City Walls to city streets : utopias of dissent

Abstract

Lewis Mumford makes the case that the first (western) utopia was a City, and that the first (western) City was a utopia, and David Harvey similarly iterates that “[t]he figures of ‘the city’ and of ‘Utopia’ have long been intertwined”. The fates of these two constructs are thus seemingly indissolubly linked. Regrettably, this initial construct, the City as utopia / utopia as the City, very shortly mutated into the originary dystopia, inaugurating the conception of the City as a place of suffering and social ills. This inherent dystopian aspect of the early City can be traced to the impulse to control and exclude, a phenomenon not limited to the Cities and utopias of antiquity, but concretely constitutive of the spatial and social geographies of a critical mass of contemporary global cities. This article interprets the works of street artists Banksy, Mustafa Hulusi, Invader and Ben Wilson as exemplary of the production of an alternative utopia which seeks to undermine the dystopian elements of the City. Their work is based on criticality and dissent generated in the city street. This reading is done from a Marxist perspective, based largely on the writings of David Harvey, and interprets the praxis of the artists discussed as the visual embodiment of the explicit or implicit critique of the contemporary deep structure of the dystopian City.

Lewis Mumford redeneer dat die Stad die eerste (westerse) utopia was en dat die eerste (westerse) Stad ’n utopia was. David Harvey beaam Mumford se stelling, en bevestig die vroeë ineenstrengeling van utopia en die Stad. Die Stad en utopia deel dus skynbaar ’n onlosmaaklike geskiedenis. Ongelukkig het hierdie vroeë konstruk, naamlik die Stad as utopia / utopia as die Stad, spoedig ontaard in die oorspronklike distopia, en sodoende aanleiding gegee tot die wyd aanvaarde idee van die Stad as ‘n plek waar menslike lyding en sosiale ongewensdhede hooggety vier. Die wortel van hierdie inherente distopiese aspek van die vroeë Stad kan herlei word na die menslike impuls om te beheer en uit te sluit, en spreek dus nie slegs tot Stede en utopias uit die antieke era nie, maar verwesenlik die konkrete ruimtelike en sosiale geografie van die meerderheid van hedendaagse wereldstede. Hierdie artikel interpreteer die werke van straatkunstenaars Banksy, Mustafa Hulusi, Invader en Ben Wilson as verteenwoordigend van die skepping van ’n alternatiewe utopia wat die distopiese elemente van die Stad ondermyn, en wat gebaseer is op ‘n kritiese verset wat voortspruit uit die alledaagse kultuur van die stedelike straat. Die werke word bespreek vanuit ‘n Marxistiese perspektief soos gebaseer op die werk van David Harvey. Verder word die praktyk van die gekose kunstenaars geïnterpreteer as die visuele konkretisering van implisiete sowel as eksplisiete verset teen die huidige diep struktuur van die distopiese Stad.