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Miloš Kosec

The Bartlebian Act

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»Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance«, says the narrator of the famous short story Bartleby, the Scrivenger, written by Herman Melville in 1853[1]. The source of the narrator’s frustration is Bartleby, the new model employee of his small law office on Wall Street in downtown Manhattan (then as now the cen-tre of business and trade – it is of some importance that the subtitle of the work is A Story of Wall-Street, which clearly places the story in the specific context of a free market economy). Bartleby is the first to arrive in the morning and the last to go in the evening; he is reliable, hardworking and seems a pleasant change over other em-ployees of the firm with their everyday whims which the employer knows all too well. One day, however, when the narrator asks Bartleby to help him compare the original of the document with a copy, which is not his usual task, the new employee utters his famous line for the first time:In contrast to whims and caprices of the other employees

1Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivenger: A Sto-ry of Wall Street, New York: Harper-Collins e-books, 2009, p. 16

»›I would prefer not to.‹ I sat awhile in perfect silence, rallying my stunned faculties. Immediately it occurred to me that my ears had deceived me, or Bartleby had entirely misunderstood my meaning. I repeated my request in the clearest tone I could assume. But in quite as clear a one came the previous reply, ›I would prefer not to.‹›Prefer not to,‹ echoed I, rising in high excitement, and crossing the room with a stride. ›What do you mean? Are you moon-struck? I want you to help me compare this sheet here – take it,‹ and I thrust it towards him. ›I would prefer not to,‹ said he. I looked at him steadfastly. His face was leanly com-posed; his grey eye dimly calm. Not a wrinkle of agitation rippled him. Had there been the least uneasiness, anger, impatience or impertinence in his manner; in other words, had there been any thing ordinarily human about him, doubtless I should have violently dismissed him from the premises. But as it was, I should have as soon thought of turning my pale plaster-of-paris bust of Cicero out of doors. I stood gazing at him awhile, as he went on with his own writing, and then reseated myself at my desk. This is very strange, thought I. What had one best do?«[2]

2Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivenger: A Sto-ry of Wall Street, New York: Harper-Collins e-books, 2009, p. 12–13

which the narrator doesn’t mind as they do not seriously interfere with work, the seemingly passive but flat re-fusal doesn’t leave much space for an efficient response. The employer dismisses the problem for the time being, but soon the replies of »I would prefer not to« become more and more frequent up to the point when Bartleby stops working altogether and begins quietly standing in

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»Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance«,

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a corner of the office, observing a bare courtyard wall. As the other employees become restless and perplexed yet fascinated by the strange behaviour, the narrator fi-nally decides to sack the strange man. This becomes a challenge since it turns out that Bartleby is effectively living and sleeping in the office (which is also the reason for him being always the first to arrive and the last to go). Finally the sympathetic, but sensible narrator pre-fers to relocate his office, thereby forcibly evicting the strange man. Bartleby is sent in prison where confused authorities have put him after the new tenant’s appeals. There he dies after rejecting food for some time. After Bartleby’s death rumours begin to circulate of his previ-ous occupation in the Dead Letter Office, where letters to deceased and unknown recipients are gathered, providing a possible hint for the reason of his unfathomable behav-iour. The narrator concludes the story with the distressed call of sympathy for his former employee with the words »Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!«.

The shock that Bartleby’s behaviour causes in the micro world of the law office seems to stem not so much from his unwillingness to do the narrator’s bidding, but rather from the way this unwillingness is formulated. The reason for Bartleby’s rejection is never given, nor does he give suggestions as to what he would rather do within

Fig. 01  – Palais de Tokyo, © Philippe Ruault

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the law office. The system he is part of doesn’t have an efficient response to this, as it doesn’t expect it such be-haviour is not an anticipated one. The everyday whims of other employees show, in contrast, predictability and are accepted with a certain tolerance, since they are not fundamentally destructive to the system. In effect, they are part of the system, be it the law office or the Wall Street in general. Freedom to choose, even requirement to choose, is the fundament of the free-market societies. Freedom not to choose, however, is not. Bartleby shows that such a stance is disruptive and perhaps even directly destructive to the system. As Mladen Dolar puts it: »Free will as choice is contrary to free will as decision […] Free-dom of choice is ultimately a preference of x over y […] where a random impulse and the view of one’s own com-fort directly opposes the freedom of choice to the free-dom of decision and whim becomes the model of freedom. Freedom of choice then most often becomes freedom of preference or freedom of whim.«[3]

When Bartleby utters his »I would prefer not to«, his refusal is radical to the extreme. He is not creating a negotiating position for himself, which is what the sys-tem would expect and consequently could deal with. In-stead he takes upon him the freedom not to choose at all, which is something nobody accepts or understands. In this he radically steps out of everyday conventions and can be classified only as a loony, as one employee puts it, or alternatively as a criminal – both positions outside the conventional reality. This is also why he ends up inhab-iting a prison, an institution provided precisely for such persons. But can such a radical position lead to fruition? Is the act of not choosing only disruptive, or does it per-haps open a crack where something radically new could spring up?

In 1996 architects Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal got the commission for the reconstruction of the Leon Aucoc square, situated in a working district of Bordeaux. The commission was one of a series of in-tended works meant as embellishments of public areas at the start of the new mayor’s term of office. The square was an unassuming triangular space, an unbuilt area left between the worker’s row-houses. A few old trees grew on its boundaries with cars parked beneath them and a few benches served as its only equipment. Nothing in its

3Mladen Dolar, Pisar Bartleby in njegova pravica, in Bartleby: raje bi, da ne, Ljubljana: Društvo za teoretsko psihoanalizo, ed. Mladen Dolar, 2004, p. 155

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» The system he is part of doesn’t have an efficient response to this, as it doesn’t expect it – such behaviour is not an anticipated one. The everyday whims of other employees show, in contrast, predicta-bility and are accep- ted with a certain tolerance, since they are not fundamental-ly destructive to the system.«

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design or equipment revealed any architectural or artis-tic ambition. After a number of visits to the location, the question of what to do with the space slowly began to an-swer itself. The existing square seemed to fulfil the needs of the locals perfectly – it was a place of socialising for elderly, a playground for children and a well function-ing community space. The architects couldn’t see what would be gained with an architectural intervention or embellishment of the existing place, so they preferred a controversial proposal consisting solely of maintenance instructions for the trees, the paving and the benches. In other words – the only architectural invention of Lac-aton & Vassal consisted of recognizing the existing as something not needing any improvements.

At first such an act seems to be most radical from the architects’ point of view. The prevailing belief that everything can always be made better and that architects should regard any restrictions or difficulties as a chal-lenge that would boost their creativity clashes with the passive stance of a contemplative architect. The square, which remains physically exactly the same as it was, is nevertheless profoundly changed by the architects’ act. It is transformed from a space of supposedly infinite num-ber of future possibilities and potentials into a place that consciously gives up these potentials. This enables the inhabitation of the space as it is.

Lacaton & Vassal’s architectural statement of »I would prefer not to« here becomes violent in the ex-treme; however, the violence is not directed towards the residents of the square. Rather it is a radical act aimed towards the conventional architectural practice, but also

» In other words – the only architectural invention of Lacaton & Vassal consisted of recognizing the existing as something not needing any improvements.«

Fig. 02  –  Place Léon Aucoc, © lacaton & vassal, architectes

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towards the conventional socio-economic relations and the freedom of choice concept. If we were to draw a par-allel with Melville’s short story, then whims of the office employees would represent the conventional creative ar-chitectural proposals, which together with the ordained freedom of choice conform perfectly into the existing or-der of things. Bartleby’s flat refusal to participate, on the other hand, would resound in Lacaton & Vassal’s decision of not to choose.

Bartleby is not Melville’s only character who in-habits a world outside the conventions of society. In a curiously titled novel Pierre: or, the Ambiguities the main character, Pierre, born into a privileged gentry family of upstate New York, decides to move to New York City af-ter the shocking disclosures of his father’s secret private life. There he pursues a bohemian lifestyle in the former Church of the Apostles, now converted to cheap flats for artists. Pierre’s ultimate professional and private failure reaches its climax as he murders his cousin and thereafter commits suicide in jail (incidentally the same jail where Bartleby met his end), the infamous and long since de-molished The Tombs in downtown New York.

A second possible parallel could be drawn between Melville’s and Lacaton & Vassal’s work in the renovation of Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2002), a huge 1930’s Art Deco palace converted into a contemporary art museum. The project was originally meant as an ambitious 50-mil-lion-euro renovation, but after financial difficulties it drew to a halt and an improvised competition was called for with the smallest possible budget. Lacaton & Vassal won this with a proposal that consisted simply of clearing the building of all superfluous elements and equipping it with the technical installations and equipment needed for a normal functioning art gallery. The result, a three-mil-lion renovation that added only a basic infrastructure to the half-finished, half-ruined building, is something close to an inhabited ruin. The need for the creative architect is discarded; instead of the supposed added value of design a simple infrastructural intervention is sufficient. And the place functions perfectly. But the strict budgeting is not the architectural invention here; as in the case of Leon Aucoc square, the acknowledgement of the building as it exists becomes the radical act. The bohemian abodes in Melville’s half-ruined Church of the Apostles seem to

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resonate in the artistic occupation of the Parisian build-ing. The connection becomes even stronger when com-paring the Palais de Tokyo with the Pierre’s residence in Leos Carax’s 1999 film adaptation of the novel, Pola X. The setting, which is transported to contemporary Paris, takes place predominantly in an industrial ruin inhab-ited by criminals, drug addicts, immigrant workers and alternative music bands, picturing a modern version of marginalised groups, left out of the mainstream economy and society. The visual and also the conceptual similarity between Palais de Tokyo and Carax’s Church of the Apos-tles is striking.

The prison and church that Melville’s peculiar characters inhabit by charge or choice – are excluded from conventional reality as much as their residents. They are either specifically created for such a purpose as society’s coercive institutions or become suitable for such through neglect and consequent withdrawal from conventional socio-economic relations. There seems to be an inherent subversive spirit in such structures, whether they are called ruins, urban voids, slums or wastelands. These contain a certain order within them-selves and differ fundamentally from other structures in being unplanned in their present form. Ruins are not so much created as they are left abandoned. Abandonment is their only connection to the conventional world, their only act of creation. They are in a way an unconscious part of architecture, which is perhaps also why they can reveal so much about architecture, but also about society as a whole.

But what precisely is that which gives Bartleby’s famous sentence its radical power? And what precisely is the radicalness of Lacaton & Vassal’s architectural derivate of this »I would prefer not to«? Bartleby seems to share some similarities with the other famous liter-ary character of the proto-existentialist literature, Kaf-ka’s K. but there is a fundamental difference between them. While they are both seemingly passive individ-uals in an active world, K. is a conventional character caught in an unconventional world, while Bartleby is an unconventional character in a conventional world. From this point of view, Bartleby’s passiveness becomes an active revolutionising force, while K.’s passiveness doesn’t change his reality at all. Bartleby impacts his

» Ruins are not so much created as they are left abandoned. Abandonment is their only connection to the conventional world, their only act of crea-tion. They are in a way an unconscious part of architecture, which is perhaps also why they can reveal so much about architec-ture, but also about society as a whole.«

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surroundings, albeit with tragic consequences for himself, whereas K. presents his position only as a symptom or an allegory of his world.

Slavoj Žižek writes about pseudo-activity of con-temporary reality, observing that from the viewpoint of the system any activity is desirable to inactivity. Even the most critical stances can be incorporated into the exist-ing system without any harm done, as the frequent usage of rebellious imagery in the service of mass consumer-ism shows so well. The infinite adaptability of the pres-ent socio-economic system to any political and economic crisis and the lack of real alternatives outside the already known options serve as an example on an altogether dif-ferent scale. Therefore, concludes Žižek: »Better to do nothing than to engage in localized acts whose ultimate function is to make the system run more smoothly. The threat today is not passivity, but pseudo-activity, the urge to be active, to participate, to mask the Nothing-ness of what goes on. People intervene all the time, doing something; academics participate in meaningless debates, etc.; but the truly difficult thing is to step back, to with-draw from it all. Those in power often prefer even criti-cal participation or a critical dialogue to silence, since to engage us in such a dialogue ensures that our ominous passivity is broken«[4].

In this light Bartleby’s refusal to act becomes the most radical possible gesture »The Bartleby act is vio-lent precisely as it entails refusal of this obsessive activ-ity – in it, not only do violence and non-violence overlap (non-violence appears as the highest violence), so do act and inactivity as well (here the most radical act is to do nothing)«[5].

When applying this stance to architecture the conventional architectural innovations turn out to be precisely the pseudo-activities that are necessary for the functioning of any product on the market. Even the most radical new ideas can be incorporated as just an-other choice on the market. The Bartlebian decision of not choosing at all, however, cannot be incorporated, since it ignores the only binding element of the different options on the market, the glue of the market economy, namely the freedom of choice on the market. The Bartle-bian sentence seems to be unterminated, as if it would ex-pect a completion. The stance of »I would prefer not to«

» Even the most radical new ideas can be incorporated as just another choice on the market.«

5Slavoj Žižek, Living in the End Times, New York: Verso, 2010, p. 401

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4Slavoj Žižek,Violence, New York: Picador, 2008, p. 216–217

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can be translated literally, as in »I would prefer not to do anything«, as in the Leon Aucoc square, where the inno-vation is the recognition of sufficiency of the existing. It can, however, also be understood as a more active stance of »I would prefer not to play the game«, the supply-and-demand-in-a-free-market game.

The architectural innovation in the case of Palais de Tokyo doesn’t exclude an active intervention. In dis-carding the illusion of choice and ignoring the supposedly infinite potentials of the building with architecture as a medium, conditions are created for inhabiting the place as it is – that is, without any projections of its supposed future. In such a way the innovation is placed outside of the standard economic expectations. Squatting comes to mind as a relatively frequent practice of such inhab-itation. There is a thin line, however, between a whim and a radical emancipatory practice. The act of squatting, when confined to a certain subculture, fashion or phase, can become merely a formalised whim, one of the many seemingly rebellious safety outlets of the system. Only when becoming the norm or the mainstream position it can really affect the system and ceases to be just one of the choices. In such a way it may transform from a caprice to a conscious decision.

To inhabit a ruin or any kind of an existing place, a space-as-it-is as opposed to a space-as-it-could-become, means to discard the illusion of choice inherent in a con-ventional architectural work. The decision not to choose from seemingly infinitive future possibilities of a building means to inhabit the world as it is. Such a world is already inhabited in places left out of the mainstream progress and production, where market economy leaves its mark in creating and sustaining the necessary stock of cheap labour and below average standard of living.

Slums and former industrial areas like Detroit, emptied by the relocations of companies to countries with cheaper workforce, serve as examples. These ruins are inventions of the market economy, where leftovers and stocked goods or, in other words, shortage and abun-dance are vital to manipulate supply and demand. In this sense, the contemporary fascination with ruins is indivis-ible from the concussions of the post-industrial realities. The emptied and decaying spaces are the only tangible evidences left of the ever more abstract and sophisticated

» In this sense, the con-temporary fascination with ruins is indivisi-ble from the concus-sions of the post-in-dustrial realities. The emptied and decaying spaces are the only tangible evidences left of the ever more abstract and sophisti-cated flow of capital.«

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flow of capital. This is a possible reason for the newly discovered ruin aura that manifests in the ever growing number of articles, internet blogs and photographic ex-hibitions with a common theme of beautiful decay. An almost standardized canon of such decaying places has emerged, counting among its members ruins of Detroit, decaying Bulgarian Communist Party’s Buzludzha mon-ument and the Olympic bobsleigh track in Sarajevo. A parallel to the standard 18 th century Italian Grand tour itinerary could almost be recognised.

The Bartlebian act, on the contrary, tries not to fetishize the existing fascination. Rather, in inhabiting the spaces left out of the potentiality for habitation it tries to realise the seemingly only possible subversive act left to the architect. The system, which finds its sta-bility precisely in the constant overturning of the exist-ing and which can without any difficulty incorporate any alternative as just another choice in the free market of ideas, can only be questioned in the areas it leaves out of the mainstream’s social and economic convulsions. This is not thinking out of the box, since conventional inno-vations only enable the box to grow bigger and encom-pass more and more alternatives. But rather not thinking about the box at all, since its goal is not formal innovation in itself, but rather a straightforward fulfilment of a basic need outside the medium of supply and demand, namely the habitation.

One final remark is required. A certain tendency of aestheticization of industrial and other ruins, which includes their incorporation in shopping malls and simi-lar structures is long since evident. This tendency can be traced approximately to the time of decline in Western industrial production and its relocation to developing countries. Such fetishized ruins have more in common with the fake ruins of aristocratic parks of the 18 th cen-tury than with the authentic ruins as signs of progress through destruction.

There is always the danger of imitation of form, which (intentionally or unintentionally) misses the point of the discussed architectural projects, whose radical-ism is contained in consistent thought-experimentation rather than in appearance. This danger is real, for it is possible to mimic even the lack of form. »Hence our bitter suspicion is formulated: the absolute rejection of style

» There is always the danger of imitation of form, [...] This danger is real, for it is possi-ble to mimic even the lack of form.«

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» This is not thinking out of the box,[...]. But rather not think-ing about the box at all,…«

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becomes style«, says Adorno in his lecture on function-alism to members of the Deutscher Werkbund in 1965[6]. For example, trying to mimic the formal qualities of Laca-ton & Vassal’s projects would certainly not guarantee the presence of their radical component.

Contemporary fascination with ruins can there-fore go in two different directions. It can develop a mod-ern form of Ruinenlust, formalised in the fragmentation of appearance and representation. Or it can try to un-derstand and contemplate the reasons behind the newly revived fascination. Only the latter position holds the po-tential of finding new ways of acting progressively in ar-chitecture without revolving in circles of post-industrial, pseudo-active creative industries and design inventions. A consistent instability of the form of architectural in-vention seems to be its tool.

6Theodor W. Adorno, Functionalism To-day, in: Rethinking Architecture, ed. Neil Leach, London: Routledge, 1997, p. 10