urban explorer

Below is a quote from Foucault’s Sleep, Models for a Proposal, a free publication by Iconoclast publications that i picked up whilst at Steven Holl’s Kiasma Museum in Helsinki 2006.  The book is a homage to Foucault, the authors explore a “hypothesis concerning the visible: could the constant presence in media (blogs, Reality-TV etc.) become a new paradigm for privacy?”

Along with the text are a series of intricate drawings, maps and diagrams that illustrate architectural proposals and conceptual projects based Foucault’s  writings on power, knowledge, surveillance, territories and societies of control. The book is  beautifully presented and illustrated. A wonderful reference and source for inspiration, especially working on the seafront projects i seem to find myself drawn to. The quote below leads on from a discussion on Deleuze’s fascination with islands and a text on Michael Tournier’s novel Friday. You can download a pdf version of the full publication here.

“In the Archipelago, the islands don’t define the milieu but the space in between: the routes, the streams, the currents and counter currents, whirlpools and calms. This is the space of countless lines of lights intersecting, converging, creating temporary assemblages. This is the multitude.

We are not islands, but the surrounding ocean. Islands are homogenic, stratified and sedimented, the sea heterogenic, smooth and in constant change. The islands are chartered, but the ocean is only modelled or approached according to the law of averages or pattern recognition.

Sometimes people take refuge on islands. Or at least direct their hopes towards them, the reason is simple: all systems (of belief) require a fixed basis – islands represent that which is ideal and permanent. Islands have edges. They are refuges for those who need something to cling to. Most of the time, though, there are monsters on the islands. That’s why Ulysses and his men had to get away., The single eye had to be closed for good. Where did Ulysses and his men hide? Among the sheep: the cattle, the obedient, the stupid. And, relieved, took to the seas again – to get back home.”

Source: Foucault’s Sleep, Models for a Proposal,
Iconoclast publications 8, Turku 2005, p.70