Figurar: A HumanNo

Abstract: Proposal of a new dérive, el figurar, a kinetic holistic practice of insubordination and praise of impermanence, the unknown and all the possibilities beyond sociopolitical, cultural and historical constructions. Figurar is the drift that accompanies those humans who not necessarily refuse established categorizations, but do not expressly belong to any of them, at least for a brief moment. Instead, they belong to a space and time where one exists and is multiple. Figurar, more than walking, is to enhance movement with and within the body, which is the only material thing we ultimately possess. It is to move from, to and between spaces. Perhaps, it is even closer to the very act of dancing. A source of movement and emancipation that encourages an existing being to be, to become and to live.

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“Is there no spiritual freedom in regard to behaviour and reaction to any given surroundings? Is that theory true which would have us believe that [being] is no more than a product of many conditional and environmental factors – be they of a biological, psychological or sociological nature? Is [being] but an accidental product of these?”*
Viktor E. Frankl^a

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The right and consent of a human no: I find myself in an academic institution. I am not not not an academic, nor nor nor an intellectual, nor nor nor a profession, a title, a thing. I am a dissident being of resolute, unwavering categorizations. Here, in these lines, and maybe just here, probably not, I refuse to classify and reduce myself to a skin color spectrum, a settled nationality, a listed gender, a religion, a language, an interpretation of others’ interpretations, a(n) (un)resourceful label, a position. I am an unclassifiable intricate existing being. A multiplicity of the cosmos confined in a militantly labeled, persistently politicized regime⁰. You might be one multiplicity as well, probably. Maybe not. You are you. Or not. Here, in the following lines, there is no need to be just right to express a human no. I allow myself to be wrong; to question the implicit thoughts of correctness and properness. What does it mean to ‘properly belong’ to a category, and to ‘properly be’ someone, something, in our societies? I refuse to incontrovertibly follow and fulfill what it is expected as suitable. Yet I allow myself to be naive. Genuine. To trust the inner senses and connections with the impermanent world(s). To listen the inner voice and the screaming void. Em permeto escriure amb una de les meves llengües maternes. I crear sense buscar la raó, la justificació. Em permeto. Camino per sortir a fora. I step to walk, and walk to step outside. Outside simulated permanences. I reflect on this journey and think of the situationist theory of la dérive  ^b. In the coming lines I propose its reinterpretation as a psychogeographical c practice of autonomy, reflection and refusal. The context in which the notion of la dérive was first originated is different here. I suggest a contextualization in which I designate a new interpretation of la dérive with the word figurar. This denomination is born from a wish and provocation to become more permissive, neutral, in particular towards those who reasonably mistrust the purposes and responsibilities of the original dérive; and as well towards those who establish, defend and incessantly rely on social categorizations. Figurar (Catalan) is a verb derived from the Latin word figurare, attested from the 19th century, and translated into English as to represent, to belong or to figure, to imagine. As a reference of research, I take into consideration the perspective of the New Mexican urban geographer Andrea Gibbons, who describes la dérive as a “technique which consists of wanderings that express not subordination to randomness but complete insubordination to habitual influence” (2015)^d. When analyzing the Situationist International (SI), as probably many others, she mistrusts the men behind the avant-garde collective. Especially by pointing out the unfairly neglected contribution of Abdelhafid Khatib of the Algerian section, one of the few people of color who was involved in the SI, Gibbons criticizes their failure to both sufficiently and adequately discuss matters and problematics of race and colonialism, and to a lesser extent of gender and sexism. But despite her seemingly legitimate and critical point (contested by other intellectuals of the topic) she would still believe in the liberal aims of the movement and claim that “psychogeography could offer the potential to broaden our theory and practice and collective reimagining, to see the city through other(s’) eyes, in an empathy that leads to action; to see collectively, past individual blindnesses, to name in full our oppressions, and overcome them. To overthrow capitalism. To create a new world. Because that’s the point, after all” (2015) ^d. And it is in this potential of the psychogeography where I would like to focus and emphasize. In this sense, figurar addresses those humans who wish to walk as any imaginable form of healing resistance and autonomy in the face of oppressive written, spoken and codified sociopolitical, cultural norms. In the face of colonialism. Of an asphyxiating and biased language. Of untrustworthy wishes and functions of contemporary hyper-capitalism and its inherent heartless hyper-productivity. Similarly to the original dérive, figurar is to drift in order to remain receptive and open to different realities. It is to dream of a space in which to live and create outside the power structures and taxonomies that modernity has invented. The voice here is the voice of a privileged and not privileged. It is both an individual and collective drift that resists sightless classifications, directions and embrace infinite multiplicities. It calls for sensitivity, awareness, hospitality and coexistence. For blindness in order to see; questioning the known and praising the unknown. Because “the eyes can only see what they have been conditioned to notice; recognition involves the re-seeing of what is already known. Some things cannot be viewed directly; sometimes you have to look away” (Emma Cocker, 2013) ^e. This walk sees beings beyond genealogy and layers of social and pragmatic definitions. It expresses a will and stage of gratitude and care towards the unfamiliar; and celebrates the extraordinary in the mundane. Figurar, more than walking, is to enhance movement with and within the body, which is the only material thing we ultimately possess. It is to move from, to and between spaces. Of course, not merely physically. Souls and minds are as well moved, touched. And like but unlike wandering, figurar is to move with and without a definite purpose or plan. Perhaps, it is even closer to the very act of dancing. A source of movement and emancipation that encourages an existing being to be, to become and to live. In his psychogeographical studies of Les Halles, Khatib said: “the world we live in, and beginning with its material décor, is discovered to be narrower by the day. It stifles us. We yield profoundly to its influence; we react to it according to our instincts instead of according to our aspirations. In a word, this world governs our way of being, and it grinds us down. It is only from its rearrangement, or more precisely its sundering, that any possibility of organizing a superior way of life will emerge” (1958)^f. Let’s activate movement and consciousness with and within the body; let’s dance to release a new world that is struggling to be born. In a reality where the sociopolitical, cultural norm unfairly divide and oppress us, we need discourses of differences to (un)learn, (de)construct, in order to coexist and claim the rights of those more vulnerable groups. Yet concurrent and paradoxically, within a space of presumed ‘social progress’, there might have been as well secondary (perhaps even primary) counterproductive effects in which the same, similar or other divisions and the act of differentiating itself have become judgmental, hostile, ferocious and unfair; sometimes merely voguish (more pretending than expressing a genuine concern); inside and outside the same vulnerable groups. In contrast to this approach, the practice of figurar aims to create ephemeral realities where discourses of differences are present and gracefully mutable, flexible, movable and intersectional. Discourses where the power does not fundamentally reside on how precise and loud these differences are termed nor categorized. It resides further beyond and outside these actions. In this regard, figurar is the drift that accompanies those who not necessarily refuse established categorizations, but do not exclusively belong to any of them, either from a brief moment to an eternity. Instead, they belong to a space and time where one exists and is multiple, embracing all the possibilities to be and to become. Here, in these lines, and maybe just here, probably not, I may not be one, but many. Today, tomorrow. Never. Always. And just sometimes.