Ratting, Dwelling, Thinking -or- Being and the Art of Motorcycle Ratting

Disclaimer - I am not a biker. I do not own a bike, I cannot ride a bike. I struggle on a pushbike. These are the ill-informed views of an outsider looking in.

Five months ago I was approached by a group of motorcycle enthusiasts, the N.I.Rats, to make a documentary about them. This was about the height of the brief. There was no clear agenda in the form of a point that needed to be made, or clear arc in terms of a storyline to be relayed; just a passion and energy for what it was they were interested in - Ratbikes. On the face of it a strange fit for an architect and PhD student, but as things progressed the ideas coalesced and began to work together - something it might become easy to over-intellectualise (I'll be doing that shortly), but probably simply deriving from a group of passionate people who decide to do something together and who have clear ideas for how they believe things should and could be, but are non-fundamentalist in their approaches. The film rolled onwards, eventually becoming the 40 minute long piece 'Rat's Tales' which premiered at Culture Night Belfast, 2015, and will continue to develop for at least the next year.

Now for the clumsy over-intellectualising.

The set of theories I have been working with are beginning to point towards an explanation of how we reach an understanding of the raw phenomena received by our senses, suggesting that we never have any access to either 'reality' or 'truth,' but only ever our own interpretations and viewpoints which we chose to adopt as 'reality' and 'truth.' However, while always being attracted to Martin Heidegger's theory of Dwelling from which these ideas (and the title of this post) derive, I have always been skeptical of social constructionism, which these ideas can quite easily develop into. This is when we can move forward into Mythogeography.

Fonzy's 'Tramp Pot'

Phil Smith's set of theories allows us to understand that, when we are constructing our own reality we are making use of an all too easily-accessible set of myths, ready-made explanations and interpretations for phenomena - 'scripts' for how to act, interact and dwell when we perceive them. This is a game which the post-modernists became aware of, but where they give the playing of these games a privileged position, Mythogeography removes it by showing how we are all unavoidably doing it, all the time. To be aware of this isn't enough - to be aware of when it is appropriate to take part or to deviate from these social scripts is the real trick.

Bop's 'Spawn of Satan'

The culture of Ratbikes serves as an illustration of these ideas. Initially, Ratbikes appear to be an aesthetic choice. There is a distinct post-industrial look to many of the bikes, as illustrated by the link to the Mad Max film series - rusted machines of urban warfare, rife with militaristic machismo and the cliched 'heavy-metal thunder' mythology of Easyrider and Steppenwolf. When interrogated, however, Ratbikes emerge as a practical necessity for many Ratters - the need to keep the thing running in order to get from A to B, the basis of Heidegger's notion of building in order to successfully dwell, as Aaron and Tom explain in the film.

• AARON "A true Ratbike is years upon years of fixing absolutely everything possible with nothing that fits, making..."
• TOM "...making it work..."
• AARON "Aye, making it work. If one hammer doesn't work, get a bigger hammer. You know, if a spanner doesn't work, cut it. Do whatever you want to it..."
• TOM "...use whatever parts you can find. Cut, weld, staple, bolt..."
• AARON "That's a tre Rat like..."

It is clear that initially this isn't a choice at all. Eugene explains "I think everybody who was a real biker had a Ratbike at some stage, whether they knew it or not. Everybody cobbled together what they could. We didn't always have money," something which is made clear by the story, as related by Gareth 'Eazyrider' Tuff, of Fonzy's first Ratbike. "He ended up with his 400 bandit. It never ran right. It was held together with tape, cable ties...I can't remember how many times it broke down. But I think that's where part of it started for Afonso, was keeping that bike alive."

The aesthetic of the Rat, therefore, is the result of the creative problem-solving of it's owner who is unable to rely on the conventional means of motorcycle maintenance. The act of painting the bike matte-black, initially intended to cover up the fact that the vehicle has been ratted, has now become subverted to be a source of pride - a way of drawing attention to the fact that it is a Ratbike. This becomes the point of departure when the elemental act of building and dwelling begins to intermingle with the mythology of the Ratbike.

Bop's 'Spawn of Satan'

There are, very broadly speaking, three dominating Ratbike mythologies. The first, and perhaps original, is the militaristic survival Rat - deriving largely from the military vehicles of the second world war. The military vehicle would be tough, rugged, abused and, subsequently, bodged and cludged in-the-field and on-the-move to keep running. The owners of such bikes relied on them to keep them alive, and probably, as Eugene suggests, didn't think of them as Rats. There is a romantic truth about these bikes - potential 'pure rats' - the spirit of which Ratbike owners seek, and do so by augmenting their vehicles with Iron Crosses, guns, bullets, knives, saddle bags and even bullet-holes. Secondly, there is the angry-hippy Rat, inspired largely from the distortion of 1960s Americana, Ratfink hotrod and hippy culture which occurred in the early 1970s and is probably typified by the notorious involvement of the Hell's Angels with Woodstock '70, the perceived death of the Summer of Love. These are aestheticised vehicles, with a vicious and sardonic sense of humour, often daubed with politicised slogans and icons, ranging from the crudely drawn to the elaborate professional paint-job - subversive, witty and mean. Finally, we have the fantasy Rat, highly aestheticised apocalyptic vehicles inspired largely by the Mad Max franchise. These can be viewed as a subtle blend of the previous two, a fantasied version of the 'true' survivalist Rat, with the humour of the angry-hippy less the cynicism.

Eugene's 'Blitzkrieg'

These broad mythologies come complete with their own set of iconographic modes-of-Ratting. As the Ratter spirals gradually away from the 'true' rat (as, for example, they learn more about keeping bikes running from others or improve their financial position making Ratting less necessity and more choice) they make a complex set of decisions, largely reflexive and automatic - driven not only by the mythologies but also that original 'pure' practicality of keeping the thing running. So when, for example, Eugene suggests that everything on his Blitzkrieg trike has a use, it most certainly does, but the gearstick does not necessarily need to be made out of a .45 pistol, nor the pedals drilled-out rubber bullets. The decision has been made to aestheticise the trike as a militaristic survival rat. The mythological script is there and it is followed automatically.

Bop's 'Spawn of Satan'

That being said, this may sound like an accusation of lack of imagination. On the contrary, the bed of Ratting culture, that idea of keeping the thing running at every cost besides the financial, ensures that creativity is at it's very root. Eugene's trike is seen as a successful Rat because it adheres to the script, playing the game so-to-speak, but does so in a surprising and novel way. There is no other vehicle like Blitzkrieg, it is the unique product of Eugene's unique set of decisions, both practical and aesthetic, which will never reflexively occur again.

Eugene's 'Blitzkrieg'

Lastly, we come to the idea of the Ratbike as a piece of equipment, but not, like other things which help us achieve our projects and goals throughout the day, a static object. The Ratbike adapts and evolves as it's user's needs change. This, as with the 'pure' Ratbikes born out of extreme situations or financial constraints, may be strictly practical. If the bike breaks down, it needs to be physically changed in order to get it running. But, again as we move towards aesthetics, the Ratter's relationship with or understanding of the mythology might slip - their politics or tastes may change and with them, the bike. The equipment is therefore an extension, not only of the body, but the personality - or rather an idealised and mythologised version - of the Ratter, things constantly in flux and never fixed.

The dualist nature of body and mind collapse in the realisation of the Ratbike - a singular object of necessity and political action.

A Research Proposal

I'm sure some of you have wondered what the hell most of what I discuss has to do with architecture or, or indeed how I can reconcile the architectural thinking with this nonsense. Well...here we go...

The following is a report on what I hope to accomplish. More in depth material to follow.

Introduction - Context

The question ‘What is Architecture’ has never really been adequately answered, at least not in the contemporary era. The answer ‘Architecture is a social art’ comes pretty close in my opinion. This phrase, however, raises yet more questions, asking us to delve into what the word ‘social’ really means. It was this line of thinking which lead me to write ‘The Destruction of Architecture’ as my MArch dissertation, bringing me into contact with the work of Martin Heidegger and the new field of Social Neuroscience.

This gathering of ideas has allowed me to interrogate my own feelings and intentions as a designer. Being able to interrogate the sociology of the client or prospective users of the design enables the production of a more precise design brief. Additionally, having an awareness of my  own attitudes towards a client or possible user allows me to adjust these feelings should they be unbalanced. 

It is my intention to develop these ideas into a cohesive multi-disciplinary model which can be used to critique acts-of-design. As it has enabled me to become more aware of my motivations and prejudices (latent or otherwise) I believe it could be used to investigate the motivations and prejudices of other designers. In short, I would like to develop a model of ‘reflexive design.’

When I began to expand the model I realised that the smaller the piece of deign the more nuanced it’s social properties. On the other hand, the larger the piece of design, and the more diverse social groups who use/interact with it, the more explicit the social effects should become. It was this, along with a pre-existing interest, which lead me to a critique of urban planning in the city of Belfast. 

As a city which can be perceived as divided, conciliated, ripe for regeneration, or a cultural battleground, Belfast is a city of multiple spatial interpretations and should therefore provide a fascinating testing ground for this new sociological model.

Methodology (Aims and Objectives)

Develop Model

The model is still in a relatively basic form. In order to develop it further I propose an extensive lit. review and interpretation of ideas. There is a significant amount of literature on sociology and philosophy and it’s application to architecture/urbanism, not to mention the emerging field of Social Neuroscience which few design theorists have considered.

Apply Model - Belfast’s Planning ‘Habitus’

Once the model has been further developed I then propose to investigate planning in Belfast. These issues have interested me for several years now, first being brought to my attention when taking part in the first Forum for Alternative Belfast summer school. It became clear to me then that Belfast’s urban and social problems haven’t all been caused by ‘The Troubles.’

The model could be used to interrogate the intentions of Belfast’s planners, both past and present. I propose a literature review on Belfast's planning history which could then be developed into a speculative ‘Reflexive history.’ I then propose to carry out a series of interviews and critiques of planning maps to delve into Belfast’s ‘Planning Habitus.’

Test Model - Belfast Urban Analysis

I should now be able to define a series of study areas based on planning decisions and intentions past and present. Once defined I can  select an ‘Alternative Habitus’ within these areas, one which is embedded in the lived experience of the area.

A methodology for interrogating this Habitus will need to be developed based upon the context of the Habitus itself. This mapping of the ‘Alternative Habitus’ can then be compared with the ‘Planning Habitus’ and conclusions can be drawn. I will then return to the theoretical model and appraise it based on these conclusions.

The Model So Far

This model is based upon the rejection of post-enlightenment metaphysics and the idea that the subjectivity of the mind conforms to the objectivity of reality. It suggests that we can never be said to know objective reality, but that we conform to a socialised interpretation of it. The following terms are key to the model.

Value can be attributed to anything which stimulates the human senses; a product of human homeostasis.

Use-value can be attributed to anything that directs our action on the world; an awareness of a human want or need.

Phenomena possesses both value and use-value.

Projects comprise of linked together phenomena and are aimed toward the satisfaction of the identified want or need.

Exchange-value is a communicable use-value; something which identifies the want or need of more than one person.

Commodities possess value, use-vale and exchange-value. They are socialised phenomena.

Habitus is comprised of commodified sets of projects, the Platonic way-of-being of a collection of people achieved through an agreement reached using social discourse.

Cultural-capital is achieved by subscribers to a Habitus who perform or act within the Habitual guidelines in an exemplary fashion.

Political discourse occurs when two or more Habitual constructs occupy the same space enabling more than one way-of-being to exist simultaneously utilising conflict or compromise.

Mapping

Recent research into the philosophical underpinnings of mapping reinforces the reflexive model outlined above. Long regarded as the objective representation of space, the underlying philosophy and sociology of cartography has been challenged by the interdisciplinary field of social geography over the past decade and mapping is now acknowledged as being closely related to the metaphysical conception of space and territoriality.

Maps, in the traditional Cartesian view, are accurate representations of objective reality. To use Heidegger’s description of the enlightenment model, if our relationship with the world is similar to that of water being inside the glass then mapping attempts to describe the glass which contains us. However, using our reflexive model we can now describe the production of a map as the commodification of a spatial understanding. In the introduction to the volume ‘Mappings,’ Denis Cosgrove describes this as the move from an objective view of mapping to “an opaque view...which takes account of the selections, omissions, additions and inescapable contextual influences which shape the outcome of such transfers.”

Maps, then, can be described as a representation of the spatiality of the Habitus to which the cartographer acts as agent.

Mapping and Territory

One of the primary reasons for maps appears to be demarcation of territory, often achieved through an agreement resulting from political discourse between two or more Habitual constructs. Demarcation of territory also manifests as a dominant Habitus exerting power over another Habitus and enforcing a particular conception of spatiality. The mystification of mapping as an objective representation of space has meant that most of the time this enforcement goes unchallenged.

This territoriality, agreed or enforced, is then represented on the map. In the lived experience of the space, however, territoriality appears more fluid. Boundaries are often arranged around commodified elements of landscape which have a use-value and exchange-value related to material or strategic resources. These social and political values are rarely manifested in physical space. We may be able to perceive a hill, river or vein of precious metal, but unless we are privy to specific social, political or economic languages we cannot relate the physical world to the social construct of the boundary, and different Habitual constructs will imbue these elements with different values.

Mapping only refers to the politicisation of territory. This negotiation is carried out on a daily basis within the city as people, as agents of a given Habitus, build and dwell in the Heideggerian sense. Belfast, as a conflicted city, forces this more nuanced social discourse into political discourse manifesting itself in tribal symbolism to signify territories not represented on any official map of the city. This language of symbols can be viewed as a sort of 1:1 mapping of the city, a representation of the city overlaid onto the city itself.

This sectarian manifestation of territoriality is an extreme example, however. The city is awash with Habitual symbols and indicators. No one person is voiced in them all, but the languages are writ-large in the city fabric for those who can read them.

Mapping allows us to re-present (as opposed to represent) the city, but as active agents within the space of the city we are constantly doing this ourselves as we build and dwell as part of Habitual groups. The re-presentation of the city has as much an effect on the space as the space has on it.

Dwelling and Habitus - Unifying the objective and subjective

The following paragraphs and diagrams are my first tentative steps toward a (hopefully) unified architectural sociology and a way forward into my research. The more I read about Pierre Bourdieu the more I see how I have misunderstood some of his terms (most notably that of 'the field') and unwittingly appropriated them for my own means. Now I am aware of this I can either embrace his definitions or accept them as a jumping off point for my own theorising.

The work of Heidegger has influenced architects since his work directly addressed architecture in the early 1950s. His description of subjectivity, I believe, is what has led to the nihilist stance of many of the postmodern designers of the 1970s and 80s. The ideas of ‘unplan’ and ‘equipotential space,’ while intriguing, have not helped us better understand how to design for a heterogenous society.

Sociologists have noted this trend within their own field, referring to this subjectivity as ‘reflexivity.’ Alternatively, sociologist Pierre Bourdieu developed the model of ‘Habitus’ to deal with how human beings subscribe to notions of collectivity and society. Recently, sociology has been attempting to deal with these two distinct models. It is becoming clear that a process of hybridisation is required to create a more complete, and ultimately more helpful, model of humans and society.

Dwelling

The individual’s (Dasein) world is comprised of projects which are made up of things, as distinguished from mere objects as they are defined and understood through use and their relationship to other things. These things are utilised by Dasein subjectively and of the moment, using them as she/he sees fit within a given project/context. Projects allow Dasein to shape his/her world, this shaping is referred to as ‘dwelling.’

Habitus

The Habitus is a set of scripts (or habits) which are employed my Dasein as templates for projects. Dasein subscribes to several Habituses and as he/she goes about dwelling she/he will refer to the relevant Habitus to dwell in the ‘correct’ (efficient, moral, ethical) way. Habitus, then, can be said to be made up of a pantheon of Platonic projects we refer to as practices.

Dwelling and Habitus

On one hand there is the Habitus, a deterministic model of ‘how to act’; on the other hand there is Dwelling, a model of free-will and endless interpretation. Habitus is employed unconsciously and ensures that each new project encountered, Dasein has a precedent, a guide to doing things ‘correctly.’ Dwelling enables this model to be questioned, challenged and employed/adjusted creatively. Sociologists refer to this creative process as ‘reflexivity.’

Dwelling, Habitus and the Field

There is however, another factor to consider, that of the ‘field.’ The field refers to the external environment and the limits of possibility contained within it. Dasein has an ability to expand their world through reflexivity, however, this can only occur within the limits of the field. Reflexivity, therefore, is an ability to express a desire beyond the world as opposed to actually achieving it. 

Dwelling, Habitus, the Field and Power

Problems arise between different Habituses when two or more conflicting Habituses manifest themselves within the same spatiality. This will either lead to compromise or conflict. Conflict tends to create a sense of hubris and excessive defensiveness in each Habitus, causing the practices within it to become dogmas.

The constraints of the field will inevitably lead to one Habitus being able to control the field, or at least the position of individuals and other Habituses within the field, determining the reflexive mobility of others, usually to maintain their own status quo and increase their own power.

Dwelling, Habitus, the Field and Power in Belfast

I propose a mapping of the city centre examining the different Habituses at work. This would entail an initial mapping of the ‘obvious’ structures of Belfast; tribalism, memorialism, adjusted infrastructure, ‘gentrification’/’urban renaissance’ and demography. 

Using this as a tool and the social/mind model described above I hope to develop a more complex mapping of Belfast’s dominating and dominated Habituses and modes of dwelling to understand how they impact on each other, physical planning and life within the city.