approaches

After a while of being caught up in "What is squatting? a subculture or counter-culture or neither" I'm just moving on.

At this point, I'm sticking with "What is the aesthetics of the squatting subculture?" I'll start out with taking squatting as a subculture, and in my conclusion, come back to this framework and address the issue of whether of not my research supports squatting as subculture, or if this is an area of further opportunity.

I was planning to look at traces and environmental behavior, focusing on interior decor. I just found this framework credited to philosopher Marx Wartofsky.

The article I found (the above) from: Díaz-Kommonen, L. et al (2004) Expressive artifacts and artifacts of expression. Working Papers in Art and Design 3. ISSN 1466-4917

This seems like another way of saying (framing?) what I'm trying to do- constructing meanings of what secondary and tertiary artifact, from the primary artifact, says to squatting, (like Ragin's construction of images.) ...Thoughts?

Online Manifestation

To figure out how youtube and blogs work, I'll start out with a couple videos that pretty much explain what squatting is and how it works.

This first one is by youtube user TashPhoto.



This second one is by journalist Julia Dimon.




This site lists various squat bars and restaurants.

[squat!net] is "an international internet magazine with main focus on squatted houses, car sites and other free spaces." It doesn't just focus on Amsterdam, but it seems up to date.

ASCII is an organization that uses squatted spaces for their HQ, located in Amsterdam, and for workshops they host.

Well-known squat restaurant: De Peper. I definitely want to eat here sometime. They also do other various events.

OT301 is a squat venue that hosts performances and film screenings, amongst other events. They happen to have their own youtube station here.


The more I read about squatting, the more attached to this topic I get. Research directions I might want to go in:
-How is a space transformed once it is squatted? I want to see if having squatters "tidies up" the space, or if having squatters results in the place getting trashed.

-How do squatted spaces become a center of culture? I would want to study how squat cafes/restaurant/venues breed a culture within itself, but also contributes to the large squat culture. Furthermore, shared squatted living spaces also seem to contribute to the larger squat culture, and it seems like an interesting intersection to study.