TERRITORIES IN OBSOLESCENCE

Dominika Kopiarova

The theory presented through Territories in Obsolescence revolves around the fascination with obsolescence as an inherent condition of industrial sites. What is argued is a shift away from thinking in terms of active industrial versus obsolete postindustrial. Instead, in understanding the cyclical capitalist patterns of production and abandonment of space, the industrial, the postindustrial, and the future postindustrial correspond to the processes of becoming obsolete, obsolescence, and projected obsolescence, respectively. Concepts and spatial concerns of artists who closely work with – or against – architecture are introduced to contemplate postindustrial sites in their present reality. It is further argued that the notion of proto-ruins renders future industrial and postindustrial interchangeable terms; ergo, to think of the future industrial territories requires us to speculate its postindustrial state already. From this, stems the need for architecture to expand to the notions of proto-architecture.

Keywords: obsolescence, territory, post-/ industrial landscape, entropy, nonsite, nonspace, proto-architecture