That law can be suspended is not a novelty in politics or history. Suspended does not however mean elimination. Rather, suspension is a void between constituted and constitutive power. Though to be suspended could be described as a void, at the same time it accommodates supreme power.
This thesis investigates three instances that can be characterized as liminal situations in which all limits are temporarily removed, and as a consequence, the very structure of the society is suspended. It is argued that suspension is not only common to the state of emergency but also to emergencies that could potentially arise. Thus suspension is a measure of global dominance and control, and requires alternative type of governance.
From a strictly physical viewpoint the city building is the result of intensification of flow of energy. Closer look reveals that urban space is similarly formed by power – as a result of decision-making processes where things as material assemblages, cultural forms, agencies resist, mobilize and re-form their surroundings.
Through this project my aim is to explore how the complexities of being (or being suspended) in time find a visual form through already existing documents and footages. Mode for suspension, set in a void between state and sovereign power, is a useful way of thinking about independence and global objectives.
The following research abstract was submitted for degree in Research Architecture course in Visual Cultures Department in Goldsmiths College, University of London; supervised by John Palmesino, Eyal Weizman and Paulo Tavares.
London, September 2011
Monika Löve
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Every system exists in a particular state. When a system is taken through a series of different states and finally returned to its initial state, a cycle has occurred. In the process of going through this cycle, the system may perform work on its surroundings. Conservation in the cycle can be understood as a transformation between “cause” and “effect”. When one thinks of degradation of a particular state, one thinks of entropy – the measure of uncertainty, disorder, unpredictability, in information theory, a random variable.
In 2007 in a dispute over a Russian war memorial, Estonian government, media and banking websites were the targets of concentrated DDOS attacks. These attacks were disabling large organisations and government department and the episode hastened NATO ́s development of the Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence. What was at risk in displacing the WWII monument in Tallinn? Could a digital attack on physical shut down large portions of critical infrastructure thereby causing a national emergency? This research questions the notions of the “hidden” and the practices of concealment by focusing at the displacement of the WWII monument in Tallinn, Estonia.
The research is being developed in Research Architecture course in Visual Cultures Department in Goldsmiths College, University of London; supervised by John Palmesino, Eyal Weizman and Paulo Tavares.
London, March 2011
Monika Löve
