Zones: Topologies of Power

Tuesday, 3 November 2020, 7 pm, online

Reading group organised by
Jeanne Etelain

“A whole history remains to be written of spaces—which would at the same time be the history of powers (both these terms in the plural—from the great strategies of geo-politics to the little tactics of the habitat, institutional architecture from the classroom to the design of hospitals, passing via economic and political installations. It is surprising how long the problem of space took to emerge as a historico-political problem.”

Michel Foucault, “The Eye of Power”

Zones: Topologies of Power is a reading and research group set to bring together recent theoretical texts and activist experiences, addressing spatialities referred to as “zones” of various kinds that seem to challenge both the striated territories of sovereign states and the smooth globe of networked capitalisms. Starting from Keller Easterling’s short text on the “Zone” and Kristin Ross’s preface to The Zad and NoTAV, we will organise our explorations collectively and according to the group’s common interests, moving, for instance, across the contemporary classics of critical geography, postcolonial anthropology, and the militant literatures generated through the experiences of various autonomous zones of recent years.

Meetings will take place on Tuesday evenings, every three weeks, starting on 3 November 2020, 7 pm, either in a hybrid form or online only, depending on pandemic conditions.

If you’re interested in joining, please send an email to mail@diffrakt.space.

Marina Camargo, World-Map: Fractions of Space (2020)