In search of manifesto declarations it is perhaps necessary to refer to the ones that are not too trustworthy. The architect of architects is flying over Lagos when he catches sight of the smouldering wasteland. Observation is completed by a vision:
»The dump is free from constraints, from selection, from the tyranny of style.«
The romanticizing of Koolhaas sounds like a combined continuation of the two great traditions – both opposite and complementary.
The first one is the pastoral, bucolic, Arcadian ideal, back-to-nature.
The second one is the cult of ruins, veneration of the remains of the monumental past.
Distrust in these traditions is also part of tradition. Another housemeister, Arnold Hauser, writes in Social History of Art:
»Is it conceivable that /…/ anyone has ever really wanted to lead the simple, modest life of shepherds and peasants? No, the shepherd’s life in poetry has always been an ideal in which the negative features, the tearing of oneself way from the great world and the disregarding of its customs, have been the decisive elements. It was a kind of sport to imagine oneself in a situation which held the promise of liberation from the fetters of civilization whilst retaining its advantages.«
Is it conceivable that anyone has ever really wanted to live, better, to reside among trash, the remains of nonclassical, as a scavenger, as trash?
Is this questioning not too attached to the given state called residential culture?
Is it possible to denaturalize its comfort/leisure? Not necessarily in the name of life.
Sometimes one must utter the too obvious in order to make it less obvious: in the conditions of production & consumption which make a commodity out of every participant it is inevitable that this commodity sooner or later – even if in the meantime it attains the level of a brand – becomes trash.
It is precisely in this “fall” that the potential lies. Bergson through Deleuze: that which has ceased to be useful simply begins to be.
I am not an outcast, I don’t want any merits.
I am refuse, waste.
I am trash.
You are trash.
We are Smetnjak.
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Tradicionalna je tudi skepsa do teh tradicij. V Socialni zgodovini umetnosti in literature neki drugi hišar, Arnold Hauser, zapiše:
»Ali si moremo predstavljati, da bi si /…/ kdorkoli zares želel živeti preprosto in skromno kakor pastirji in kmetje? Ne, pastirsko življenje je bilo v poeziji vselej le ideal, v katerem so bile odločilne prvine negirajočega značaja – trganje iz vezi velikega sveta, zaničevanja njegovih običajev. Kot v kaki igri so se ljudje prestavljali v stanje, od katerega so si obetali rešitev iz vezi civilizacije, ob čemer naj bi jim bile ohranjene njene ugodnosti.«
Ali si moremo predstavljati, da bi si kdorkoli zares želel živeti, še bolje, bivati na smetišču, med ruševinami neklasičnega, kot mrhovinar, kot smet?
Mar ravno takšno spraševanje ni prevezano na danost, imenovano kultura bivanja?
Je nje udobje/lagodje mogoče denaturalizirati? Ni nujno, da v imenu življenja.
Včasih je preočitnost treba izreči, da postane manj očitna: v razmerah produkcije & konsumpcije, ki iz slehernega udeleženca delajo blago, je neizogibno, da to blago – četudi ga vmes ponese do ravni branda – prej ali slej postane smet.
Ravno v tem “padcu” je potencial. Rečeno z Bergsonom: kar preneha biti koristno, čisto preprosto začne biti.
Nisem odpadnik, ne želim si zaslug.
Sem odpadek.
Sem smet.
Si smet.
Smo Smetnjak.
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