Les 7: Ecology
The text we are going to read is from Félix Guattari. This is his essay
‘the tree ecologies’ that is in relation to architecture.
Felix was a French psychoanalyst, political philosopher, semiotician,
social activist, and screenwriter. He co-founded schizoanalysis with
Gilles Deleuze, and ecosophy with Arne Næss, and is best known for
his literary and philosophical collaborations with Deleuze, most
notably Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus (1980), the
two volumes of their theoretical work Capitalism and Schizophrenia.
Guattari was born in Villeneuve-les-Sablons, a working-class suburb of northwest Paris, France.
His father was a factory manager and he was engaged in Trotskyist political activism as a
teenager, before studying and training under (and being analyzed by) the French psychoanalyst
Jacques Lacan in the early 1950s. Subsequently, he worked all his life at the experimental
psychiatric clinic of La Borde under the direction of Lacan's pupil, the psychiatrist Jean Oury.
Guattari followed Oury to La Borde in 1955, two years after it had been established. La Borde was
a venue for conversation among many students of philosophy, psychology, ethnology, and social
work.
One particularly novel orientation developed at La Borde consisted of the suspension of the
classical analyst/analysand pair in favour of an open confrontation in group therapy. In contrast to
the Freudian school's individualistic style of analysis, this practice studied the dynamics of several
subjects in complex interaction. It led Guattari into a broader philosophical exploration of, and
political engagement with, a vast array of intellectual and cultural domains (philosophy, ethnology,
linguistics, architecture, etc.).
Gilles Deleuze was a French philosopher who,
from the early 1950s until his death in 1995,
wrote on philosophy, literature, lm, and ne
art. His most popular works were the two
volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia:
Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus
(1980), both co-written with psychoanalyst
Félix Guattari. His metaphysical treatise
Di erence and Repetition (1968) is considered
by many scholars to be his magnum opus.
An important part of Deleuze's oeuvre is
devoted to the reading of other philosophers,
with particular in uence derived from Spinoza.
Although he once characterized himself as a
"pure metaphysician",his work has in uenced
a variety of disciplines across the humanities.
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, The Situationist International (SI) was an international
organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde
artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. It was prominent in
Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution in 1972.[1]
The intellectual foundations of the Situationist International
were derived primarily from libertarian Marxism and the avant-
garde art movements of the early 20th century, particularly
Dada and Surrealism.[1] Overall, situationist theory represented
an attempt to synthesize this diverse eld of theoretical
disciplines into a modern and comprehensive critique of
mid-20th century advanced capitalism.
This book brings together leading researchers on the SI to
provide a comprehensive critical analysis of the group’s key
concepts and contexts, from its relationship to earlier artistic
avant-gardes, romanticism, Hegelianism, the history of the
workers’ movement and May ’68 to the concepts and
practices of ‘spectacle’, ‘constructed situations’, ‘everyday life’
and ‘détournement’. The volume also considers historically
underexamined areas of the SI, including the situation of
women in the group and its opposition to colonialism and
racism.
With contributions from a broad range of thinkers including Anselm Jappe and Michael Löwy, this
account takes a fresh look at the complex workings of a group that has come to de ne radical
politics and culture in the post-war period.
In the collection presentation Discover the Modern, a room has been newly decorated with a
selection of the most beautiful models and paintings from Constant's New Babylon project. In
2015, the Kunstmuseum Den Haag, in close collaboration with Fondation Constant, achieved the
largest overview of New Babylon ever in Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina So a in Madrid.
This exhibition was on display in The Hague in the summer of 2016, and an extensive publication
was published.
The New Babylon collection of the Kunstmuseum The Hague is the largest collection in the world
and consists of 19 models, 72 drawings, 48 prints and 4 paintings. In addition, there is also a wide
selection of works by Constant from the Cobra period and the period after New Babylon in the
museum.
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