Filip de Boeck – Of Rhythm And Amalgamation: The Knot As Form Of The Urban

Fig. 1: Showing kata as part of a Shiinji divination basket. Photo by Filip De Boeck

Fig. 1: Showing kata as part of a Shiinji divination basket. Photo by Filip De Boeck

JWTC, April 2014. Drawing on mathematical theories of the Moebius strip, Filip De Boeck unravels the complex weaving and knotting together of forms of sociality and survival in urban Congo. Inhabiting the urban, writes De Boeck, requires strategies of amalgamation that resist being mapped linearly. [The text that follows was part of the panel on ‘The Form of Confusion,’ convened by Jane Guyer, and including work by Moises Lino e Silva, Kabiru Salami, and Soumhya Venkatesan. It was presented at the Johannesburg Workshop in Theory and Criticism, WISER, 28th of June 2013].

Read more: http://jwtc.org.za/volume_6/filip_de_boeck.htm