Tactical Aesthetics pt. 2 – the Swarm

Last night while gchatting with M, I clicked on a link to a streaming heli-cam just in time to see a thick swarm of Occupiers overrun a police motorcycle barricade, then run amok through the streets, sidewalks, around cars and buses, through the orange NYPD nets and every-which-way through the streets of SoHo.

The helicopter could barely keep up as the swarm turned unpredictably from one block to the next, running full-tilt at times, the only constant being a huge red flag that could be seen hoisted and fluttering somewhere in the mix.  Even from the soundless birds-eye-view in the sky, the thrill of the Occupiers running loose through the city, flaunting the containment efforts of the authorities, was exhilarating.  According to a report I read this morning, at one point the demonstrator-interventionists even swarmed through a movie set somewhere in the West Village – this particular detail warmed my heart for so many reasons…

The nights particular brand of defiant exuberance was sparked directly and deliberately by the events which took place in Oakland, California earlier this week.  The authorities there made an effort to ruthlessly squelch their Occupation using tear gas, barricades, flash-bang grenades, bean-bag bullets, rubber bullets – basically every available tool short of metal bullets and plastic explosives.  Of course, the disruption/assault/authoritarian-intervention was well documented as any well attended event in a public space is these days.

Of all the shock and horror of these images, none is so shocking as the scene when a group of Oakland Occupiers, fleeing from the violence, turn back to retrieve a limp and either lifeless or unconscious comrade.  As they converge on the body, one of the riot-geared officers, from behind a barricade, takes a step and casually tosses a flash-bang grenade into the center of the group.

Back to New York: Apparently, the swarm being followed by the helicopter was only the largest of several groups which took off on simultaneous unpredictable swarm-marches in several directions from Union Square.  Sitting at my laptop, eating New York Super Fudge Chunk, I could not have been more excited by this piece of non-streaming information and thought to myself: “Finally!” with a whole slew of exclamation points.

This is tactical aethetics in action.

“A dizzying array of tactics” was how I previously described the NYPD strategy which the Occupiers had yet to successfully emulate.  But even in early October it had become evident that the NYPD (or more properly, the government of New York City) and the Occupiers were engaging in a socialized game of chess, the results of which are still unfolding to dramatic results.  With the emotional response from New York to the assault on Occupy Oakland, we are starting to see an accumulation of an assemblage of tactical aesthetics establishing itself through the eye of the Occupation.  The following list are what we consider to be some of the most pivotal and effective situational interventions to date:

1. the establishment of an endurance-demos at Zuccotti Park

2. the multiplicity of the Occupations, first across the US, and climaxing in the October 15 Global Day of Action

3. the Police Plaza march following the Tony Bologna pepper-spraying incident on University Place

3. the incident on the Brooklyn bridge

4. the fabulous vagaries of the Occupy Museums / Occupy Auction Houses / Occupy Artists Space &tc

5. this most recent swarming-march action

It is important to note that though the recent swarming-march may superficially resembling various impromptu “wilding” that has taken place in New York since the 80′s, the movement was fundamentally non-violent in nature.  No fires were started, no windows smashed, no police were assaulted.  In fact, the only significant violence came from the side of the police in their relentless efforts to contain the Occupiers’ movements.  And this was the principle spirit of the swarm: absolute freedom of movement, absolute uncontainability.  The penetration of the motorcycle barricade, and amassing of  moving bodies in the traffic lanes of the street, defying the tyranny of the automobile apparatus of the city, illustrated this point as clearly as anything could have short of flying through the air between the cast-iron blocks of Manhattan.

Tactical Aesthetics pt. 1 – pre(r)amble on the Bloomberg-Taylor four-legged monster

“What we see above all in the news on our TV screens are the faces of the rulers, experts and journalists who comment on the images, who tell us what they show and what we should make of them”

-Jacques Ranciere, The Emancipated Spectator

It’s come up in conversation in so many different forms that I’ve developed a sort of non-party-platform which I keep mentioning in order to thwart the common banalities of “I approve/disapprove of the Occupation/Worldwide Protests… agree/disagree with this and that aspect of it… suspect these things… fail to see this… presume these motives… thus and so… &…”  What I tell these dis/approvers is this: I approach the events foremost as a tactician, a strategist – and beyond that as an aesthetician, a theorist perhaps – but the point is always to shift the tone from the why to the what of it.

what is happening?

what is legal?

what is active?

what is dormant?

what is becoming?

what should we do?

& what will happen next?

Is the mayor really in charge of the city?  At the risk of sounding obvious: No.  But the mayor is the human manifestation of the point of resistance with which the dissent is concerned.  In the present case, presuming a primary grievance of the protesters to be corporate corruption/greed, the mayor’s pinnacle position is double: Hizzoner Mike Bloomberg is not only the head of New York City government, but he also happens to be the richest guy in town.  In terms of material wealth his status is staggering, truly without parallel – In March 2011, his total wealth was evaluated at $18.1 billion, ranking him 10th in the Forbes 400 and 30th richest person in the world.  In March 2009, Forbes reported Michael Bloomberg’s wealth at $16 billion, a gain of $4.5 billion over the previous year, enjoying the world’s biggest increase in wealth in 2009.  Even more shocking is that in 2001 Forbes evaluated Bloomberg’s wealth at (an almost pitiful) $4 billion.  This means Bloomberg has quadrupled his net-worth since taking office in 2001 – adding roughly $12 billion to his already enormous fortune!  In other words, Bloomberg has been making fortune upon colossal fortune for himself since becoming mayor – and doing so while the banking system has fallen to pot in front of our eyes.  And why is nobody talking about this?  In 2008 Bloomberg pushed to change the city’s term limits, arguing that a leader of his field was needed to “handle this financial crisis”.  If by ‘handling the financial crisis’ he meant re-multi-billionizing his ludicrously hefty coffers, he has done a truly remarkable job with his more-or-less illegitimate third term.

With all that in mind, what has been the mayor’s position toward the Occupation lately?

For one, it bears mentioning that Bloomberg’s live-in girlfriend, Diana Taylor, happens to sit on the board of directors of Brookfield Office Properties, the company that owns Zuccotti Park.  He recently told the AP that “I can tell you that pillow talk in our house is not about Occupy Wall Street or Brookfield Properties.”  Aside from the laughable air of this quote, the point stands that the Bloomberg/Taylor coupling is the most direct embodiment of what could potentially or is taking immediate aims to undermine the Occupation at Zuccotti Park.

Zuccotti Park is a privately owned public space.  This liminal status is what has allowed the Occupation to take place in the form in which it presently exists, with occupiers setting up camp 24/7 without being in any apparent contradiction to city-mandated curfew.  A 1:00 am curfew was imposed on virtually all city parks in 1989.  There are however, 503 such privately-owned public spaces adjoined to 320 buildings in New York, nearly all in Manhattan.  They owe their existence to zoning laws, passed in 1961 and amended numerous times since, that allowed developers to build taller structures in exchange for creating and maintaining plazas, atriums, passageways, and other spaces, all supposedly open to the public.  Together, they amount to 82 acres, one-tenth the size of Central Park.  In exchange, developers were permitted to add on an extra 16 million square feet of floor space.  What is interesting lately is that a number of “No camping” signs have been popping up at these private/public spaces throughout Manhattan.  Evidently there has been one at Zuccotti park since no-one-is-sure-when.  Of course, a dingy sign has never been a reason to determine whether anyone does anything, but what is legal there is becoming increasingly murky – and perhaps more importantly what laws are enforced will seemingly take precedent at some point in the near future for the Occupation.  Already, these sprouting signs are like suckers on the tentacles of the Bloomberg-Taylor monster reaching out into the so-called open street.

The most fateful non-event to date at Zuccotti was the cancellation of the more-than-suspicious “cleaning” which was scheduled to take place on October 14.  Granted, there were clashes with police and more than a dozen arrested, but nothing deterministic on the part of the city-cum-Brookfield Properties really took place.  In a letter to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, the faux-naivete of Brookfield’s tedious concerns that “for example, if the lenses to the underground lighting become cracked, water could infiltrate the electrical system, putting occupants of the Park at risk of an electrical hazard…” seems ridiculous to say the least.  Infiltration!

And just as noteworthy was Bloomberg first actual visit to the Occupation the day before the subsequently aborted cleaning was announced.  Lizzie Widdicombe of the New Yorker, standing next to us at the time, described him as looking “a little nervous” – but really, who could blame the guy?

In a Tower or On the Ground – Trans-Continental American Modes of Occupation

Thinking of the Occupation as General Winter approaches:

There are some who say they are never going to leave.  This excites me more than a hundred manifestos – the establishment of an experimental community determined to brave out the winter in the shadow of the unfinished World Trade Center tower, which is not only designed to be the tallest structure in New York City, but also a full 39′ than the original twin towers which stood at 1,727′, were destroyed 10 years ago and had a lifespan of 28 years.

The determination of this bustling encampment at sea level, and the aesthetic contrast with the steelworkers nearly a thousand feet overhead, erecting a structure of unspeakable heights, is startling to say the least.  There is a differential equation of human existence being drawn up downtown, the likes of which New York City has never seen.  Perhaps the only anarchitectural/vertical human juxtaposition exists in the Torre de David (the Tower of David) in Caracas, Venezuela.  The contrasts between this biblical-sounding squat-scraper and what is happening in Zuccotti Park/Liberty Plaza may be evident, but what is rhyming between these two sub-societal points of haecceity is haunting.  The Torre de David, officially known as the Centro Financiero Confinanzas, is a 45-story uncompleted skyscraper located in downtown Caracas, Venezuela.  It is one of Latin America’s tallest skyscrapers as well as home to more than 2,500 squatters.  The building was abandoned during the Venezuelan banking crisis of 1994 when the government took control of the premises.  The building lacks elevators, installed electricity, running water, balcony railing, windows, and even walls in many places.  Venezuela’s massive housing shortage led to the occupation of the building by squatters in October 2007.  Residents have since jury-rigged basic services, with water reaching up to the 22nd floor.  People live as high as the 28th floor (walk-up), with many bodegas and even an unlicensed dentist operating in the building.

But never mind when, whom or why these bi-continental aggregates have assembled – the question remains: what is actually happening here?

“Here is what we have to offer you in its most elaborate form — confusion guided by a clear sense of purpose.”

-Gordon Matta-Clark, from his handwritten notes on the subject of Anarchitecture, circa 1973-76

That the Occupation at Wall street exists in multiplicity with dozens of other Occupations taking place across the US is essential to understanding its essence.  Any description of singularity to this assemblage in the media is neglecting the fact that what is happening in New York is being concurrently echoed in cities across the nation.  But even more to point is that what is happening in New York is merely an arm or tentacle to a much greater beast.  I cannot but see the Occupation of Wall street as invoking not only the historical occupations of the US, such as the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression, but also as existing in conjunction with all squats, occupations, encampments, sit-ins and lock-ins occurring any&everywhere.

The Brooklyn bridge or Communards launched off of a cliff

Today on the Brooklyn bridge with about 1,500 protesters, at least 200 cops and innumerable raindrops gathering in the sky, I couldn’t help but wonder how we had gathered ourselves 135 feet over the east river, into two distinct and controllable clumps: one on the roadway below, the other on the walkway above – fish in a barrel all the same.  One thing that must be said in admiration of the NYPD is the immediate effectiveness of their dizzying array of tactics in baffling, re-routing and terrifying a crowd which outnumber them nearly tenfold.  I am starting to suspect that their infrastructure even allows for contradictory and multiple orders to be enacted over and through each other at the same time, like a football team playing on two clocks with four coaches.  Conversely, the protestors on the bridge may have had no clear leadership but one distinct direction where they were heading.

Now that it has become evident that over 700 arrests were made on the roadway of the Brooklyn bridge, the question that seems to be on everyone’s mind is: was it a set-up?  Did the police allow or even encourage the protestors to enter the roadway of the bridge with the ultimate goal of hemming them into a box and enacting a mass arrest, or did the protestors push themselves into a position for which there was no clear exit strategy?  For one, when you are talking about thousands of people marching together through the corridors of Lower Manhattan, there is a massive discrepancy between the intentions/direction of those at the head of the march and the bodies in the middle and rear which are by the very nature of such a movement, comparable to the proverbial movements of lemmings.

I cannot neglect to mention the absolute poetic truth of seeing thousands of people cheering, marching, chanting and photographing each other on the Brooklyn bridge.  The symbolic value of such a scene is without parallel.  Yet, to watch it devolve into 1. the scene of a mass arrest and 2. the mass observation of a scene of mass arrest, left me with a lingering feeling that something was lacking in the approach of the protestors.  To recklessly borrow some terms from Deleuze, I feel that had the movements of the protestors been infused with the air of multiplicity, had the pack acted without the singularity of moving from point A to point B, then the apparatus of capture could not have so easily been maneuvered into place – in fact, the apparatus of capture could have been altogether thwarted, if not undone by the appearance of a second or third or sixth group on the bridge entering the scene from any number of other potential angles.  To make this point less abstract: had an alternate flank of protestors taken to the bridge from the Brooklyn side, or had dozens of people starting climbing the bridge at the point of arrest, or had a couple strategically placed bodies or vehicles stopped traffic on the roadway leading into Manhattan (which remained functional throughout), any number of other possible outcomes could have taken shape.

The issue of occupation has little to do with protestors vs police.  The issue of occupation is first and foremost one of a body of bodies in space.  The fact that the police have been continually flanking the occupiers movements at every turn is merely a distraction to the potential of possibilities in the act of occupation itself.  In other words, things are rarely as they appear to be – and I think it is worth mentioning that the most famous depiction of lemmings running off of a cliff, in the 1958 Disney film White Wilderness, was a staged event in Calgary using imported lemmings which were launched off a cliff using a turntable.

On another note, images like the one taken below after the toppling of the Vendôme column in 1871, were later used to identify and execute Communards.