Ranciere

It's a community of sense, as Ranciere expresses it, which operates on three levels.

Vince Carducci: Aesthetic Community in Detroit Vince Carducci 2011

Other aspects point to the second level of Ranciere's concept, for example, the flat cutout images of New York taxis spread around the project, serving the needs of a public that isn't there but could be if the environment were different.

Vince Carducci: Aesthetic Community in Detroit Vince Carducci 2011

It's a sensibility, according Ranciere, which aesthetics shares with politics.

Vince Carducci: Aesthetic Community in Detroit Vince Carducci 2011

Like Talking Fence, Edible Hut is intended to create a space of identity and inclusion, things Ranciere has identified as political aspects of aesthetic community.

Vince Carducci: Aesthetic Community in Detroit Vince Carducci 2011

Its essence, he writes in "Ten Theses on Politics," is to make manifest the disjuncture between the state as a site of power and politics as a field of action -- a field Ranciere calls "democracy," the space created of, by, and for the rule of the people and their claim to legitimacy, regardless of station.

Vince Carducci: Aesthetic Community in Detroit Vince Carducci 2011

The designation "Power House" has two connotations: as an experiment in energy self-sufficiency through its use of sustainable solar and wind technology, and as a dream space of aesthetic community, specifically, as a model for democratic action in Ranciere's sense.

Vince Carducci: Aesthetic Community in Detroit Vince Carducci 2011

Intellectuals praised the life of the laborer to the extent that Ranciere refers to Victor Hugo's praise for the “words of a worker” as “exclusion by homage”, a celebration that separates rather than treating laborers as co-equals.

Global Voices in English » Harvard Forum: Markets, Mobiles and the ability to make culture 2009

The paper refers to a visit by French philosopher Jacques Ranciere to a set of cybermohallahs, “cyber-neighborhoods” create in Indian cities to provide opportunity and access to the poor.

Global Voices in English » Harvard Forum: Markets, Mobiles and the ability to make culture 2009

Ranciere has written about the fascination French intellectuals of the 19th century had with laborers.

Global Voices in English » Harvard Forum: Markets, Mobiles and the ability to make culture 2009

For Ranciere, "the essential work of politics is the configuration of its own space."

Vince Carducci: Aesthetic Community in Detroit Vince Carducci 2011