A Guide to Infrastructure and Corruption / Special Edition + Signed prints

$350.00

A Guide to Infrastructure and Corruption Limited Edition Hardcover by Alejandro Cartagena
Special Slipcase Edition (w/ 2 Prints) of 50 Copies

“In A Guide to Infrastructure and Corruption, urban infrastructure is a gear of political power. Its aim is to conquer the territory of the city and hold dominion over certain city relationships.
Public space is more than just a polygon delineated by coordinates, it is a factory of social realities. There would be nothing problematic about
this power if it weren’t exclusive. Those who build the city exercise a regulatory power over our mindset and our everyday experience. The
rhythms that regulate our hours, “our place” in society and the type of roads we take on our daily commute are manifestations of this control.” Ximena Peredo

Book concept by Alejandro Cartagena
Design by Éanna de Fréine, Fernando Gallegos and Alejandro Cartagena
Edited by Fernando Gallegos and Alejandro Cartagena
Texts by Ximena Peredo
Prepress by La Troupe
Printed in Taiwan
Published by The Velvet Cell
192 pp / 140 x 210 mm
Hardcover, Tape-Bound
Four Colour Offset

© Alejandro Cartagena for the images
© Ximena Peredo for the texts
© Authors for archive images
© The Velvet Cell for this edition 2017

ISBN 978-1-908889-53-9

1 in stock

  • Description

    A Guide to Infrastructure and Corruption Special Edition Book By Alejandro Cartagena. Edition of 50. Published by the Velvet Cell 2017

    In A Guide to Infrastructure and Corruption S/E, urban infrastructure is a gear of political power. Its aim is to conquer the territory of the city and hold dominion over certain city relationships.
    Public space is more than just a polygon delineated by coordinates, it is a factory of social realities. There would be nothing problematic about
    this power if it weren’t exclusive. Those who build the city exercise a regulatory power over our mindset and our everyday experience. The
    rhythms that regulate our hours, “our place” in society and the type of roads we take on our daily commute are manifestations of this control.

    Behind urban infrastructure are countless relationships of power as well as a certain repertoire of knowledge, speeches, fashion and images
    that tend to justify plunder or destruction. Therefore the overpass and throughway turn out to be the material outcome of coalitions between
    a wide range of ideas, beliefs and relationships, which constitute its true power: they represent the city on the continual path of progress.

    This is how planners, partners and administrators end up making public spaces an ideological issue. Progress is no longer a visual
    representation but a political reality that influences what should or should not take up space in a city. This is an anarchical control – not
    anarchistic – as its order depends on a battle with no rules, in which the winners are those who manage to impose their will and have sufficient
    strength to repel any resistance.

    Ultimately, A Guide to Infrastructure and Corruption S/E lets us see this control will implode because it systematically denies life and memory their rightful place.
    Consequently, those who build the city are the fortunate winners in a cacophonic bidding war. The guidelines are dictated by construction
    companies that will raise the avenue in spite of public opposition. The end results are cities that are ideal for doing business but not for living.

    The affected parties have no choice but to resign themselves to the inevitable or simply to move out. Progress is hard to dispute although it
    erases all reference to proper living; the products are dregs-cities, burrs stuck to the production line.

    More Information about the Author and Studio Cartagena

    Bio CV Works in Collections

    Other books available:  A Guide to Infrastructure and Corruption Special Edition, Special Edition Carpoolers, We Love Our EmployeesSuburbia Mexicana,