Thesis Positioning Statement #1
Although the causes of the London Riots between 6 - 10 August of 2011 are numerous, there several consistent themes that continue to be cited both by observers and the rioters themselves. Alongside the anti-Keynesian austerity measures that slashed funding for youth and community infrastructure, overt police control has been blamed for the violence. The most damage occurred in the most impoverished areas that are also, not uncoincedentally, dominated by minority ethnicities. According to local Labour politician David Lammy, the pre-existing tensions between ethnicities and the police were exposed in the Broadwater Farm Riots of 1985. In this case “cracks that already existed between the police and the community became deep fissures” and the riots of 2011 are “eerily, worryingly, dreadfully similar”[1]
The murder by police of Mark Duggan, an unarmed man, served as a trigger mechanism for the outbreak of violence. A peaceful protest by the bereaved of Mark Duggan became overrun by the agenda of these agitators and escalated into the destruction of the urban fabric that was the setting for much of the perceived police repression. That much of this violence was done in the name of Mark Duggan unfortunately robbed the Duggan movement of much of their legitimacy despite their efforts to distance themselves from the riots.
The violence continued into a second, third and fourth night, spreading from Tottenham to areas all over London, and even into Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow. By this stage though, the tone had changed from an expression of rage in response to an oppressive urban predicament into an opportunistic looting rampage. Rioters targeted fashionable high street chains to seize clothing, electronics and other desirable objects. I would like to focus on the first evening where large stretches of Tottenham High Street were razed to the ground and the primary goal of the unrest was a tactic of responding to the level of control exerted upon the people.
The domain of all of the police repression occurred on the streets of the neighbourhood. As such the urban fabric became the vehicle of police control. Also the ‘representations of space’ (i.e. the knowledge of how one behaves in all spaces) was in the control of the police.[2] The act of destroying the local urban fabric, their own neighbourhood, can be seen as an aggressive coup to regain control, both of the streets and the ‘representations of space’ on their own terms. The razing of the environment becomes a symbolic act defined as a land grab for control of the politics of space. As Alain Joxe said in response to Michel Foucault, the party with power and its interests must be viewed as separate entities.[3]
Through material and representational investigations, however, I have concluded that the violent response directed at the city is not only literally destructive, but also erodes community and subverts the original intentions of the rioters. Through the memory of place, the location of each act of destruction continues to serve as a reminder in the consciousnesses of residents.
The material investigation “The Violent Response” (2011) addresses the consequences of this kind of violent reaction against the city. A map of the Tottenham area is etched onto a plank using a lasercam[4]. The places where malcontent turned into violence on that first night are charted on the map. The symbolic razing of the city is shown by cutting out the area affected. I have then turned over that stretch of street to show the blank underside of the wood. The map then becomes a tonal representation of the streets of Tottenham with distinctly empty zones describing where it kicked off. Whether they knew it or not, the rioters were taking those areas where conflict occured out of their urban landscape and claiming them as their own.
The process of turning over the hot spots on the model reveals a second, more poignant meaning on the other side. While the act of destruction is present (on the front side), there is simultaneously the memory of that action becoming engrained into the fabric of the city. It is at once a simple cartography mapping the areas of disturbance, and also a ‘psychogeographic map’ that charts “the specific effects of the geographic milieu…acting on the affective comportment of individuals.”[5] The point is that the spatial memory of the city continues regardless, occupying the consciousnesses of civilians, but also embedded in the architecture, the planning policies, the policing strategies and the charisma of the city. The rioters’ dash for control of the ‘spaces of representation’ has, instead of removing and razing the architectures of control, simply served to cement the legacy of their anarchistic acts into the memory of the city. For residents of Tottenham the areas destroyed are not simply spaces, but now, thanks to the rioters, are places imbued with the memory of destruction.[6] The back side of the model shows these places in isolation to show their significance in the spatial memory of the city.
It is clear that violence is not a very effective tactic to regain control of the ‘representations of space’ because the adverse effects weigh down those efforts with the burden of memory. In war (a similarly violent battle for the ‘representations of space’), the victors and individual players would be glorified and held upon high, but there can be no social paragon when the protagonists destroy their own city. A more discreet method must be assumed; one that has similarly involved levels of interaction with architecture but is non-violent and undestructive in its nature.
[1] Guardian Editorial: 08/07/2011 – Tottenham Riot: The Lesson From Broadwater Farm
[2] It is right that this knowledge is under the guidance of lawmakers, but in a democratic society, the benefit of the people must also be considered.
[3] Space, Knowledge and Power, Foucault and Geography. Edited by Jeremy R. Crampton and Stuart Elden. P 29.
[4] The symbolism of using a laser (highly focused heat) to abrasively etch the area is question is entirely intentional.
[5] The Situationists and the City. Edited by Tom McDonough. P10.
[6] The Unknown City: Contesting Architecture and Social Space. P55-67. Essay by Barry Curtis, That Place Where: Some thoughts on Memory and the City.
