To view the bottomed-up grassroots power of homelessness as the niche against the exploitation of capitalistic ideology, it is essential to examine the ruins after the economic change in Taiwan in Stray Dogs. The ruins in Stray Dogs represent the outcome of capitalistic exploitation. The buildings were used and then abandoned once they lost economic value. The
building of Taiwan Motor Transport Company and the old sugar refinery were produced in the once prosperous era. With the transformation of industry and economic structure, the buildings are no longer in need. In this film, the squatting of Lee Kang-sheng and his children merely presents the filthy and hopeless lives of the homeless. However, it is hard to go beyond the desperation of the homeless lives if the discourse stops here. Therefore, I would like to suggest the ruins as territory for the possibility of rebirth—through the aid of artists and intellectuals, squatting in the ruins can be regarded as a recycle system, reusing the deserted buildings. On this train of thought, the philosophy of ruins evoked during the Second World War may serve as the comparison with the ruins created by modern capitalism. In the discourse of ruin philosophy, Max Pensky rejects Maurice Halbwachs’s viewpoint on “stone buildings” and nature as both steady and “unchanged,” for “Halbwachs himself did not experience the mass destruction of many of the cities of Europe during the Second World War […] and died shortly before the war’s end” (66-67). In spite of this, Pensky agrees with Halbwachs that the buildings are loaded with the urban collective memory. In comparison, Theodor W. Adorno’s concept of natural history seems more dynamic, arguing that the development of humanity is like the nature, appearing “under the sign of the historical repetition of catastrophe, and therefore as mythically recursive and static” (Pensky 66). After defining natural history and the dialectical relationship between humanity and nature, Pensky analyzes the philosophy of Heidegger, Benjamin, and Sebald on ruins. Seeing the Americanized West Germany, Heidegger claims that the rapid reconstruction during the postwar period “has generated housing but not dwelling”
(Pensky 72). Heideggerian dwelling implies to dwell pastorally in houses built with wood, Pensky explains (73). Living in the wooden etui, which becomes Totenbaum, the coffin, and leaving no ruin except “the midden cairns of empty shells of whelks, mussels and clams” is probably the ideal way of dwelling for Heidegger (Pensky 76). On the other hand, Sebald’s viewpoints on Kartenspiel, the “card game called Cities Quartet,” on which the images of the main buildings in the German cities were printed, express another perspective on ruins (Pensky
82). One of the buildings on the card is the fort Breendonk, which later became Nazi’s concentration camp. In Austerlitz, pondering on the fort Breendonk, Sebald conveys his gloomy observation on ruination as “the process in which nature takes its slow revenge against humans’ will to impose lasting significance on their landscape” (Pensky 84, 86). The fort was once for military purpose, and then became Nazi’s prison, but it could still not escape the natural withering and became a ruin.
Among the three philosophers, Benjamin’s Parisian arcades can be viewed as the middle way. Different from Naples’ “unplanned and uncontrollable” porosity with the labyrinth-like lanes, or Moscow’s “anti-labyrinth” “political taiga,” the arcades in Paris present a kind of balance between “history and nature” (Pensky 78-80). Paris is the combination of the staggering “regional and national wealth,” which appears simultaneously “fragile and indestructible” (Pensky 79). The arcades are like the primitive caves; under the cave-like arcades are small shops. The arcades grow out of outdated national planning on Paris, representing the natural development of civilian economy in the city. For Benjamin, Paris might be the model of city development without equal. By the same token, the homeless Lees occupying the ruins also represents the atavistic demeanors to live in the caves and brings vitality to the deserted space. The homeless have no choice but to occupy the places, but this is also the reactive force that occurs due to malfunctional capitalistic operation.
In comparison with the ruin philosophy developed during the two World Wars, the ruins created under the trade wars nowadays are another type of inhumanity. The trade wars transform the form from concrete bombs to abstract money flows, but their essence of thanatopolitics remains. In addition to the trade wars launched by the US, I believe that the capitalism in the form of free trade is essentially a general war against humanity. Kao also questions the capitalism which keeps creating ruins in Taiwan. The mural in the ruined building of the Taiwan Motor Transport Company was drawn by Kao, based on John Thomson’s photo,
Lalung6, Formosa (1871). As shown on the poster of Stray Dogs, the cobblestones at the bank of Laonong River in the picture subtly connect with the debris on the floor of the building. The natural view of Laonong River and the history of once flourishing bus company thus co-exist in a space, but give off a weird and ambivalent atmosphere. What presents in the mural is the river and the luxuriant forest in the mountain, while the mural exists in a ruined and deserted building. The paradox between the mural of Lalung River and men-made dystopia of the ruins thus presents before the viewers outside the film and the viewers in the film, namely, Lee Kang-sheng, Lu Yi-ching, and Chen Shiang-chyi, sharply criticizing the impact of capital flow on the buildings and human beings. The Lees are forced to undergo the simple and “natural” lives without electricity and modern entertainments. On the contrary, the natural scenery in the mural is what the urbanites pursues.
Coincidentally, the creator of the mural, Kao, also criticizes the operation of capitalism by taking artistic actions and investigating the social performance arts and movements in Asia.
In Multitude: Art Squats in East Asia, Kao introduces the Oasis Project launched by the couple Kim Kang and Kim Youn Hoan in South Korea. This Squatting movement works as the resistance to the capitalistic Korean society, where the right to habitation is deprived by the corrupted government and chaebols (Kao 123). In Hong Kong, Wooferten (meaning: the hall of urban regeneration) uses artistic skills to “suburbanize” Hong Kong, one of the densest cities in the world (Kao 171). By interacting with the community, Kao contends that the Wooferten reached three-fold antinomy: first, the art—the antinomy between the gentry and the folk, second, the capital—the antinomy between the rich and the poor, and third, the politics—the antinomy between the democracy and the totalitarianism (179). Wooferten can be looked upon as a place where the social differentiations meet and an iconic battlefield between the freedom in Hong Kong and the totalitarianism from Beijing. To certain degree, the Oasis Project, the
6 Presumably “Laonong” (荖濃) in transliteration of modern Mandarin.
Wooferten, and Benjamin’s Parisian arcades share something similar—they react against the top-down capitalism with grassroots movements. They seek the natural civilian development to keep the regions prosperous, instead of national or international power forcing on the folks.
Squatting the ruins, the homeless also lead primitive lives in the cave-like space, albeit outrageously and unwillingly, in the highly developing society. As the industrial and economic development constantly produces wastes and ruins by consuming resources on the Earth, the homeless are reusing the deserted, such as filthy clothes or ruined buildings, like what the primitive men will do. The only difference is the entity of “nature.” The primitive men get resources from Mother Nature, while the homeless interact with the commercialized nature. In fact, George Orwell also briefly mentions the categorization of the tramps as the atavism “in a book of criminology” (211). While Orwell considers the emergence of the homeless is from the failure of the law, in Stray Dogs it tends to be the capitalistic exploitation that causes tramps’
atavistic demeanors, living in cave-like ruins without tap water to always keep hygienic and electricity to maintain decent lives. This kind of atavism is unwanted. The scene in which the Lees change clothes together shows the violence of the shot, intruding in their naked lives. It is especially noticeable that the girl, Lee Yi-chieh even shows her immature, hairless mons pubis in front of the camera. The girl resembles the homeless, who are defenseless in the half-public and half-wild ruins when faced with the violent intrusion of governments allied with monstrous enterprises. The capitalistic system deprives the homeless of their decency, intending to discard their lives from civil society. In capitalistic logics it is natural and normal that their lives remain filthy, futile, and meaningless. However, I deem this as a gap for knowledgeable intervention. This is also the purpose of this thesis, which aims at finding a possible solution to mend the awkward and absurd reality of the homeless lives. With the instances of the artistic movements led by Kao, Ichimura, Mr. and Mrs. Kim, to name a few, the atavistic tramps return as the scavengers who reuse and rearrange the chaos that is left by the wasteful modern life style, and this would possibly be one of the origins of grassroots power.