A change in military thinking is taking place these very days, in which the military understands that future wars will take place in cities. If in the past symmetrical warfare was conducted by state militaries in the open fields, today militaries are fighting enclaves of resistance that withdraw ever deeper into the density of the urban fabric. ‘Walking through walls’ is the military tactic of tearing down holes in the façades of people’s homes (and the walls between rooms) in order to expand the battle field from the public to the private space.
Transcript of lecture by Eyal Weizman here, essay here.
Simon Starling, ‘Inverted Retrograde Theme, USA (House for a Song bird)’ (2002)
This installation references a housing project in Puerto Rico which was designed by Austrian architect Simon Schmiderer (1911-2001) in the 1960s. Schmiderer developed a series of houses made of building blocks without doors or windows to further integrate the outside and inside spaces, but the rise of crime in the 1970s forced locals to add elaborate barriers onto Schmiderer’s designs. In Inverted Retrograde Theme, USA, Simon Starling recreates two of the existing homes on a smaller scale and inverts them like birdcages; these models sit atop tree trunks that extend from the gallery’s floor.
