the book of

PROFANATION

Venice, 1 January 2009

Fragment from a conversation with Giorgio Agamben on profanation of the colonial order.

Alessandro Petti

As you know, with Sandi Hilal and Eyal Weizman we founded an architectural collective in Bethlehem with the aim of extending the analytical reach of our respective investigations about Israeli security and control devices, and engaging with the spatial realities of the conflict in a propositional manner.

Giorgio Agamben

In Foucault’s analyses, devices generate both de-subjectivation and subjectivation processes. Unfortunately, many amongst the studies on Foucault have focused only on his analyses of de- subjectivation devices and not adequately on those of subjectivation. The reality we live in can be conceived of as a force interaction between several assemblages of devices. Consequently, our continuous task is to pull out of these devices the possibility of use they have once seized.

AP

The project in which we are currently involved could be seen as an attempt to subvert the way control and security devices work. It’s about the reutilization and re-inhabitation of Israeli colonial architecture from the moment its connection with the political-military regime that keeps it alive ceases to exist. The idea is to establish a counter-laboratory of decolonization. We still insist on the use of this old-fashion term decolonization, aware of its problematic history, in order to designate a form of action that is part of a process that operates on many scales and keeps distance from the existing “solution oriented politics” of the “peace industry”. Decolonization allows us to designate a process aimed at the deactivation of control and security devices. Do you think that this notion of decolonization, in the sense we have articulated it, could be thought as a form of ‘profanation’?

GA

To profane is to trifle with the separation lines, to use them in a particular way. If to sacralize is to separate, to bring common things into a separate, sacred sphere, then its inverse is to profane, to restore the common use of these things. Reutilizing colonial architecture, therefore, does not only mean to dislocate power but to use its destructive potential to reverse its operation by subverting its uses. It is, accordingly, important to distinguish between secularization and profanation. Secularization leaves the power structure intact; it simply moves it from one sphere to another. Profanation, instead, manages to deactivate the power devices and restores the common use of the space that power had confiscated.

AP

This lets me think about some political players in the region who promote using Israeli colonies, when and if evacuated, as cities and suburbs for Palestinians. This, we believe, will continue the same order of use, reproducing the same spatial hierarchies. In the course of our investigations on the site of Psagot, a settlement adjacent to east Ramallah, we found a property map from 1954. It shows the division of the lands amongst owners before the Israeli occupation undid Palestinian land ownership. We superimposed the borders of these lots over the suburban structure of the existing colony.

AP

The division lines now cut through the built fabric of the colony, disturbing its logic and creating a new unexpected spatial setting. The results reconfigures and restructure both the old Palestinian order and the Israeli colonial order and ultimately establishes new relations between the built houses and the surface of the suburb and also, disturbs the divisions between public and private.

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u n-gro u n di ng

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Parcel 01

5 362 m2

459 m 2

3 101 m3

0,58 m 3/m 2

Parcel 02

4 080 m 2

711 m2

6 229 m 3

1,53 m3/m 2

Parcel 03

6 559 m 2

932 m 2

7 974 m 3

1,22 m3/m 2

Parcel 04

4 903 m 2

4 m 2

18 m3

/

Parcel 05

791 m2

/

/

/

Parcel 06

3 275 m2

710 m2

3 049 m 3

0,93 m 3/m 2

Parcel 07

1 182 m2

42 m 2

58 m 3

0,05 m 3/m 2

Parcel 08

6 743 m2

282 m2

1 652 m3

0,24 m 3/m 2

Parcel 09

9 495 m 2

578 m2

4 160 m 3

0,44 m 3/m 2

Parcel 10

27 332 m2

3 800 m 2

25 090 m 3

0,92 m 3/m 2

0,26

Parcel 11

4 023 m 2

1 042 m2

5 903 m 3

1,47 m3/m 2

Parcel 12

5 420 m 2

963 m 2

4 835 m3

0,89 m 3/m 2

Parcel 13

4 774 m 2

667 m2

5 236 m3

1,10 m3/m 2

Parcel 14

5 861 m2

988 m 2

7 650 m 3

1,31 m3/m 2

Parcel 15

2 916 m2

677 m2

4 038 m 3

1,38 m3/m 2

Parcel 16

15 677 m2

3 665 m 2

32 841 m3

2,09 m 3/m 2

Parcel 17

7 494 m 2

1 292 m2

9 012 m 3

1,20 m3/m 2

Parcel 18

4 096 m 2

448 m 2

3 273 m3

0,80 m 3/m 2

Parcel 19

2 828 m 2

907 m 2

6 287 m 3

2,22 m3/m 2

Parcel 20

2 960 m 2

538 m2

4 515 m3

1,53 m3/m 2

Parcel 21

13 174 m 2

2 777 m2

24 970 m 3

1,90 m 3/m 2

Parcel 22

12 448 m2

2 114 m2

15 166 m3

1,22 m3/m 2

Parcel 23

3 771 m2

333 m2

2 689 m 3

0 ,71 m3/m 2

Map of the cuts

0 20 100 200 m

Map

0 10 50 100 m

Abacus

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03-DE-parceling_RED.pdf 26-10-2008 1:40:41

AP

We did not propose a simple return to the original lines of separation. We reutilize the old lines of separation for a new purpose. Every allotment thus gains a particular status as it becomes an independent unit, a pure means.

AP

Yes, the result is that one system deactivates the other, undoing both orders of separation – both the suburban logic of a single family house on a small plot of land, and also the agrarian logic of a single house on a larger field. Each plot will preserve the old lines of separation, but at the same time it will be capable of being open to new uses.

GA

…and as a result each of these allotments can be used as a collective space…

GA

…this operation would merely be a mimicry if the forms of the new uses are not invented collectively…

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Inhabiting the cut

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Facade panels in microperforated plate

Windows’ frames

Supporting structureA lightweight modular facade uniforms the surfaces cut with the de-parcelization, making the resulting volumes usable.

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AP

If the first project has a more theoretical value acting as a laboratory, we are also involved in a real project in Oush Grab, an Israeli military base evacuated in 2006. We’re working in particular together with the Palestine Wildlife Association, which realized the importance of the site for bird migration.

AP

Every year, half a million birds fly from Eastern Europe to eastern Africa through Palestine. The first form of life that re-inhabited the site after the military left were huge flocks of birds. They used the half-wrecked buildings as points along their migration route towards warmer areas. This feat of nature represents a very simple example of a certain reuse of control devices.

AP

Our project simply tried to imagine a transformation of the site, based on these practices of reuse of military architecture. Consequently, we thought of a project aimed not only at finding a new use for the old military structure, but also at continuing its slow but progressive destruction, accelerating its disintegration, by piercing some walls of the buildings. We aim to return this site, but not to human use – we aim to return it to nature.

GA

These images seem intriguing to me, they suggest something more than a simple public reutilization of the spaces. They suggest forms of living yet to be devised. However, decolonization is an unstable moment, in the same way as the sphere of pure means is a transitory moment, after which normal life resumes… what was perceived as a liberation moment, as an opportunity, suddenly becomes ridiculous. Profane behaviours can consequently be separated and placed into a special sphere and thus ultimately be seized by that enormous device that is contemporary capitalism.

PROFANATION

Sandi Hilal, Alessandro Petti, Eyal Weizman

Directed by Alessandro Petti

Editor: Tashy Endres

Book Design: Diego Segatto (OpenQuadra)

English Translation: Gabriele Oropallo

Manual of Decolonization: Salottobuono

Landscape Design and Models: Situ Studio, NYC

Architecture: Mario Abruzzese, Jiries Boullata, Sara Pellegrini, Francesca Vargiu, Merlin Eayrs

Special Thanks to Giorgio Agamben

www.decolonizing.ps

printed and manifactured by Grafiche dell'Artiere, Bologna - Italy - www.graficartiere.com