GoS #001 :event | Athens, nov 3-9

Enclosures
of New Athens
> Sightseeing
new localisations
of power what is it? >
: preSyncing a future
Glossary of Subsumption'*

phase 1 >
3.-6.11. :
sightseeing | pre-collection
phase 2 >
7.-8.11. :
assembly + annotation
- join w/ reSync-Workshop
phase 3 >
9.11.:
revisits + outlook
@ NEW BABYLON REVISITED

in cooperation w/

reSync

>

Research workshop on the commons and their enclosures

with Adnan Hadzi (reSync) & Oliver Lerone Schultz (Common Media Lab)
Enclosures of New Athens is a research workshop and a mesh net walk especially designed for Athens in
collaboration with the reSync team [>].
Aiming to create a glossary of concepts, terminologies and terms related to the contemporary use of the commons,
their enclosure and subsumption[>] that can be experienced within the city, the workshop will attempt to
collect, sort and conceptualize some material on 'new enclosures' and layered power formations as they
crystallize in and around urban spaces. It will therefore inquire exemplary spaces of Athens, in a series of
guided site-seeings in which local acteurs introduce the 'outsiders view' to the concrete as well as more
abstract power grids and localized logics of valorization and governance structuring those urban sites.
This material,
collectivly to
take the shape
inter-link the

pre-collected in the days running up to the workshop, will form the core of what is worked upon
identify, index and characterize pluriform forms of power and valorization. This process will
of some conceptual discussions around the idea of 'subsumption', and go on to annotate and
material.

It will finally aim to explore what would be actually needed to turn these urban spaces into common spaces or
spaces of the commons and how 'subsumption' lying at the heart of non-trivial theorizations of re-productive and
re-actualizing forms of power within capitalism, is understood as complex and liquid, adaptive and renovating
formation.
The outcomes of the research will be hosted and interlinked with work-and-research structures of the the reSync
Athens workshop and they will also load a research-black-box (Pirate-Box) that can accumulate and 'comminize'
critical material, travel and be presented at any place in any time.
In perspective we will aim at two ways to make these 'pre-syncs' valuable for future common use:
1 : restreet, AWMN and local knowledge commons production: we will collectively think about ways to network and
share the material in ways useful to pre-existing local structures
2 : The 'Glossary of Subsumption : collective edition' will be a longer-term project creating critical
collective characterizations of new forms of 'integrative power' and 'value extraction' in the post-media age.
The material as well as experiences around collective knowledge assembly will enter this longer term process,
shaping and feeding future instances ( one planned around next transmediale)

: phase 1
3.-6.11.14

searching: your
critical guidance!

sight-seeing New Athens

:pre-collection of materials
The pre-collection phase will be constituted
through urban walks with invested individuals, groups,
projects. There will be a call throughout the New
Babylon network to show and describe to outsiders
characteristic spaces of 'New Athens'. We also invite
anyone interested to propose sites for these urban
anamnesis (see left).
This sight-seeing' the (own) city, showing and
describing it to outsiders, sketching known power lines
will be documented in audio, video, photo and
notetaking formats loosely and according to the
situation. Additionally provided material from
political pre-histories and provided contexts is also
used to further build-up an initial site-file.
In result these walks will produce a first list of
places and heaps of material. This initial body of
material will be further extended, annotated and used
for further processing in phase 2 - the workshop phase.

we look for people/projects...

... that have some interest in relating critical
engagement with spaces of Athens to a discussion
about (new) forms of power
... that already have a history of critical
practical or theoretical engagements with specific
sites of Athens of a more or less systematic mannner
if you want to become part or just 'feed' the process
of the 'Glossary of Subsumption'...
get in touch with us, either via the Athens
organizers [>] or directly [> vision [at]
assemblies.cc]
...or directly propose (or comment on) a space on
the public proposition folder by mailing (a text or
just a link) to email:
collect-all-propose-a-site-for-athensworkshop+e72ef19459[at]subsumption.dropmark.com
what you get back:
interaction, exchange + possibly new/fresh
knowledge on places of common interest
a documentation (including a site-folio) to be
further used for critical engagement
interaction with the unfolding stream of the
'Glossary of Subsumption'

: phase 2
7./8.11.14

what to take
a look at?

Enclosures of New Athens

Workshop (I) : work through
Initially we will read/discuss some introductory texts
around the idea of 'subsumption', trying to relate this
to experiences of (New) Athens.
With this background we will work through, discuss and
re-sort the material that resulted from the
pre-collection phase. Collectively we will be adding
material and (media) references onto the listed sites
of 'New Athens', to help identify obvious as well as
more abstract systems of enclosure/subsumption.
In this process we will aim to find ways to build
structured 'files' that allow to read the multi-layered
power-grids that structure these spaces and contain the
urban common/s.
This phase will be synced with the reSync/restreet
workshop [>], as we are also looking for productive
ways to feed-back the material and the associated
knowledges into critical local networks (like AWMN).
We will also work on ways to load and pre-structure a
research black-box (Piratebox), materially standing in
for the critical knowledge commons to travel to (and
communicate with) future instances of 'The Glossary of
Subsumption'.

for reading on enclosures + subsumption:

texts on subsumption (core concept line)

leads for urban enclosure complexes and urban

indexes of systems of subsumption :
general topical horizons
specific on/with relation to Athens

some leads on PirateBox, Unitary Networks etc :

http://www.hivenetworks.net/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PirateBox
http://daviddarts.com/introducing-piratebox-1-0/
http://daviddarts.com/piratebox-diy/
http://pi.qcontinuum.com/project.html
http://www.instructables.com/id/Solar-PoweredRaspberry-Pi/
http://www.radical-openness.org/programm
/2014/unitary-networking

: phase 3
9.11.14

... building
trajectories!

Enclosures of New Athens

Workshop (II) : re-collect
a) we will be a going back to the sites and nodes,
further mapping the material via AMWM and other
localized connections. Possibly there will also be a
re-visiting and collective re-investigation of the
sites with help of the initial sight-seers/-mappers
from the pre-collection phase.
b) there will be an outlook as to how to relate the
Enclosures of New Athens' results and processes to a
future trajectory of a Glossary of Subsumption' and
thus how to provide investigative, from-theground-input into an otherwise editorial project around
critical theories of power in post-medial capitalism.
c) possibly also some connections to other projects
using black-box (Piratebox) data-co-collection will be
reviewed. --------------------------------->

d) There will be a structured documentation around

'Enclosures of New Athens' using the materials
and we will discuss how to achieve this. This
documentation will also relate the material in
some more structural ways to the Glossary of
Subsumption' developed during the coming year,
possibly also being showcased around the coming
transmediale.

... also: a general share + annotation local network

for the knowldge ecology of the workshop:
With the start of the workshop a net of pirateboxes
will allow all New Babylon" participants to connect
to and load the Enclosure/New Athens' via an open
network connected to a Piratebox serving as general
collection and insertion space. This will be
pre-structured by the pre-collection list of sites
visited during the pre-collection phase, thus
prompting possible insertions, but it will also allow
some loosely guided annotation of own findings
aroundcollected and isights created during the above
activities/processes.

Subsumption as horizon of urban space :

from 'enclosure' to 'subsumption'... and beyond.
see also: 'Glossary of Subsumption' event by Post-Media Lab at
'the Public School' [Berlin / 01/2013]

1. Subsumption + characterizations of
multi-form power

2. Enclosure + subsumption of space

3. Developing 'subsumption' as critical

term

The aimed at co-research is particularly

based on the model of the historic
'enclosures' of common land that laid
parts of the foundation of english, and
thereby modern industrial capitalism
and wants to identify current-day
formations of enclosure'. Enclosures of
New Athens' will attempt to relate the
findings and articulations to a critical
theory of subsumption', which stands for
a more abstract conceptualizations of
enclosures', relating it to the critical
terminology of Marx' analysis of the
power-stricken genealogies and
reproductive logics of capitalism as well
as to broader concepts of subsumption,
like used in the post-cynernetic idea of
'subsumption-architectures' [>], i.e.
non-central but integrative forms of
control. Spaces and urban sites remain at
the core of confronting these new
realities (as Occupy' in all its
variants including Syntagma) has shown.

The land enclosures' of 19th century

formed an important basis of real
subsumption' thus enabling early
industrial capitalism. Enclosure here
marks the aggressive or cunning inclusion
of non-capitalist-spheres into the circle
of value-extraction. The early formation
and later its re-production of
exploitative capitalism was thus always
linked to the control/s and
'in-formations' of social space. Via space
social relations could likewise be
subsumed and inserted in new figurations
of power, control and exploitative
valorization. These spaces in their very
structure expressed or were linked to
other, lateral forms and systems of power
and exploitation. All in all this makes
space also indexical of forms of
subsumption, so that space/s can be 'read'
as registrars of subsumptive proceses and
systems.

Subsumption thus is a promising critical

term for contemporary critical thinking
attempting to re-describe the
co-development of social technologies,
digital environments and class relations
within the current new formation of
corporate' and/or finance capital' and
'control state' as they are themselves
re-territorializing under the battlecries
of 'smart cities', re-development',
crisis', containment', re-zoning',
public-private-partnership', digital
shift' etc..Within all these, our ways of
relating, caring and of expression, of
communicating and collaborating, are
enclosed, templated and optimized in new
ways. ICTs are at the core of the new
logistical, communicative and
administrative logi(sti)cs accelerates
capitalist subsumption also changing the
nature of struggle against its domination,
with more intricate, complex and arguably
intimate confrontations.