Schizo Infrastructure

Using Deleuze & Guattari’s concept of the Schizo-Subject as a starting point for research into patterns of living in Brazil’s Favelas, ‘Schizo-Infrastructure’ experiments with exposing new possibilities of living, emancipating inherent instincts and desires from the confines of capitalist preconceptions.

My exposure to political philosophy drove me to speculate on society’s condition, prompting an architectural experimentation with a touch of rebellion. I was excited to propose an integration of creative and expressive human behaviour into repetitive capitalist processes. With a synthesis between sedentary Capitalist modes of living and thinking with the more creative and ad-hoc survival tactics emerging from informal settlements, I proposed the reconfiguration of port-side infrastructure in the state of Rio de Janeiro, attempting to dismantle preconceptions of the way we use city structures and interact with our immediate environment. This particular concept originated with a deep interest in radical art movements; in this case the Dadaists, Surrealists and the Beats Generation. Their practices often involved taking familiar objects into new contexts or configurations to make provocative statements about society and its constructs. These ideas left me with the intriguing challenge of taking a familiar urban structure and turning it into something surreal or dysfunctional. The result which emerged was a reconfigured bridge, scanning and probing its environment, and facilitating an editable and inhabitable free-zone of self-expression which interacts with existing ‘formal’ infrastructure on the site. A surreal bridge challenging normative perceptions of urban inhabitation, provides a speculative opportunity to integrate into the formal city the ‘periphery culture’ which has been sidelined by capitalism, and which despite a reputation for violence, ultimately survives due to human cooperation, creativity and ad-hoc negotiation. The project was extremely challenging conceptually, however the idea of proposing a ‘concrete’ representation of ground-breaking political philosophy which is often overlooked was greatly appealing, and greatly enjoyable.