How to Never Walk in a Straight Line Again A Methodology to Stop Making Sense
Since the neoliberal global Western project declared the lack of alternative economic and social systems in the second half of the twentieth century, the construction and sedimentation of common sense has brought an expanding layer of universality that tends to form a monocultural, governable, hegem...
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| Format: | Thesis |
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2022
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/140114 |
| _version_ | 1811094872418942976 |
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| author | Ocampo Aguilar, Jesús |
| author2 | Urbonas, Gediminas |
| author_facet | Urbonas, Gediminas Ocampo Aguilar, Jesús |
| author_sort | Ocampo Aguilar, Jesús |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Since the neoliberal global Western project declared the lack of alternative economic and social systems in the second half of the twentieth century, the construction and sedimentation of common sense has brought an expanding layer of universality that tends to form a monocultural, governable, hegemonic global society. Backed by rationalism and “scientific” decisions, the effects of this monocultural project have increased bigotry, blind nationalism, and the loss of a sense of scale that threaten every connection not just between humans but within our entangled relations with the environment. “Common sense” plays a key role in the formation of such monocultural structures supported and legitimized by regimes of governmentality.
The potential for divergent possibilities lies in the simple fact that full objectivity is impossible to reach. In the capacity of contemporary art practices and methodologies, we can find a possible subversive agent against the impasse created by increasing bigotry and polarization in political, social, and economical discourses. Artistic practices, in this sense, have the capacity to regain agency, question the construction of these monocultures and linear narratives of thought, and constantly agitate the sedimentation of “common sense” in an agonistic, anthropophagic way.
This thesis begins the agitation by addressing two main issues. First is the inability to comprehend and relate to natural planetary phenomena and their various interconnected scales through scientific means. Second is the excessive and increasing control coming from city planning and its military legacy towards citizens and the environment. Both issues obliterate public life through rigid systems of control using merely profit-based closed models backed by scientific planning methodologies and deterministic computational models. This project approaches both issues in an agonistic, pluralist, heterogenous, and subjective way, proposing a new methodology for misusing, subverting, and building with other ways of sensing, seeing, and relating among humans and nonhumans. This project “drifts” with Situationist methodologies, digesting different aesthetics with anthropophagic subjectivity and inventing new relational interfaces in a heuretic way. In this way, by understanding bureaucracy, mistranslating, misusing, rescaling, and redoing (occupying) by creating new interfaces--that act as performative and relational tools--we may begin to navigate the potential of divergent possibilities. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:06:51Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | mit-1721.1/140114 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:06:51Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1401142022-02-08T03:05:19Z How to Never Walk in a Straight Line Again A Methodology to Stop Making Sense Ocampo Aguilar, Jesús Urbonas, Gediminas Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture Since the neoliberal global Western project declared the lack of alternative economic and social systems in the second half of the twentieth century, the construction and sedimentation of common sense has brought an expanding layer of universality that tends to form a monocultural, governable, hegemonic global society. Backed by rationalism and “scientific” decisions, the effects of this monocultural project have increased bigotry, blind nationalism, and the loss of a sense of scale that threaten every connection not just between humans but within our entangled relations with the environment. “Common sense” plays a key role in the formation of such monocultural structures supported and legitimized by regimes of governmentality. The potential for divergent possibilities lies in the simple fact that full objectivity is impossible to reach. In the capacity of contemporary art practices and methodologies, we can find a possible subversive agent against the impasse created by increasing bigotry and polarization in political, social, and economical discourses. Artistic practices, in this sense, have the capacity to regain agency, question the construction of these monocultures and linear narratives of thought, and constantly agitate the sedimentation of “common sense” in an agonistic, anthropophagic way. This thesis begins the agitation by addressing two main issues. First is the inability to comprehend and relate to natural planetary phenomena and their various interconnected scales through scientific means. Second is the excessive and increasing control coming from city planning and its military legacy towards citizens and the environment. Both issues obliterate public life through rigid systems of control using merely profit-based closed models backed by scientific planning methodologies and deterministic computational models. This project approaches both issues in an agonistic, pluralist, heterogenous, and subjective way, proposing a new methodology for misusing, subverting, and building with other ways of sensing, seeing, and relating among humans and nonhumans. This project “drifts” with Situationist methodologies, digesting different aesthetics with anthropophagic subjectivity and inventing new relational interfaces in a heuretic way. In this way, by understanding bureaucracy, mistranslating, misusing, rescaling, and redoing (occupying) by creating new interfaces--that act as performative and relational tools--we may begin to navigate the potential of divergent possibilities. S.M. 2022-02-07T15:24:53Z 2022-02-07T15:24:53Z 2021-09 2021-12-02T17:24:38.503Z Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/140114 In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted Copyright retained by author(s) https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/ application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| spellingShingle | Ocampo Aguilar, Jesús How to Never Walk in a Straight Line Again A Methodology to Stop Making Sense |
| title | How to Never Walk in a Straight Line Again A Methodology to Stop Making Sense |
| title_full | How to Never Walk in a Straight Line Again A Methodology to Stop Making Sense |
| title_fullStr | How to Never Walk in a Straight Line Again A Methodology to Stop Making Sense |
| title_full_unstemmed | How to Never Walk in a Straight Line Again A Methodology to Stop Making Sense |
| title_short | How to Never Walk in a Straight Line Again A Methodology to Stop Making Sense |
| title_sort | how to never walk in a straight line again a methodology to stop making sense |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/140114 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT ocampoaguilarjesus howtoneverwalkinastraightlineagainamethodologytostopmakingsense |