[rather watch it mute!]   via LiveLeak

^ Map of the spaces related to the 1% in central London, as part of Occupy London 12 May 2012 at St Paul’s 13:00. Read feature in the guardian

^ Jesús Gil y Gil in his jacuzzi 1994. Corruption star of the housing bubble in 1990s-2000s Spain. EFE

Trade under inflated values generates economic bubbles. Prices constantly fluctuate and thus become impossible to predict. Like soap bubbles, it is just a matter of time until they burst. A bubble contains the maximum volume within the minimal surface, and the tension of the surface is directly proportional to an ideal stability.

Spanish real estate bubble generated a trend of what could be named as Building without Content. This idea brings Deleuze’s cancerous Body without Organs – associated with true freedom, unstable virtual potentials of the self, endless reproduction of the same pattern -, together with Agamben’s Man without Content or self-annihilation. Analogously, Building without Content (BwC) can be understood either as an object that has had enough from its own content; or as the action of building objects without any content. They are mega- or infra-structures designed to be functional only until the day of the opening, but not rationally planned to last in time. BwC are born dead before birth. Their content consists of speculating with restrictions, rather than aiming to efficiency, functionality, utility or needs. The paradigm of government towards development legitimizes BwC within mediocre economies: create new jobs, reach European standards, become a global reference… As Aguilera Klink defines it, it is the contraposition between the instrumental (aiming a specific use) with the ceremonial (the paraphernalia).

A new web has been launched revealing corruption scandals of architect Santiago Calatrava, and accused, as The Guardian titled it yesterday, for ‘bleeding Valencia dry’. The name of the site created by left party Esquerra Unida is a beautifully dirty pun: calatrava-te-la-clava. In it, we can find a list of disastrous Buildings Without Content, as well as irregularities with his contracts and bills towards public administration budgets.

Here are some other relevant resources on Spanish space of corruption. In Germany, when a politician has plagiarized bits of his PhD, he is obliged to resign. In Spain, when politicians are charged for embezzlement of public funds, they are reelected and can govern again. [Check the updated list of politicians charged with corruption included in the lists of candidates for past election]

Indignados: 12May occupy the streets! #12m15m

^ corruptódromo

^ País Corrupto

^ ladrillo a ladrillo

^ calatravatelaclava

^ PPleaks

^ Museo de los Horrores Urbanísticos

^ Corruption complex surrounding King’s son-in-law Urdangarín. El País/Corrupción Urbanística

15M protest camp in Madrid: public space award special category 2012

A large-scale demonstration by citizens demanding improvements in the democratic system by means of a temporary occupation of one of Madrid’s most representative squares.

<On 15 May 2011, with the Arab Spring as background, and in the context of serious economic crisis and growing disrepute of public institutions, protest marches called by the “¡Democracia Real Ya!” movement, which was united by the slogan, “We are not commodities in the hands of politicians and bankers”, were organised in more than fifty Spanish cities. The demonstrations in Madrid, which ended up with disturbances and police charges, led to a small percentage of the demonstrators deciding spontaneously to continue the protest independently of the original organisers. Early in the morning they set up an improvised camp site in the Madrid square, known as Puerta del Sol.

[...]

The aim of the occupation of the Puerta de Sol was to demand thoroughgoing changes in the prevailing political and economic system. Corruption scandals, the rescue of banks with public money, cuts in social spending, the highest unemployment figures in the European Union, precariousness of employment, difficulties of access to decent housing, the reservations about the systems of parliamentary representation, Internet users’ rejection of intellectual property laws, and a long, heterogeneous list of other grievances which appeared during the protests ensured that the initially small camp would expand exponentially.

Withstanding intermittent disappearances, the occupation took over the whole square. It obeyed dynamic impulses which meant that it was constantly adapting to the demands of the moment. Sometimes it took on a the dense morphology of a kasbah, while on other occasions it swiftly folded in on itself to make space for big demonstrations.It consisted of ephemeral, lightweight constructions including tents from commercial brands suitable for spending the night in, and structures built on the spot with discarded materials that then acquired previously unsuspected functions. Ropes, cables, canvas, plastic and sticking tape were applied in ingenious constructions where logistical requirements, for example organising sanitary services, or organisational functions, found shelter. They were also used to put up, with surprising speed, large tents that protected the campers from sun and rain. The constructions also protected, effectively and decisively, spaces of public interest, for example thoroughfares, libraries and crèches. The tents of the occupation were secured with heavy objects, for example flagons full of water so as to avoid damaging the paving of the Puerta del Sol.

^ Oskar Schlemmer. Stelzenläufer 1927.

<Play becomes celebration; celebration becomes work; work becomes play. 

Our play should become work; our work, a celebration; and our celebration, play.

I regard this as the supreme excellence of the human tasks>

[‘our play, our party, our work’ was the title given by Johannes Itten to his lecture of 1919]

<Once established, the Bauhaus was held together as much by the social gatherings and festivities that masters and students organised collaboratively as by Gropius’s vision for a new art school. These celebrations served to promote contact between the school and the public, with attendance from locals and party-goers from further afield, making the school a lively cultural centre. Parties were also of central importance to Gropius’s educational vision and from the outset he stressed the significance of extracurricular entertainment with the ‘encouragement of friendly relations between masters and students outside of work’. Such festivities gave free rein to the masters and students to demonstrate their creativity and design invention, providing innumerable opportunities to conceive invitations, posters, costumes and decorations. An additional pedagogical aim of the festivities was the encouragement of play within teaching. Masters from Johannes Itten and Oskar Schlemmer to Paul Klee valued play as an essential ingredient of artistic creativity.

The Bauhaus parties moved from the imaginative improvisations and the rhythm of the seasons during Weimar, with the Lantern Festival in the spring and the Kite Festival in the autumn, to spectacular and monumental stage productions in Dessau. These large public parties were elaborately prepared around themes, such as the White Party (1926), in which everyone was instructed to appear in a costume ‘dotted, chequered and striped’, or The Beard Nose Heart Party arranged by the Bauhaus band. The highpoint of celebrations was in 1929 with the resplendent Metal Party. The school was given glittering look and guests came attired in metallic objects from tin foil to frying pans and danced to the sound of bells. They entered the building by sliding down a large chute that deposited them in the first of several rooms decorated with silver spherical balls and reflecting walls faced with white metal>

[source text: Barbican Art Gallery, 2012. Bauhaus: Art as Life. Koenig Books]

^ Bauhaus Stage Workshop 1928.

^ Oskar Schlemmer. Das Triadische Ballet 1924.

^ Oskar Schlemmer. Das Triadische Ballet 1924. 

^ Bauhaus Stage Workshop 1928.

^ Andor Weininger. Mechanical Stage Revue 1926.

^ Oskar Schlemmer. Das Triadische Ballet 1924. Installation at Barbican Exhibition.

^ Walter Gropius. Drawing by Stefan Sebök. Total theatre 1926-27.

^ Hinnerk Scheper. Colour-coded orientation plan for the Bauhaus Building 1926.

^ László Moholy-Nagy. Kinetic constructive system 1922-1928.

^ Puppets for the Oskar Schlemmer Stage Workshop 1923.

^ Oskar Schlemmer. Metal Party 1929.

^ Nonsense Soldier. Costume for the Metal Party 1929.

^ Attributed to Irene or Herbert Bayer. Costume for the Neue Sachlichkeit Party 1926.

images from the Bauhaus: Art as Life exhibition at Barbican centre, London. Co-curated by Catherine Ince and Lydia Yee. 3 May – 12 August 2012.