FOUCAULT AND THE BODY OF THE CITY

The city is built on disciplinary techniques of past power structures that have used and defined the body.

In 2008, the world reaches an invisible but momentous milestone: For the first time in history, more
than half its population, 3.3 billion people, will be living in urban areas. By 2030, this is expected to
swell to almost 5 billion.

Many of the new urbanites will be poor. Their future, the future of cities in developing countries, the
future of humanity itself, all depend very much on decisions made now in preparation for this growth.

The next few decades will see an unprecedented scale of urban growth in the developing world. This
will be particularly notable in Africa and Asia where the urban population will double between 2000
and 2030: That is, the accumulated urban growth of these two regions during the whole span of
history will be duplicated in a single generation. By 2030, the towns and cities of the developing world
will make up 80 per cent of urban humanity.

Urbanizationthe increase in the urban share of total populationis Inevitable, but it can also be
positive. The current concentration of poverty, slum growth and social disruption in cities does paint a
threatening picture: Yet no country in the industrial age has ever achieved significant economic
growth without urbanization. Cities concentrate poverty, but they also represent the best hope of
escaping it.

I seek to physically engage with the ideas relating to the city, whether that means to cut up cardboard
up, glue posters to recite articles from the property section of the newspaper or do glass etchings.
My work completed in the MSA challenges the notion of construction and destruction.
In the first few weeks of commencing the MSA I discovered this quotation by Foucualt which
succinctly expresses my intent. Behind the disciplinary mechanisms can be read the haunting
1

United nations report 2007

memory of "contagions of the plague, of rebellion, crimes, vagabondage, desertions, people who
appear and disappear and live and die in disorder. 2 Although this is a somewhat gloomy text it is
highly evocative, as it suggests how cities and places contain history which is long forgotten and that
the present exists with humans experiencing suffering or at best adverse conditions which they have
to overcome or struggle against. Foucault continues to discuss how the public or masses act like a
plague, which live separate despite appearing united. What I find particularly attractive about this text
is the dense imagery that highlights the darker aspects of city life.

Kerry Sanders states Foucaults genealogy of the body as a cultural/historical/political object,

inscribed from the outside, and caught in the network of power knowledge relations over which the
subject has little control, makes the body an effect of systems of representation, discourses and
practices3. I am very interested in depicting the relationship the body has with power. The
architecture of the city contains spaces that contain, subjugate and suppress the occupant. The city is
a physical manifestation of power and class structures.

In my MVA project I will be examining the body and the city, urbanity and the relationship humans
have with the built environment. By using glass as my chosen medium, I can conceal and reveal
information and imagery can be distorted through the use of opacity and thickness.

I propose to make an installation of large walls constructed from layered glass which allow the viewer
to experience my work holistically. The scale of the work will relate to the viewers body but will
contain images that relate back to the city. Grids, stacking effects, line and shadow are all important
elements in my work. Chaos and lack of structural integrity will be brought to with glass. I plan to
build temporary housing using glass to express the unplanned aspects of non- western cities and
townships.

My proposed work is a continuation on the themes and ideas explored this year in the MSA program.
My work this year has been inspired by the favelas of Rio where a million plus people lived stacked
precariously on hillsides. These buildings lack infrastructure and amenity, are poorly built using sub
standard building materials, which are very unsafe. Yet these houses contain vibrant and active
communities. In complete physical contrast to Rio, I have been inspired by Kabiera, Kenya where a
million plus people live on a flat plan where as far as the eye can see, shacks made from wrought iron
have been erected. These people have no land rights, no electricity, running water. This city although
poor is an active town where people have moved to from rural environments hoping to find a better
life.
2

Foucault Michel, in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1987)

3 Sanders, Kerry,.PHD Thesis, (1997), pg 181

I believe that this is an important time in history where we must consider, create dialogues regarding
the future of humanity. Artists are the people who can make society think, experience and reexamine their believe systems. Phenomenology suggests that we all belong to the world and that we
are all linked. I seek to create walls or facades that connect the occupant with the world and engage
them physically with ideas that may activate them thinking about the state of cities both locally and
internationally. Merleau- Ponty suggests that it is only through a lived- experience that we learn. It is
only through our muscles having touched or felt things in the world that we can formulate ideas.
Phenomenology suggests that we are a sum of all that we have experienced. Therefore a greater
understanding and dialogue regarding the effect power structures have on the built environment and
the body is crucial.

In order to make my work I will require a studio space and access to the glass workshop. As part of
my research I plan to visit both Brazil during the semester breaks. I plan to speak to Dr Kerry
Sanders about her extensive knowledge and understanding of Foucault.

The work of Lucy Orta is of great interest to me. Food, shelter, clothing, the needs of the body are all
notions important to Orta. The body is a link with the government , she uses the body as a political
protest. Paul Virillio states that the body for Orta becomes a kind of witness to what threatens it.
The threat is unemployment, hunger & poverty.

Orta refers to her pieces as Body Architecture & speaks of a precarious society, where what we
take for granted can suddenly be taken from us. Shelter is not just protection for the occupant, but the
means to communicate, negotiate and bond as a community. She believes that at some time or
another we are all homeless, dislocated or cast adrift in a society that is so often too difficult to
connect with. Ortas work reveals the ephemeral nature of our being with respect to society ,and
suggests we are simply an occupant within society who can easily be removed or alienated at will.
Her work challenges notions of exclusion and combines architecture, body art, street theatre, fashion,
social therapy, formal poetry, ideological activism & social engagement.

She states that her Social sculptures should create debate with as wide as possible an audience for
a more democratic response. She tries to move debatable issues through artworks into very diverse
situations such as in open urban contexts. Her work tries to motivate and empower individuals to
think about common issues, and often bring very diverse people together. Her work facilitates
individuals to become united communities. Her work is very utopian and optimistic as Orta truly
believes that a multitude of individuals can make a difference.

According to Walter Benjamin the city tells a narrative of the history of catastrophe as it celebrates the
strong and forgets often hidden aspects of the destructiveness of the present. He believes that the
history of the victors must be interrupted by the memory of the nameless. Benjamin believes that if a
stranger shares an experience with someone less fortunate democracy and truth prevail. He thinks
that class and power are dividing factors in the city which must be named and understood.

It is crucial that we address the relationship of the body with the physical housing that contains us.
The Earth is currently undergoing great challenges and with 5 billion people soon to be living in urban
environments now is the time for this dialogue to occur.

Bibliography

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(Author), Colin Gordon (Author)
Security, Territory, Population (Lectures at the College De France) (Hardcover)
by Michel Foucault
Happenings and other acts, Edited by mariellen R. Sandford,Routledge , 1995, London & New York
Performance art, From Futurism to the Present, Roselee Goldberg, Thames and Hudson, 1988
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The Merleau- Ponty Aesthethics reader, philosophy and Painting. Edited and with an introduction by
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Press , 2004
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