Controlling Flow: On the Logistics of Distributive Space

Craig Martin

doi:10.4324/9780203721018-16

Controlling Flow: On the Logistics of Distributive Space

Craig Martin^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Edinburgh College of Art

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

Abstract

The struggle for control over time and space is a permanent feature of capitalism₁ Mangled shipping containers; bumper packs of nappies; high-end German motorbikes wheeled off into the night by looters; requisitioned tractors to pull ever more debris from the ocean. These images of flotsam punctuated the media following the grounding of the container ship the MSC Napoli in January 2007 at Branscombe on the Devon coast in the UK.₂ This incident was a stark but not entirely un-rare index of interruption in the logistics of global commodity movement. As the ‘trash’ of global commodity capital these deposits were an image of order gone wrong, order unordered. The essential spectacle of the Branscombe incident was the display of ‘matter out of place’, those objects (or dirt in Mary Douglas’s argument) which do not conform to the classificatory system.₃ In this guise these commodities are errant products of an established system of ordering.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Architecture in the Space of Flows
Publisher	Taylor & Francis
Pages	147-159
Number of pages	13
ISBN (Electronic)	9781135722807
ISBN (Print)	9780415585415
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203721018-16
Publication status	Published - 1 Jan 2012

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Controlling Flow: On the Logistics of Distributive Space

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