Journalism & Revolution. Utopie: Sociologie de l'Urbain (1967)

JOURNALISM AND REVOLUTION. UTOPIE: SOCIOLOGIE DE L’URBAIN (1967) In 1967, a formation of students had anticipated the forthcoming social changes operating within France (and indeed throughout the world) after a rather unusual contestation. On 21 March, male students at the University of Nanterre actively denounced the school’s endorsement of ‘carceral sexual ghettos’ and sexually-segregated living quarters by forcefully occupying the women’s dormitories. Through their subversive directives and incantations (including ‘make love and then start again’, ‘society is a carnivorous plant’, and ‘nothing will ever be the same again’),1 the students had unknowingly presaged the vast national and social changes which would sweep through Europe following the events of May 1968. The academic and social grievances increasingly agitating Paris in the year 1967 were similarly manifested through the birth of a small association of architects, urbanists, sociologists, and philosophers seeking ‘a common point of intellectual gravity’. In 1966, Antoine Stinco, Jean Aubert, and Jean-Paul Jungmann had conceived a small gathering entitled AJS Aérolande. Shortly thereafter, a new group was formed revolving around the teachings of the French Marxist philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre. The embryonic nucleus which would subsequently give rise to Utopie was collectively formed by Hubert Tonka (of Melp!), Jean Baudrillard, Catherine Cot, Charles Goldblum, Jean-Paul Jungmann, René Lourau, Isabelle Auricoste, Jean Aubert, and Antoine Stinco. By May 1967, this group had successfully established a fiery journal entitled Utopie: Sociologie de l'Urbain. Between 1967 and 1978, the group would abundantly publish political and ideological pamphlets, manifestos, posters, articles, and texts highlighting a political and ideological élan vital centered on the notion of urbanism. In its first issue of May 1967, Utopie had matter-of-factly “Faites l’amour et recommencez”, “La société est une plante carnivore”, “Plus rien ne sera jamais plus comme avant” 1 signaled its intention of advancing “an urbanism entirely conceived by spaces easily drawn with chalk on the blackboard…and immediately assimilated by the public”.2 The notion of advancing benevolent Marxist theory by revolutionizing the antiquated tenets of urbanism (perceived as sources of human alienation) would ultimately guide the journal throughout its existence. In true Marxist fashion, Utopie’s writings were often penned anonymously (or rather collectively) by the group’s members acting communally. In 1967, the group was initially and intrinsically “torn between a spare aesthetics of refusal and a pronounced iconomania”.3 This divided weltanschauung indeed represented the Marxist/capitalist rupture of the period: frugal consumerism and collective industrialism versus excessive materialism and extravagant consumption. In bridging Marxist rhetoric and pop art (much like Melp! had done the year prior), Utopie had singularly personalized an artistic genre which Ezio Bonfanti would later baptize “pop-marxism”.4 Jean Baudrillard defined the ideological dichotomy operating within the group in the following manner: “There was certainly, at the same moment, a political radicality that was still rather more oriented toward Marxism, at least for a certain time, but it was despite all that an imaginary, an anticipation, which was much more American”.5 In entangling the benefits of both Marxism and capitalistic culture, Baudrillard for example acknowledged his “anti-French prejudice”6 and “fascination”7 for U.S. culture, particularly hyperreality and Andy Warhol. It is precisely this fascination for anglo-saxon art which would influence the journal in adopting Melp!’s use of pop art imagery to convey political and architectural ideology. It is interesting to note that political rhetoric and philosophy were uniquely harmonized alongside photographic clippings taken from Elle, Playboy, and Le Nouvel Observateur. According to Utopie member Isabelle Auricoste, the group’s members were “neither Leninist nor Maoist, but rather council Marxists in Utopie #1. May 1967. Anthropos. Colomina, Beatriz. Clip, Stamp, Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196X to 197X. Actar, 2011. p.102 4 Scrivano, Paolo."Where Praxis and Theory Clash with Reality" in Architectural Periodicals in the 1960s and 1970s. IRHA, 2008. pp.268 5 Baudrillard, Jean. Utopia Deferred: Writings from Utopie (1967-1978). Semiotext(e), 2006. pp.28 6 Baudrillard, Jean. Utopia Deferred: Writings from Utopie (1967-1978). Semiotext(e), 2006. pp.28 7 Baudrillard, Jean. Utopia Deferred: Writings from Utopie (1967-1978). Semiotext(e), 2006. pp.27 2 3 the tradition of Rosa Luxembourg’s workers’ councils”.8 To accommodate Utopie’s multifarious members (who demarcated themselves internally amongst formalists, philosophers, and dogmatic followers of Louis Althusser’s ‘theoretical practice’), the journal adopted a hybrid form of ideological thought by imposing numerous journalistic ‘checks and balances’. The most important (and visual) of these was the ‘colonne critique’: a generously sized margin alongside the journal’s main column which accommodated various phrases and pictures “that contradicted, elaborated, commented, and parodied those in the central column”.9 In so doing, the journal aimed to publicly broadcast the group’s vicious10 debates on various political, ideological, and architectural matters. As such, the arbitrary nature of doctrinaire press censorship was to be eliminated forever. By exchanging ideas in this manner, the group endeavored to naturally enrich and embellish the journal’s unique lyrical verve. It is precisely for this reason that the journal’s first 1967 editorial portrayed two blank rectangles delineating the journal’s entire width. Within these rectangles, various ideas and convictions were to be publicly debated, rejected, contested, and hailed in (what should have been) complete and collective symbiosis. Unfortunately for Utopie, three formalists (Jean Aubert, Jean-Paul Jungmann, and Antoine Stinco) openly publicized their departure in 1971 by criticizing the group’s “increasingly 11 theoretical-literary” work and vision. Prior to launching the journal in 1967, the group had indeed aimed to bridge their various ideological differences by adopting a ‘hybrid’ font for the journal’s front cover. Utopie member Isabelle Auricoste had conceived a stylistic font incorporating a classical journalistic serif with the orbicular swirls of pop art playfulness. While similar to the colored font utilized by L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui magazine in 1967, Utopie’s font differed in being far more dynamic and spirited. Isabelle Auricoste thus described her typographic creation: “As would befit a utopia, it was a layout that could be turned in every direction so that no direction is more privileged or better than another”.12 Colomina, Beatriz. Clip, Stamp, Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196X to 197X. Actar, 2011. p.198 9 Buckley, Craig. Utopie Texts and Projects, 1967–1978. Semiotext(e), 2011. pp.10 10 Dessauce, Marc. The Inflatable Moment: Pneumatics and Protest in '68. Princeton Architectural Press, 1999. pp.50 11 Dessauce, Marc. The Inflatable Moment: Pneumatics and Protest in '68. Princeton Architectural Press, 1999. pp.50 12 Colomina, Beatriz. Clip, Stamp, Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196X to 197X. Actar, 2011. p.198 8 The group’s collective and hands-on approach to publishing was similarly unique prior to May 1968. Though radical journals, newspapers, and publishing houses did in fact exist in Europe prior to May 1968 (including the infamous West German Konkret and France’s Edition Sociales, founded in 1927 by the Komintern), these were relatively unknown outside academia. According to Isabelle Auricoste, the group collectively “learned printing, page layout, and typography in order to do the magazine and have complete control over it”.13 To strengthen this control, Lefebvre had amiably introduced the young men and women of Utopie to Serge Jonas, owner of Editions Anthropos. For Utopie's first three issues, this publisher utilized an offset printing technique (mass-production lithography) so as to best integrate the group’s various texts, pictures, and collages. Per the agreement concluded between Utopie and Anthropos, the journal’s last pages allowed Anthropos to advertise its other publications for sale, including Anatole Kopp's 1967 Ville et Revolution. By 1971, Utopie had replaced Anthropos with the smaller Imprimerie Quotidienne (founded by Tonka) to launch its fourth issue. Seeking a more humble pamphlet arrangement, the colonne critique was considered too costly of an addition and altogether discarded. It is important to note that the journal did maintain Isabelle Auricoste’s original 1967 typography throughout its existence. Importantly, the journal’s overall size decreased from 22.5cm x 18cm (issues 1-3) to 22.5cm x 14cm (issues 4-15). Utopie’s last two issues (16-18) were subsequently increased to a more generous 28cm x 19cm. Hubert Tonka (who had published with brio his Fiction de la Contestation Aliénée (Fiction of the Alienated Contestation) as a dynamic political manifesto espousing pop art à la Roy Lichtenstein) reproduced his signature artistic verve throughout Utopie’s publications. In the group’s yellow-colored pamphlet entitled Urbaniser la Lutte de Classe (Urbanize the Class Struggle), Tonka’s pop art composition was efficiently assimilated with Utopie’s unique political ethos. In the pamphlet’s opening paragraph, the group’s radical tone is immediately discernible: “The texts gathered in the first edition of Urbaniser la Lutte de Classe were written during three ‘happenings’ on international urbanistic bourgeois practice and thought(,)…three strikes of the sword in the shit of the cities and their extreme-urbanism (that is) without precedence in the history of capitalism.”14 Colomina, Beatriz. Clip, Stamp, Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196X to 197X. Actar, 2011. p.198 14 Utopie. Urbaniser la Lutte de Classe. Imprimerie Quotidienne, 1972. pp. Editorial. 13 Interpolated in the pamphlet’s political and ideological tone was a dynamic set of pop art illustrations offset with impertinent speech balloons. In the chapter entitled Urbanism and its Money, an orange colored drawing portrays a woman’s posterior. While laying down, this woman is gazing at a large accumulation of money and thinking: “The capitalist city, a product of the capitalistic system of accumulation and trade, is in service of the power of money and its dignified representatives”.15 Between the 8th and 9th pages, another dynamic drawing similarly portrays an exalted and spirited representation. The viewer can here see a fighting scene and explosion akin to a comic strip featuring the ubiquitous action words ‘Pow!’ and ‘Kapow!’. The word ‘Boum’ is used as the French equivalent of Superman’s blows and punches. This scene is analyzed and captioned by Utopie’s members with the following ideological description: “The analysis of the city as a place of class struggle and the unveiling of urbanism as an instrument of domination in the service of a class can only lead to a praxis leading to the social liberation of men alienated by their conditioning and regression”.16 By stimulating ideological contemplation and discussion through colorfully spirited pop art renditions, the journal aimed to inaugurate a confluence bridging ideologically complex assessments through modern art and culture. Baudrillard’s reflection on the existence of a ‘dialectical utopia’ in Utopie’s first issue indeed represented a political and ideological ratiocination that may have appeared altogether alien to the novice architect and urbanist of 1967. And it was precisely for this reason that Utopie espoused a dynamic, progressive, and charismatic medium as a means of mass-communication enticing profound and lasting change. The Utopie group was unconventional also in the manner by which it had introduced the idea of a borderless and spatial urban space as early as May 1967. Consonant to the teachings of Fourierism and Proudhonism, Utopie had advanced (in its first issue) the radical dogma that the city was nothing more than “a cluster of interpenetrating communities”.17 The Italian groups Superstudio and Archizoom would advance similar conceptual introspections regarding interpenetrating urban spaces in Utopie. Urbaniser la Lutte de Classe. Imprimerie Quotidienne, 1972. pp. 8-9 Utopie. Urbaniser la Lutte de Classe. Imprimerie Quotidienne, 1972. pp. 8-9 17 Utopie #1. May 1967. Anthropos. 15 16 1969, particularly through their Continuous Monument and No-Stop City architectural projects. It is interesting to note that Utopie’s visceral need to catechize on the future of urban space continued well beyond the journal’s brief existence. Aubert, Jungmann, and Stinco for example collectively collaborated on an architectural journal entitled L’ivre de Pierres18 which appeared in four issues between 1977 and 1983. Jungmann, who had enticed various cours sauvages19 in the partially destroyed Les Halles, subsequently animated a workshop on graphic art entitled ZZZ. True to the group’s original political stance, Aubert similarly conceived an ephemeral journal entitled Rufus which directly adopted the artistic and ideological characteristics stemming from Utopie. A play on words: ‘Livre’ is French for book whereas “L’ivre” is French for “the drunk”. The title therefore is translated as ‘the one drunk on stones’ though it can also falsely be interpreted as ‘book about stones’. 19 University classes held in a non-academic environment often spontaneously and in an urban setting. 18