Dispute Plan to Prevent Future Luxury Constitution (Sternberg Press / e-flux journal)

Equal parts Borges, Burroughs, Baudrillard and Black Ops, Dispute Plan to Prevent Future Luxury Constitution charts a treacherous landscape of paranoid master plans, failed schemes and dubious histories. Benjamin H. Bratton s kaleidoscopic theory- fiction links utopian fantasies of political violence with equally utopian programs of security and control. Blurring reality and delusion, they collaborate on a literally psy- chotic politics of architecture. The cast of characters include insect urbanists, seditious masquerades, epistolary ideologues, carnivorous installations, branded revolts, im- ploding skyscrapers, sentimental memorials, sacred hijackings, vampire safe-houses, suburban enclaves, big-time proposals, ambient security protocols, disputed borders- of-convenience, empty research campuses, plus much more. In this mosaic we glimpse a future city built with designed violence and the violence of design. As one ratifies the other, the exception becomes the ruler. The tenth title in the E-Flux Journal series. Bratton is associate professor of visual arts and director of The Center for Design and Geopolitics at UC San Diego, whose work in theory spans philosophy, art and design.