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==== Making visible ====
 
==== Making visible ====
[[File:Sevs.png|thumb|350px|Nibble of the bottom right corner of this service door in the facade of the SEVS building. Capture from Streetview]]
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[[File:Sevs.png|thumb|350px|Nibble of the bottom right corner of a service door in the facade of the SEVS building. Capture from Streetview]]
 
Coming back to the mouse metaphor: although mouse presence is tiny, it is very present. Shit is spread around the room. Tiny black bits, but with a big effect. In a similar way, I guess that a tactics of the Captitalographical work is to produce visibility for non-niceness. The holes one can punch is not neat. They are visible as tiny interruptions of straight lines.
 
Coming back to the mouse metaphor: although mouse presence is tiny, it is very present. Shit is spread around the room. Tiny black bits, but with a big effect. In a similar way, I guess that a tactics of the Captitalographical work is to produce visibility for non-niceness. The holes one can punch is not neat. They are visible as tiny interruptions of straight lines.
  

Revision as of 13:38, 3 June 2020

Capitalithos mined in Quartier Nord, Brussels, 2020

Capitalithothèque

The Capitalithothèque is a collection of stones mined from capitalbuildings with descriptions of method and sourcing area. Consult it on this page.

Nibbling away at the symbols of capitalism.

This wiki explains a specific type of performa-lithic anti-capitalist practice. By bringing together texts and images of this example, it also is an invitation to continue the work in different places and circumstances, copy-paste, change, adapt and put into practice.

Perforalithic practice

Anyone who has had mice or other rodents living around, probably experienced that nibbling makes holes. Holes that start small but give enough passage to move on to nibble elsewere. Modest tools (teeth) plus time, energy and perseverance cuts through a lot. Plus also important: nibbling makes noise. It disturbs, keeps people from sleeping. It is annoying. Nibbling is an urge. it is not to be deliberated, there is no holding back. It is routinous. It asks for training. Do, do, do some more. Keep up the paste.

Perforalithic nibbling is the perforation of holes in the shallow facades of buildings that stand symbol for turbo-capitalism, power, dominance, oppression. The perforalithic nibbling nerves are triggered by mega-corp appropriation of urban space. While anything can be a sign of capitalist society, some symbols are stronger then others. So we are not nibbling away at just any building, we bite into those that embody predatory capitalism. We chip off what we do not need until we are left with that which we do need. But maybe we don't need any of it.

The practice can be seen in two ways: firstly as a form of urban mining, harvesting material, collecting crumbs and stones as a practice of counter-extractivism. You cut and tear to collect. And secondly as a way to augment public space. Any scratching away of material, each hole that appears is filled with the breath of public space.

What is going on behind those gleaming glass walls ? You want to pierce the facades. What politics, materials, structures and realities will emerge ? And also: how to do it ?

Capitalithographical Methods and Findings

Use your nails, a pen, your keys.
Find a weak spot, a dent, a scratch. Wreck it.
Collect the crumbs, the pebbles, the dirt.
Use it to express your dissent with capitalism.

Making visible

Nibble of the bottom right corner of a service door in the facade of the SEVS building. Capture from Streetview

Coming back to the mouse metaphor: although mouse presence is tiny, it is very present. Shit is spread around the room. Tiny black bits, but with a big effect. In a similar way, I guess that a tactics of the Captitalographical work is to produce visibility for non-niceness. The holes one can punch is not neat. They are visible as tiny interruptions of straight lines.


Act in sight

The street that houses the institute for state security is always going to be watched. You can count on it. There are camera's, there is security personal, there might be some less visible, less obvious more advanced tools put in place.

And nothing draws more attention to them then acting in a extra-ordinary way. Although that in itself might be an solid activist strategy, it is not one that I apply.

or something that is recognizably unlawful.

It is interesting that once you start working, the act of doing leads to a better understanding of the material, the structure, the building, how it was put up and what it is for. A general conclusion from my first days of harvesting capitalitho crumbs, mid may 2020, was that the buildings I knocked upon where really crappily build. The materials used often look slick, but are not made to touch or impress when looked at from a short distance. As the expression goes: the devil is in the detail. Well joining marble plates with transparent joint kit is not a recipe for urban beauty. Especially in a fine dirt producing city as Brussels. But then again, buildings made to maximise profits for its owners were of course never going to be expensively built.

Links

Capitalithographical methods are a loose continuation of the lived through collective practice of removing the word 'arab' from the sandstone colonial statue in the cinquantenaire park in Brussels

http://westenberg.constantvzw.org/?cat=11


Geographic líthotheques:

https://lithotheque.ac-montpellier.fr/

https://lithotheque.ens-lyon.fr/


Article motivating that capitalism is for the dustbin.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/01/capitalism-excesses-dustbin-history


Beautiful tour guiding visitors through the applications of natural stone that is used in the construction of the museum of natural histories in Brussels. Document in Dutch.

http://biblio.naturalsciences.be/pdf/papers/2012/natuursteen-in-het-museum


Stone stacking destroys habitats:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/17/stone-stacking-instagram-environment-adventure-tourism