Metropolis, Production and Common

RSA Annual Conference 2017| 5th June 2017 | Dublin

Metropolis, Production and Common Nuno Rodrigues - IGOT-UL, CEG Mário Vale - IGOT-UL, CEG Pedro Costa – DINÂMIA`CET-IUL

Metropolis, Production and Common

Structure 1 - Introduction and Objectives 2 – Theoretical Framework and Problematic 3 - Emerging phenomena in smart cities 4 - Conclusion

Nuno Rodrigues, Mário Vale, Pedro Costa

5/06/2017


1 - Introduction and Objectives General theme of the dissertation - forms of use in its relationship with urban space, economics and digital technologies. Theme and objectives of the presentation: • Workerist/post-autonomist theses concerning the Metropolis and the currently hegemonic forms of production in their relationship with the forms of digital mediation; • The hypothesis that the territory/urban space can be taken as a space of production and work on all its scale


5/06/2017


2.1 – Problematic: Metropolis Historical-political context from which these ideas emanate Workerist/post-autonomist theses on the Metropolis, Biopolitical Production and the Common “The metropolis, then, is entirely inserted in and integral to the cycle of biopolitical production: access to the reserve of the common embedded in it is the basis of production, and the results of production are in turn newly inscribed in the metropolis, reconstituting and transforming it. The metropolis is a factory for the production of the common. In contrast to large-scale industry, however, this cycle of biopolitical production is increasingly autonomous from capital, since its schemas of cooperation are generated in the productive process itself and any imposition of command poses an obstacle to productivity. Whereas the industrial factory generates profit, then, since its productivity depends on the schema of cooperation and the command of the capitalist, the metropolis primarily generates rent, which is the only means by which capital can capture the wealth created autonomously.” (Negri and Hardt, 2005: 250-251)


5/06/2017


2.2 – Problematic: Production at the intersection with Metropolis and Technology "Fragment on the Machines" and "General Intellect" - interpretation on the evolution of capitalism and technology “Nature builds no machines, no locomotives, railways, electric telegraphs, self-acting mules etc. These are products of human industry; natural material transformed into organs of the human will over nature, or of human participation in nature. They are organs of the human brain, created by the human hand; the power of knowledge, objectified. The development of fixed capital indicates to what degree general social knowledge has become a direct force of production, and to what degree, hence, the conditions of the process of social life itself have come under the control of the general intellect and been transformed in accordance with it. To what degree the powers of social production have been produced, not only in the form of knowledge, but also as immediate organs of social practice, of the real life process.” (Marx, 1858)

Relation between technology, production and common - incorporation and objectification of knowledge, of the "general intellect", as "fixed capital". The common knowledge, disseminated and produced in the metropolis and society as a whole, is thus captured as "rent", as "surplus value" (Marx, 1858; Hardt and Negri, 2005).


5/06/2017


2.2 – Problematic: Production at the intersection with Metropolis and Technology Immanence of production and conflict in the metropolis - however, and as already mentioned, this refers to a view of the metropolis as a "space of antagonism," where both forms of capture and resistance are present (Hardt and Negri, 2005). A vision that could extend historically and not only circumscribe a post-Fordist period - seeing either the factory as a point in relation to other spaces and social processes, as well as looking at the territory itself as a historical process and the product of various conflicts. “L’usine fordiste est impensable sans le processus de transformation de la ville et du territoire en machine sociale. La célèbre thèse du post-operaïsme selon laquelle la multitude est à la ville comme les ouvriers sont à l’usine, bien qu’utile et suggestive, risque toutefois de définir l’usine comme une structure rigide et immobile, elle risque de ne pas nous faire comprendre à quel point le territoire urbanisé est depuis toujours la véritable usine.” (Aureli, 2017)


5/06/2017


2.3 – Problematic: Governmentality and Production in the Metropolis Governmentality (Foucault, 1994; Joyce, 2003) – Concept that refers to the processes and arts of government in a historical perspective. An apparatus used to represent and interpret reality in such a way that it becomes "docile" for a purpose and governmental program (Joyce, 2003). A questioning possibly extended to current interventions, practices and epistemes related to smart cities. “(…) governmentality concerns “the ways in which those who would exercise rule have posed to themselves the question of the reasons, justifications, means and ends of rule, and the problems, goals or ambitions that should animate it” (Rose apud Joyce, 2003: 3).

Governmentality and Territory: Environmentality (Gabrys, 2014) - a concept that refers to the possibility that an intervention and the constitution of a certain type of urban environment - such as a smart city -, will later condition the conduits and the field of action of individuals, their practices and social relations. Something that refers to a possible instrumental view of the city/metropolis and its citizens.


5/06/2017


2.3 – Problematic: Governmentality and Production in the Metropolis Governmentality and Biopolitical Production - The connection between Foucault's proposals for Governmentality and Biopolitics and post-autonomist theses becomes clearer through the following reference of Paolo Virno to the "potentiality of life": “Capitalists are interested in the life of the worker, in the body of the worker, only for an indirect reason: this life, this body, are what contains the faculty, the potential, the dynamis. The living body becomes an object to be governed not for its intrinsic value, but because it is the substratum of what really matters: labor-power as the aggregate of the most diverse human faculties (the potential for speaking, for thinking, for remembering, for acting, etc.). Life lies at the center of politics when the prize to be won is immaterial (and in itself non-present) labor-power. For this reason, and this reason alone, it is legitimate to talk about "bio-politics." (…) One could say that while money is the universal representation of the value of exchange — or rather of the exchangeability itself of products — life, instead, takes the place of the productive potential, of the invisible dynamis.” (Virno, 2003: 83-84).

Main idea to retain - Metropolis as space of antagonism, at the same time an apparatus of capture and a space of resistance and experimentation (Agamben, 2006; Hardt and Negri, 2005; Tarí, 1999) Nuno Rodrigues, Mário Vale, Pedro Costa

5/06/2017


3 – Discussion: Emerging phenomena in smart cities Urban space as a "space of experimentation and work" in all its scale, integrating the sphere of the Common: • Open Innovation processes based on use and data sharing (Dublinked platform) • "Testbedding urbanism" and "urban living labs" while possible forms of environmentality and algorithmic governability (Silicon Docks) • Reconfiguration of spaces and times of work and non-work (highlighting the use of smartphone and the phenomenon of digital ubiquity in urban space)


5/06/2017


Conclusion The proposals and phenomena of smart cities that have been referenced constitute not so much the proof of the operative/post-autonomist theses in relation to the metropolis, but rather an update of them. Such transformations can be taken in a wider history concerning the "urbanization of the territory" (Foucault), which present points of contact with the theses referenced, as well as with the possibility of representing a change of the urban ontology itself. At the same time, one must consider the possibility that certain uses of technology may shape a medium for new forms of governmentality (economic and algorithmic). However, this does not constitute a total situation. Even by referring to the current situation in Dublin, a set of limitations could be stated in its implementation (the focus on an entrepreneurial vision and the lack of an articulated vision of smart city and of the multidimensionality of urban space; the need for an infrastructure of the territory; etc). Taking such a scenario into account, then, it would be necessary to question both the forms of governmentality and the apparatus of capture, as well as the possible "ethical-political uses" immanent to such phenomena and processes. Nuno Rodrigues, Mário Vale, Pedro Costa

5/06/2017


Bibliography Agamben, G. (2006). Metropolis, Generation-Online. Aureli, P. (2017). “Retour de l’usine : le territoire, l’architecture, les ouvriers et le capital.”. Période. Foucault, M. (1994). «Governmentality», in Power, edited by James D. Faubion, New Press. Gabrys, J. (2014). Programming environments: Environmentality and citizen sensing in the smart city. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 32(1), 30-48. Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2005). Multitude: War and democracy in the age of empire. Penguin. Joyce, P. (2003). The rule of freedom: liberalism and the modern city. Verso. Marx, K. (1858). Fragment on machines. The grundrisse, 690-712. Tarí, M. (1999). “20 Theses on the Subversion of the Metropolis.”. Generation Online. Virno, P. (2003). A Grammar of the Multitude. Los Angeles: Semiotext (e).


5/06/2017


Thank you!


5/06/2017