Dear John,

Thank you for your letter and perhaps an opportunity to open up a much needed debate on the increasingly complex ways of corporate control and how we can strive to maintain autonomy and a sharp political edge in our work, as well as an open discussion space.

First, I did enjoy DOORs-8 very much, and for the creative energies that it brought forth. I also very much appreciate the hard work put in by: "..our modestly paid staff colleagues worked 18 hour days for weeks on end. Another success factor in our event was the work, time and enthusiasm of dozens of unpaid student volunteers from Indian colleges and universities...". My posting in the SARAI list, as well as this response does not in any way attempt to de-value those efforts and commitments. I also appreciate your attempt to keep corporate strings to a minimum.

I would still however, like to maintain the importance of atleast two issues: First, as mentioned both in my presentation and also in my Commons Law posting, the effort to map in the 'new war'. The second issue relates to increased and subtler forms of corporate control.

I suspect that what we witness today, reflects increasingly centralized forms of capital and as a way of shaping public opinion and in parallel control new markets, their penetration in the arts, media, and discourse on technological innovation. There are several who focus on the nature of contemporary capital in more effective ways (Chomsky, Souras, Klein, and also Mic Moor), and several on the way these are located in the globalized connections in cities (Sassen).

Let us consider what you may consider to be a useful session event "Mapping Our Hidden Links" for the next DOORs. The DOORs is terrific since it attracts a range of highly creative individuals and groups involved in cutting edge stuff. If so, can such a session focus attention on the sort of 'hidden baggage' that participants may be carrying with them, and explore to what extent these are inter-connected? "Mapping Our Hidden Links" is to map the relatively more hidden financial linkages (institutions, circuits, connections) that fund a particular installation, cases of innovations, experiments, and even urban design initiatives like the Times Square Alliance in NYC. Let us have a group of participants, with the aid of Internet access, 'google' their funders to open up their own links into the wider world: A sort of 'whose connected to whom' in un-packing corporate connections (see for instance, a bibliography on works on corporation
http://www.rrojasdatabank.org/tncsbibl.htm; or http://www.theyrule.net/).

Can the participants in undertaking this task, also reflect on the issue of 'ownership' of products created, of patent regimes as applied to them? Here, perhaps having a group of smart (but also politicized) lawyers may be able to help unpack how these subject the 'creative edge' to new forms of control and ownership. I am sure in undertaking such a mapping, we will also discover counter-narratives, scams that are often hidden under gloss and media hype. This is not just of the big business, but also of its connections to government too. Based on say an hour's exercise, we could use an integrative mapping tool to place the various individual maps to see cross linkages to show up groups that gain and also those that loose out.

Can we take this even one step further? Based on such an interactive exercise, can the participants think about how they might re-frame their installations and approaches to address the newer political realities thy might have realized?

Let me give you a concrete example based on a 5 minute google search that I undertook while lounging in the SARAI's 'contested commons' conference held in Delhi in January 2005. The current head of NASSOM (ex-head of Citi bank), India's main IT voice and pushing for strong anti-piracy measures is also listed as 'one of the ones who got away', and has his full page photograph set in a wonderful book "The SCAM: Who won, who lost, who got away' by Debasis Basu, and Sucheta Dalal (Ken Source, 1993,1994, 2001). Incidentally, he is also the nephew of the head of the country's most well known IT firm, allegedly having bailed out that firm for $200 million in when it faced financial difficulties. On the IPR connection to NASSOM, it's well known that the largest IT firms use IPR to shape power relationships against their smaller competitors, effectively control surpluses and capture markets.

If we look deeper into these connections, we will also discover set within a very close circuit of these same actors, funds to use GIS and E-Governance in re-shaping property regimes that again target among other things, the ability of small firms to innovate and gain political autonomy (the topic of my presentation at the DOORs-8 and also SARAI's Contested Commons). Located in this financial circuits are intuitions that fund media events, installations, and also publishing on women's issues.

To emphasize this point, some insights from Bangalore and a recent visit to Bombay: In both cases, we see their a much larger re-structuring of both economy and politics that create new contestations over space. What we also increasingly find, a congruence of financial institutions and circuits that gain substantial profits from access to cheap land, from reframing regulations (planning, property regimes, and IPR) against small firm clusters, and fund increasing corporate control over basic services like water. The use of IPR, forms of GIS and land titling, and "e-governance" are central tools.

Significantly, and this is my main point, the same institutions also deploy substantial 'un-tied' resources to promote 'art and culture' events (often hiring 'PR firms" to help feature these events in the 'page 3' type of glossy journalism), funds for architects and urban planners to undertake 'conservation', efforts to cultivate the media, and the promotion of elite based 'civil society initiatives'. Not surprisingly, we see, architects and planners involved in protesting housing evictions, also getting grants to do conservation that effectively removes hawkers from the newly beach-fronts, or then small innovative based firm clusters.

The media events, promotion of elite based civil society is very effective in shaping public opinion, and in a sense to 'manufacture consent'. If so, than I suspect, that we will increasingly see forums to discuss technological innovations, 'best practice', have in attendance corporate groups to scout out what's new, and 'fundable'. Art and media has never been neutral, but to emphasize that unless one specifically addresses the new forms of controls that come with funding, and trace out the 'backward and forward' linkages (in the language of economist) one would hardly ever understand the way hidden levers operate.

I hope this response to your open letter has been convincing to point to larger issues of corporate control (rather than any form of a personal attack). The issues are too great of concern to be caught up in triviality. I would very much look forward to more of DOORs, but also as a way to take on this debate and discussion further onto a more political terrain. Specifically an opportunity to draw via a "Mapping Our Hidden Links" the creative congruence of the participants that I have mentioned above.

I appreciate your point that DOORs operates on the bare minimum of corporate funding. My argument is that explicit funding to an event is one aspect, but in today's 'new war', it is the subtler forms that may be more all pervasive.

Cheers
Solly

What Solly Benjamin calls the new war, is in my opinion a very old war and
over time people, movements and communities have found their ways in dealing
with this. In my experience I have learned that the hard fight and the
shaping of life happen at the same time. Also the unveiling of hidden links
and the creation of new work and new links happen at the same time.
Sometimes by the same people, sometimes not. But both elements need each
other as a perspective I think. For good analysis, for keeping an open
environment, for being able to share knowledge and shape life in our
communities, we need open space in my experience. An open space where the
conversation can take place, where the debate can be organized, where
innovations and interventions supported by many people can evolve. I
consider political awareness as one of the functions of such a space.

Politicizing as a goal in itself though, is a dangerous route I have found.
It will exclude your best allies (family, friends and young people), it will
dehumanize other people (in this case people who work for companies), it
will limit the debate within a very short period with the very unproductive
result of being able to say 'he is right and he is wrong" and then the wrong
get excluded and the right can be happy with themselves for being right.
Living in an Amsterdam community, raising children and taking care, this is
not a route I want to support.

The hard work of unveiling the hidden links, of unveiling abuse of power,
has to happen. But in my opinion it should never want to dominate the
debate. It is a partner, like many other peoples perspectives. It should
realize and being honoured for its hard work, and it should know its place.

Doors of Perception is one of the platforms where people meet unexpected
others. Here conversations happen like in very few other places, because
activists and company people partake in a context much broader than the
usual fights that happen as well. Because a variety of perspectives is
present young people can contribute. In a globalized fragmented world this
is utterly valuable. Most people who attend live and work at the edge of
their daily environments. They dare to come out and participate in the
debate. Political activists, company people, artists, teachers, students,
social innovators, philosophers and more. Like we do speed dating at Doors
we can also invent a game in which the complexity of the network will become
more transparent. It will be fun and worthwhile, it can never serve a goal
as to point out who is right and who is wrong. We may find bad trends,
dangerous hidden links, and great opportunity and than we can discuss where
to go from there.

So I strongly belief in the need of open space for conversation between
unexpected others. The 'hidden' links that we all have are part of this
conversation. I appreciate Solly's contribution in pointing out how deeply
connected certain interests may be rooted in our collective (un)conscious.
It is good to discuss and find out about the dilemma's and possible
implications of certain chains of interest. I do think that shaping open
space is one of the ways to learn about, and possibly attack and/or
neutralize such influences. This is why I support Doors.

rather than get into the definations of being 'politisized' and if this should dominate debate or not, I aggree with Caroline the use of playing a small game (that we both refer to, Caroline in her last paragraph): of helping to reveal 'connections'. I quite aggree that pointing out fingers on whos right and wrong is less important. .. lets play on..! perhaps that will help us to return to the issue of being politisized. Perhaps its may show us how spaces 'open and close' and if so, for who.

a debate closed is a debate lost.corporate control over urban space is an inevitability. how does the preexisting culture appropriate the invading affluence?is a space a palimpsest or a pastiche or a tabula rasa?shouldn't the contact problematics be theorised keeping in view the dialectics of space,sir?
Tamal,Jadavpur University,Kolkata