10 Talk in the series 'Producing the Future: Art and
Globalization' organized by the Center for Place, Culture
and Politics, City University of New York Graduate Center
(April 24 2003)
Sabine Bitter / Helmut Weber
 		<<
























El 23 de Enero /
On Constitution

In order to look at forces that produce Caracas, we turn to two things: the modernist housing projects and the state constitution. By mingling the two major structuring elements of the modern housing project and the state constitution (universalizing and unifying) we create a background for our further negotiations of how social and community organizations, sometimes in conjunction with state structures and sometimes on their own, produce the city.
Our concept addresses shifts in perceiving the production of the city. The modernistic scopic regime (view from above) and the modernist mode of production according to established power-relations is shifted to a mode of production through social transformation, use, and everyday practices.
Additional series of images serve referential to various points of entries for the reader und producer of that particular urban landscape:
following images - EL 23 de ENERO, March, April 03
El 23 de Enero /
Coordinadora Simon Bolivar

Cultural organizations like Coordinadora Simon Bolivar are key to the self-organisational processes within the community.
They are platforms for social transformations with the task to make life more just and less unequal. Located in the barrios and communities nevertheless they are networked and connected with the larger process of social transformations.

El 23 de Enero /
urbanism
Since we began researching the site of Villanueva's Superblocks it turned out to be an urban area, which is way more complex than a first glance, a first visual perception of architecture would let you expect.
Not at least due to the presence of the protagonistic role of the people which is at play these times in that city we are shifting the focus beyond the mere architectural, urban representations onto social, political and economic forces (formal/informal ) which brought these particular urban landscapes of Caracas into existence.

Thanks again to Cindi Catz and Jeff Derksen, who invited us to present our works, thanks also to Neil Smith, the director of the Center for Place, Culture and Politics for support and hosting. We enjoyed it a lot.

We are also planning to set up a small website, where -- if you like -- you can follow our further devolopements in our project on Caracas.
www.lot.at/ccs
 or visit CaracasCase
a project by German Federal Cultural Foundation and Caracas Urban ThinkTank