Bianchetti_Bodies.-Between-Space-and-Desi_9783868599497

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THE BODY OPEN TO THE WORLD
kinds of “affection” and this increases its power to act. 27 It is the power of the
material finiteness of the body.
How is design related to the dilated body, open to the world of pleasure?
Not in a functionalist manner (the park as a place of loisir), because bodies
are always affected by specific circumstances, and functionalism is unable
to govern specificities (in the words of Gabriele Pasqui, unable to govern
the radical pluralism of life forms). 28 Bodies are the transit of the forces that
pass through them: light, water, fog, breeze, warmth, etc. They are places
of meetings, both good and bad, which thereby either increase or decrease
their power. 29 The world passes through these meetings: Spinoza wrote that
“to preserve itself the body needs a great many other bodies”. 30 A political
dimension echoes in the body that exists together with other human
bodies—but not only with human bodies. A design dimension echoes in the
fact that we live in the city in the encumbrance of our bodies.
The Parisian competition of 1982 was, as mentioned earlier, a gymnasium,
a field of experimentation where a different idea of the body of pleasure
was implemented. Bernard Tschumi 31 believes that pleasure and enjoyment,
too, are expressions of the virus of the informal nourishing the spirit of late
capitalism. Lightness, creativity, flexibility: Huizinga’s homo ludens resurfaces
in the urban scene, bringing with it a concept of freedom that dissolves the
ordinary world.
“First and foremost all play is a voluntary activity. Play to order is no longer
play: it could at best be but a forcible imitation of it. …. The first main
characteristic of play … is in fact freedom. …. Inside the circle of the game
the laws and customs of ordinary life no longer count. We are different and
do things differently.” 32
Productive capitalist logic is jeopardised by the use of play elements. Play el -
ements are superimposed on it like an ornament, and, in the process, denied.
Here too the functionalism of the scenic and narrative units is overcome
in favour of a radicality that introduces the sacredness of another order. 33
Huizinga is softened: his play element is held within the limits of a meagre,
measured time and space. There are no out-of-control parties. Subversive
positions are declared and ultimately incarnate the “new (neoliberalist) spirit
of capitalism”. 34 A reversal that deserves to be emphasised.
Historical and political Italian culture initially ridiculed Huizinga but later
idolatrised him for his free play idea, which became popular again when
bodies, places, and politics were combined into an unusual mix in the