6 Questions for Boris Groys
- Kurt Mueller -
1. Of what relevance is the term / idea of utopia to the contemporary urban landscape? On what scale, if at all, does this concept inform design / planning today?
BORIS GROYS: The city, per se, possesses an intrinsically utopian dimension by virtue of being situated outside the natural order. The city is located in the ou-topos. City walls once delineated the place where a city was built, clearly designating its utopian—or rather—its ou-topian character. Indeed, the more utopian a city was signaled to be, the harder it was to reach and enter this city, be it the Tibetan city of Lhasa, the celestial city of Jerusalem or Shambhala in India.
Today’s cities are mostly accessible. One can even say that there is only one global city, with some parts of this city (for example, Berlin or Paris) only reachable from other parts (New York, São Paulo or Deli) by plane. Thus, the global city structure remains u-topian because communication between its individual parts takes place in air. That affects the cities immensely. Airports begin to be the new city centers—places where you can buy whatever you want, watch movies, etc. Churches are already there. The next steps are adding museums and universities.
2. How do you see the contemporary city dweller’s relationship to his /her environment? Should a distinction be drawn between the resident and the visitor / tourist?
Tourism monumentalizes a city. The gaze of the passing tourist transforms relentlessly fluid, incessantly changing urban life into a monumental image of eternity. The growing volume of tourism speeds up this process of monumentalization. We are now witnesses to a sheer explosion of eternity in our cities. Even when you go, for example, to New York and visit the South Bronx and see drug dealers shooting each other (or at least looking as if they are about to), such scenes are imbued with the dignified aura of monumentality. The first thing that strikes you is yes, that’s how things always have been here, and that’s how they will stay—all these colorful personalities, picturesque ruins and danger looming at every corner. Later, you might read in the papers that this district is due to be “gentrified,” and your reaction would be one of shock and sadness, similar to what you would feel upon hearing that the Kölner Dom or the Eiffel Tower were to be demolished to make way for a department store.
3. How can we define public space today? What role(s) does it play in the life of a city? Is it more apt to speak of social space or simply that which is between private spaces?
Between any urban constructions—private or public—is air. I find that the weather is the most important factor in contemporary urban life. Urban populations are collectively subjected to influence by weather in a much more radical way than rural populations because weather is fundamentally dysfunctional in the urban space: it is no more connected to agricultural needs. That is why weather has come to be the symbolic power that, in many ways, defines collective psychology—the collective sensibility of a city. Weather is usually also the most important topic of public conversation. It allows us experience a city as a totality, connects a city dweller to the heavens, to fate, to the universe.
In this sense, the introduction of air conditioning is the most radical manifestation of modern utopian atheism. To turn a city into a true utopian totality means to create a system of air conditioning for the whole city. In this case, the difference between private and public truly disappears.
4. Can design / urban planning perform a liberating, even revolutionary function, or do its prescriptions necessarily betray control and slide toward totalitarianism?
Totalitarian projects—the total restructuring of the cities—have, historically, never or only partially succeeded. Germania only remains in Albert Speer’s plans and models; from Stalin’s plans, only a few buildings in Moscow still stand, but they are impressive. By and large, we don’t like the politics of Ancient Egypt, but we admire the pyramids. It is a contradiction, but we have to live with it.
5. What is the relationship of art to urban public space (in whatever form it exists)? Is this a productive relationship? To what ends?
Every urban population believes in having its own collective psychology. One can ridicule this belief, but it has produced a lot of poetry, music and cinema that we are accustomed to valuing. The volume of poems about Parisian air or St. Petersburg’s weather is a sufficient justification for their architecture. However, if we don’t speak about art that is stimulated by a city but about art in the public space, then one should be very careful. The chance that any really good artwork can go though all possible channels that evaluate it is minimal. And, in general, art that is exhibited outside of arts institutions has to additionally identify itself as art. That makes art shown in the public space even more conservative than art shown within the framework of institutions.
6. What is the life of models /proposals /plans for projects that never get built /realized? Do these become art? Documentation of fictions? Narratives of the future?
Yes, they become art. Art is, in general, nothing but failed or dysfunctional design.