concerted, communal effort to drive out evil spirits during the dark days of winter. For Catholic towns and communities, Fastnacht is a prominent public holiday period.
Then, as now, the carnival is conducted with great zeal, becoming the focal point of a particular host village or district every weekend throughout the Fastnacht season. Although, street processions are highly visual spectacles and make for great family entertainment, there can be an undercurrent of menace or impropriety that permeates proceedings.
Here, there are clues within the name. Some believe ‘Fasching’ is derived from the German word Fastenschank, meaning the last serving of alcoholic beverages before Lent. Others, maintain the name stems from an old word fasen, meaning to be foolish, wild, or silly. The word, fasnach, closely approximated to fastnacht, roughly translates as “night of being foolish.”
In fact, all three interpretations are legitimate. But, the imminent abstinence of drink and fasting prompts many devotees to overindulge whilst they have license to, and hence become foolish, wild, or silly. Once dressed up, fuelled by alcohol often consumed quickly, and roused by cumulative ardour, crowds readily assume the rubric of ‘wilde leute’ or wild people.
Interestingly, the final Fasching Carnival parade in mid-February can register quite different energy levels from festivities at the very start of Fastnacht. Whilst Fasching itself can evidence increased conspicuous indulgence on one hand, it can reveal a noticeable decrease in carnival vitality on the other, as preceding weekends of merrymaking (since Epiphany of January 6th) takes its physical and psychological toll.
But, to reprise the concluding point in my previous post on this subject, Fastnacht arguably exemplifies the very best attributes of creative culture. Essentially, it is a framework is which to exercise ‘difference.’ It represents a unique opportunity to connect with others, to dress up, to assume alternative personas, to be misplaced, to challenge commonly-held assumptions, to ask complicated questions of oneself and society, and to test out being someone, something, and somewhere else.
Fastnacht can remind us how crucial ‘opting out’ is for us, in some form or shape, and for some period or other. It also tells us how critical the arts and humanities are as both instrument and portal to enhanced human existences, storytelling, and the crafting of surrogate worlds and mindsets.
And, in much the same way that UNESCO awarded the Basel Fastnacht ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage’ status, singular places, practices and mechanisms of ‘otherness’ should be celebrated and nurtured as mediums for divergence and variance.
Such places have traditionally included enlightened universities, art schools, design colleges, theatre companies, or local community groups, to give just a few examples. However, regrettably these are the very places that appear at risk of being devalued by a world seemingly focusing on standards of acquisition and certainty over rituals of emprise and conjecture. Surely, such operation is foolish and silly.
Free Radicals.
Photo by Simon Thorogood.
"Power doesn’t always corrupt. Power can cleanse. What I believe is always true about power is that power always reveals.”
– Robert Caro
A great many minds throughout history have written eloquently about the corrupting nature of power. Presently, on the world stage we witness a complex screenplay of power being rehearsed and violently acted out. Reflecting on this, we may ask ourselves what this fatigued script says about us, how we can renounce systems of domination elsewhere, and contemplate what we might find when they are gone?
Thievery Corporation.
One of the many things that the on going crisis in Ukraine cautions, is the importance of collectively making a stand and denouncing perceived wrongdoing.
What we are also learning is that this circumspection should not be something we simply ‘put back in the box,’ once an event, scenario or moment has passed. Rather, we will need to cultivate perpetual, evolving, and maturing conditions of preparedness and vigilance, and across a breadth of issues and phenomena, whether large or small.
Through extensive media reports about the situation in Ukraine, and a range of ways to explain and contextualise this, many of us have been abruptly introduced to a number of ‘cracy’ suffixes, employed to describe particular types of administrational structure.
‘Cracy,’ an affix from the Greek word kratos, meaning strength or power, typically describes a form of government.
In misstating grounds to wage war, the Kremlin has been widely described as an ‘autocracy,’ where one person or small group has uncontrolled or unlimited authority over others. This autocracy has been said to have practiced ‘kleptocracy,’ in which a government strategically utilises political power to peculate the wealth, land and assets of a people.
Kleptocracy can then be linked to ‘thievocracy,’ or rule by thievery, often associated with an absence of accurate public announcement explaining any misappropriation. In turn, thievocracy feeds into ‘plutocracy,’ described as a society that is controlled by a few leaders or luminaries of great wealth. The extreme of plutocracy is ‘monocracy,’ in which a government of a system or state is controlled by one single person.
Following from this, we are led to ‘kraterocracy,’ or governing bodies ruled by those who seize power through force, political cunning and social manoeuvring. Similar in nature to kraterocracy are ‘stratocracies,’ or the rule of a system of governance composed of military government, in which the state and the military are traditionally or constitutionally the same.
Separate, but nonetheless implicated in the previous categories may be found ‘oligarchy’ – a power structure also held by a small group. However, oligarchy differs from other ‘cracies’ at play here as an oligarch can be characterised as someone who not only has great power and wealth, sometimes obtained through questionable means, but who courts fame, status, notoriety, prestige, patronage, corporate dominance, and political association.
These very same qualities, however, may uncomfortably connect us with governing structures considered to be on the ‘right side of the fence,’ and within the complex realm of ‘democracy.’
The ‘demo’ prefix, from the Greek word dēmos, or ‘people,’ describes a form of government in which citizens have authority to decide legislation, known as direct democracy, or otherwise can choose to elect governing officials to do this, known as representative democracy. These very same people are perpetually engaged through the varied instruments and prisms of capitalism, that society should aspire towards conditions of acquisition, fame, status, notoriety, prestige, patronage, corporate dominance, and political association.
For some, democracy, or otherwise ‘electocracy,’ is also built upon certain constructs of religious ideals. Yet, religions can connect us to ‘theocracy,’ or systems of governing in which priests or religious elders rule in the name of a particular god or deity.
Such perception, however, might take us back over the other side of the fence again, and back to plutocracy. It may be argued that certain religions and ideologies have been implicated, to some extent and at some point in their history, with particular episodes of misconduct or misappropriation, and often in the service of a god or doctrine.
The fundamentals of democracy, underscored by the epitome of the power of the people, have oftentimes sought to supplant outmoded social structures, conspicuous as not working for the good of all. Aristocracy may be one such example. Derived from the Greek work aristokratíā, meaning 'rule of the best,' aristocracy has often closely been associated with monarchy, and characterised as a form of governance that places authority in the hands of a small, privileged ruling elite, or aristocrats.
Make The Best Of.
If we adapt aristocracy’s maxim of ‘the rule of the best,’ but where we determine that it is categorically not about the rule of the few, or the rule of those with power, or elites, or those who believe they are connected to that greater or higher, then we might re-write this as the ‘distinguished conduct of the very best of us all.’
This is a doctrine that many universities and places of learning have traditionally upheld, and resonated through their studentship and teaching staff to a wider world. But, it is this particular ‘distinguished conduct of the very best of us all’ that can advocate concepts of ‘outernationalism’ for us, or the interconnected and harmonious amelioration of the entire world above nationalistic or localised interests.
In this admittedly idealist picture, there must be empathy, support, and assistance available to those who require it, whether on a large or small scale. But, there must be real and shared appetite and ambition for visionary, egalitarian, deferential and open futures. Sadly, this is not always forthcoming in a world still driven, as we witness now, by mindsets, politics, economics, and campaigns of acquisition.
Currently, it is the aggressor nation that may be exemplar of a stark depiction of a world without openness, altruism, respect or wellbeing at its heart. On a present trajectory, this assailant state may cement an external perception as an autocracy – a place without complete freedoms; with a declining population; with a failing economy; with a marked exodus of world-class scientific and cultural minds; with over investment in fossil fuel resources as the rest of the world de-carbonises, (we hope); haunted by elderly ideals of power and domain; and with evaporating civic optimism and trust.
But most significantly, Russia may be severely incapacitated through a defective mindset, distilled by the very few for the consumption of the many. So, whilst seeking to re-capture something ‘greater’ from a fictionalised past that never really was, we are reminded once again how history has agency to misinform a present.
Such blanketed lack of vision for a propitious future may, precariously, cultivate a populace of ‘intra-nationals’ for Russia – citizens who effectively ‘hunker down,’ are obedient yet unsure how to look forwards and outwards without instruction. Those who may gaze too longingly at distant or exotic shores run the risk of state censure. And so history repeats itself again.
This is certainly not what new generations of world citizens want or need, representing as they do the architects of progress and prosperity for the construction of all our connected tomorrows.
But we might remember, that this model of constraint and contraction may be variously found on a micro and macro level elsewhere in the world, and often in our day-to-day lives. Civic or cultural curtailment, cuts to social services, to arts and humanities universities for example, may analogously lead to degrading societal landscapes of many kinds.
Curtailment is often a by-product of efficiency or cost-cutting agendas and the increased deferment of risk. But it can be further argued that efficiency often has very little to do with innovation, and that programmes of contraction can lead to declines in character, quality and morale. Subsequently, citizens, consumers and end users may be compelled to find outlet, achievement and fulfilment differently and elsewhere.
Schools Of Thought.
Throughout any operation or period of curtailment, it is essential that effective channels of communications be maintained with perceived ‘reductionists,’ detractors or adversaries, so as to mutually mediate ‘difference.’
These channels, and the types of language used therein, are vital to either persuade or frame compromise through benevolence rather than castigation or assault. Where these conduits may be shut down or compromised by one side, there must always be a contingency for new portals to be imaginatively opened and maintained.
So, not only are avenues of communication crucial, but they are also eminently creative in nature, and should be endorsed as such. Indeed, forms of creative arbitration might yet form part of art & design curriculum in due course. Dedicated personnel or ‘creative emissaries’ will also be required to conduct this task, to establish new mutual literacy and language, and to determine what the future role of their institution, connected with others, could really be.
As agents or progenitors of a sort of ‘offshore thinking,’ these creative emissaries may establish intriguing new synergies for a range of institutions and organisations, engaging with less regulation and less prescription of ideas, and having license to push the distinct attributes of an organisation to logical extremes.
Akin to a large-piece jigsaw puzzle, institutions, departments, or teams all become valuable components within a complex and interconnected creative entity. Obedience is, then, to a distributed disturbance of ideas rather than universal learning conformity.
Mix Ups.
“If we might understand evolving realms of creativity as implicating advanced insight, and awareness tied to expertise, in digital terrains for instance, we may correspondingly experience ‘outcomes’ as amalgamations of theory, analysis, process, responsibility, activism, and storytelling.”
Places of learning must never be allowed to become just perfunctory places of convenient instruction for convenient adoption of skills by end users or industry. Aside all the other great things they do, learning institutions might need to work harder at becoming sophisticated, open, and networked ‘uncertainty modulators.’
It is the nurturing of capricious curiosity, vision, passion and intensity in new generations that will furnish them with the fortitude to challenge what they see as wrongdoing in the world – whether the illegal invasions of countries, illegal felling of rainforests, human rights abuses, opaque offshore accounting practices, unsustainable extraction of fossil fuels, reduction of foreign aid, or cuts to education, the arts, or health services. When, and where, this nurturing might no longer be supported, then these new generations may not have a place to start from, narratives go unquestioned, conditions are ripe for nostalgia and in due course, as we currently see, this can turn fatefully sour.
If we might understand evolving realms of creativity as implicating advanced insight and awareness tied to expertise, in digital terrains for instance, we may correspondingly experience ‘outcomes’ as amalgamations of theory, analysis, process, responsibility, activism, and storytelling. Here, a breadth of creative disciplines might vivify as mediums of philosophical ‘connected affordances’ rather than as principally physical manifestations, products, or spaces.
Resulting synergies might progressively galvanise artists, designers or creatives of whatever persuasion, to re-appraise their discipline as a different kind of social and cultural activity or experiment. Such operation, then, may demand different types of interdisciplinary learning spaces, tools, personnel, methodologies, stakeholders, evaluators, audiences, and epistemology.
And, if we do not constantly exercise alertness, developing conditions of indifference can inadvertently lead to an individual or collective surrendering of control, and to incipient forms of autocracy. We might also acknowledge that states of affiliation, familiarity and ‘normalization’ can, in some cases, represent the very first steps towards totalitarianism.
But above all, it may be where principal decision-making in large institutions are made by the few through a ‘rule of the best’ that may prove grounds for review.
Thinking Out Loud.
Accordingly, there may be cause for direction and stewardship to be determined through other means of administration, and through another series of ‘cracy’ suffixes.
We might consider a vibrant blend of ‘ergatocracy,’ the rule of the proletariat, or those on the shop or classroom floor; ‘geniocracy,’ a system of governance in which creativity, innovation, intelligence and wisdom are the required attributes for leadership; ‘meritocracy,’ a system of governance where groups are selected on the basis of specialist knowledge and recognised contribution to society; and ‘noocracy,’ a system of governance in which decision making is made by philosophers or creative logicians.
Such ‘outernational mixes’ might constitute the qualities of highly dynamic, informed, egalitarian and empathetic teams of academic and commercial agitators. This may further collective action on the big perceived differences and challenges of our time, but also focus on the big commonalities of our time, that no single organisation or nation may address singularly.
By behaving so, we may become (co)authors or (co)editors of new expressions of dissatisfaction and activism that may lead to new forms of consensus and harmony. In turn, this can establish original and inclusive forms of cumulative insight, cooperation, and agency for us all in a world that often struggles with a sense of ‘all.’
Removal Services.
It is important to continually question the given structure of any creative discipline. The conventions of any popular expression, whether its cultural significant, physical form, aesthetic value, aural attributes, or commercial operation, etc., are routinely at risk of losing relevance, or where they feel like they have outlived their time.
Periodically, enthusiasm and re-appraisal is reclaimed through the work of a particular artist, designer, collaboration, visual or conceptual exercise, that re-animates purpose and dialogue for a discipline. But, we need to consistently consider how to find new ways of talking about the same thing, where implication, or value, or function is still there, just disguised, unfamiliar, or unrecognisable.
So, how much can we remove from the framework or context of something whilst still, just about, being able to identify what it is, and how can we learn to leave out what no-one else has thought of leaving out before?
Question Time.
Within UK art and design institutions, there is an increasing disquisition, largely passed on by central government, to further comparative and evidence-based exercises and models.
Such assessment may be useful in establishing correlative currency and value, and it may help formulate evaluative tools. However, these evaluative systems are seldom objective, and may be subject to convenient and strategic institutional manipulation. Significantly, these systems also rely on us trusting those who formulate and apply contextual frameworks to authenticate knowledge, where such authors and frameworks may not always recognise or capture inherent value.
Sometimes, it’s okay not to comprehensively know things, and sometimes it’s okay to ‘feel’ things, where value and knowledge is perceptive. Sometimes the question is good enough, and does not actually require a complete or finished answer.
So, if it is “the question” that is the essential driver of innovation, and that yet to come, it is crucial that we practice questioning within dedicated and adaptable ‘rehearsal’ spaces, where we learn from the question itself, however silly or meaningful this may be.
The Best Dressed Category.
In considering the cultural stature of a designer, label, collection or particular item of clothing, we may start by asking who or what is the authority defining this status.
If we re-configure how clothing has been valued or ‘measured,’ and by whom, we may apply a different understanding of what clothing is and what the new ‘expertise’ may be.