Justus Schäfer

Explore Lab

Electric Delight: Towards a Politics of Transindividuation

The proposal incites the collectivisation of maintenance and organisation of the electricity grid in Afrikaanderwijk, Rotterdam Zuid. In times of unproductive societal and political polarisation, we experience the rise of a reactive subjectivity that lacks contextual attunement, leading to citizens incrementally becoming consumers of politics. 

As the progressive automation of our lives drives a general deprivation of knowledge, the capacity to productively participate in politics becomes forgotten and invites for profit  extraction, accumulation of power and determination of beliefs to recurse. 

Questioning the degree and value of automations around us, the project integrates the subject and (globally) outsourced problem of energy harvesting/consumption in a didactic environment that allows us to learn about parts-to-whole relations, (social-political) dependencies and how to care in order to work towards a productive and open future. Radically participatory architectural production and organisation are introduced as mechanisms for citizens to learn to problematize and experience political negotiation in their sensible environments via the creative act. 

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