Gerald Straub Conversation

Gerald Straub, applied cultural theorist, is working and living in London. He is focusing on experimental documentary filmmaking, urban spaces and cultural theory. His work interconnects spatial settings and human behaviour and examines how these subjects relate under specific socio-political conditions. He is teaching at the Dept. of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths College, University of London, I spoke with him in Bethnal Green Road.

The islands, Dubai

In conversation : Catherine Vieira with Gerald Straub

Catherine : First of all tell me what was the beginning point of your research?

Gerald : In general I am interested in public space and how humans behave under certain political condition. This is my over-all interest. In terms of my research I am interested in pre-defined urbanism, which relates to an architectural setting which is less organically grown but more conceptually planned. This is the basic introduction to the research : the socio spatial consequences of pre-defined urban space in contemporary architecture and the role of the notion of immediacy.

Catherine : What strategies did you employ in your observation / investigation of the pre-determinate design of Dubai?

Gerald : Maybe it’s important to introduce certain notions and try to unpack an environment like Dubai. One important notion is the notion of immediacy – divided into three inter-related layers. Firstly the instant environment itself - built in very short amount of time, an urbanization process from scratch referring to instant cities such as Shangai or Dubai. Secondly, it refers to an instant social activity/ behaviour - an action, which has to be accomplished without loss or interval of time - relating to the here and now. In this specific case, the term refers to the immediate interaction process between an individual and an enclosed architectural setting (E.g. border zone) ; how do people navigate or interact with specific conditions - going to the shopping mall, to the parking space, to the work place or tourist area etc. You are constantly confronted with a “precise purpose architecture” and you have to deal on spot with the difference between your original aims and the ones which are predefined, and of course the way the surrounding is constructed has an influence on your immediate engagements.Thirdly, the term serves as an instant artistic framework in order to explore a performative art practice, which relates to the notion of immediacy – based on a “Situation”. You have the city as an immediacy, you have the immediate engagement and an artistic performative methodology in order to unpack the un-intentional holes of abstract space. Precise Architecture refers to contemporary urban planning which implies a very accurate function and a predefined usage of space. Most of the developments in Dubai are pre- conceptualised in order to function exclusively as meant to be. Any other engagement is strictly excluded (e.g. a precise interaction which the environment asks for – press the button on the barrier/ insert a card etc.).

International City Diagram

Catherine : It is like interstice, or unvoluntary empty space in cities?

Gerald : These spaces are difficult for any other engagement than the one which is meant to be. There are empty spaces - more in the sense of “becoming” - the concept is there but the actualization not. E.g. space between developments – unfinished projects – concrete rubbles – or just “land”. There are potentials of these spaces but limited in time.

Catherine : Are you thinking of a space that is infinitely flexible in terms of future?

Gerald : There is always a potential of infinite flexibility, of course the more defined a space is, the less flexibility there is. With pre-definitions the potentials are narrowed down. What else can you do in the biggest indoor ski hall in Dubai? You can ski. What is the flexibility of the space, if the architecture (and the entire urban scape) asks for a certain engagement, for a certain thinking, but also embodies a very specific political layer of engagement? I am interested in this potential of flexibility of abstract space/ pre-defined space. Where are the porosities of abstract space? This goes back to “the Production of Space” by Henri Lefebvre - percieved, conceived and the lived space. But back to the central question : How can a porosity be detected? For example: think off dictatorships or countries with rigid regimes where sometimes small eruptions (other than meant to be engagements) can happen. Demonstrations can happen in an instant – an immediate form. Just recently if you think about the Tiananmen Square in China - or the demonstrations after the caricatures in Denmark - the uprising happens - this could be an example of porosity. If you relate a porosity to the system of architecture in Dubai, it becomes more obvious how little space there is for flexibility. And on the other hand, if a demonstration is already conceptualized and taking into account (e.g. anti banking / 1st of May gatherings) – a porosity is part of the concept and therefore defined and without consequences. I am interested in the potential of immediacy, which goes beyond fulfilling predefined criteria. A good example for that are border crossings – porosity has to be reinvented constantly in order to overcome abstract space. Hence, there is a potential of detecting porosity through immediacy. What are the traces of an immediate engagement with a predefined space?

Catherine : Can we imagine an architect creating a system of performed organisation, programme and form to find new ways of urban planning?

Gerald : I think the intention is there, architects try to incorporate different layers, but it doesn’t work like that in an instant city planning process. At the end of the process the result serves mainly a privileged neo-liberal setting, then it works well. But of course, when there is social divide - it doesn’t work. It always depend on what is taking into account as the reference. Consequently, it would help to consider more performative elements in planning processes.

The world, Dubai

Catherine : Do you consider Dubai a prophetic urban project in terms of planning from an aerial view, and is this strategy something like a Google map syndrome?

Gerald : It is a sampled google map in terms of the compilation or mash-up of global economical zone. It is like a mash-up of all the elements that serve profit at the end of the day. It is more a patchwork of google maps. So you have the financial district in London, N.Y or Frankfurt - therefore you have the mini-financial district in Dubai, you have the international art fairs and exhibitions – so therefore there is the art district - you put together all the museums in one place, you collect certain elements of various conditions and then pack them together and re-construct them in the most efficient way. You pack the zones - or the entire instant city - into a glamorous spectacle through marketing strategies and as a result you get the mirror of precise capitalism - and additional, the thin borderline between collapse and perfect function. Which of course doesn’t work in reality – the “perfect function” cannot be maintained without intentional and unintentional disruptions.

Catherine : When an architect predict a design with the priority of this aerial view façade to show at the world the power of this emblematic object, it’s kind of different approach to the determinate design rather than modernism, was a mix of other priorities ...

Gerald : Dubai was a mix only on the surface, because the bottom line was always determined to transfer an oil based income into a service industry based income. Very much in the best possible way under certain premises, which are in this case – neo-liberal politics mixed with autocracy - compiling all contemporary service industries together and spectacularsing them as much as possible. (e.g. resulting in labeled zones such as: Dubai Outsourcing Zone, Dubai Global Village, Dubai Silicon Oasis, Dubai International Capital etc.) – in this sense not even subtle but very obvious. There is nothing else than “pre-defined meant to be’s”. Conditions, which are not officially predefined do not exist in the spectacle (e.g. the problematic of the socio-political conditions of the asian workforce). Hence if a global financial crises occurs, of course the fragility of the obvious becomes visible. – On the one hand Dubai is a fame architecture based urban scape from the non aerial view. But on the other hand - no matter if google mapped or not - it represents the main aim, how to make a minature (ex- ) contemporary instant space (almost as imagined 50 years ago – as a space station on another planet – with all the infrastructure needed in order to survive/ maintain specific socio-political conditions – in this case the mix of autocracy and a neo liberal approach to economics). Dubai obviously marketing itself, as a kind of essence of global capitalism mixed with tourist desires. Everything is meant to be precise or non-existent. But despite the precise planning there is always a potential for porosity.


Catherine : Which illustrations you would like to choose to represent this conversation?

Gerald : Well I think now Dubai lost his official glamour, the surface. Many people who worked there have left and also left everything behind. I talk about the traces of immediacy, the traces of an instant city and the representation of the fragility of a pre-defined space. Now you go to Dubai airport where there are 3.000 cars left with the doors open and the key inside. People leave from one day to the other, and you have these kind of traces which show some of the consequences of the instability. There are also thousands of asian workers without work living under extreme conditions - stranded. I’m curious about two different kind of immediacies and their traces. One which follows predefined criteria of a space and one which does not follow a predefinition of engagement with that space. In a metaphorical sense, the first one refers to the lateral line organ of fish, which enables fish to navigate through their environment. It lets the fish know what is in the water around them – without touching. The second immediacy could be seen as the transversal organ of space - a metaphor for a social engagement with space, which does not follow precise criteria – leading to a porosity, an immediacy which does not follow predefined conditions. In short : my aim is to work with the un-intentional holes of abstract space.