什么是城乡结合部？为什么是城乡结合部？
什么是城乡结合部？为什么是城乡结合部？
随着城市化进程，城市的扩张，在城市和乡村的交汇处出现的不同所有制的土地、不同行政体制交汇的；混合了城区和乡村风貌和特点的一种经济和物理的空间，被称为城乡结合部。
实际上，我们（城乡结合部小组）关注的并不是这个经济和物理的空间中的美学的、政治的、日常的事实，我们关注的是城乡结合部这个意象所蕴涵的一个抽象的，更为广阔的空间，一个各种力量纠缠、争斗的场域，以及这些力量的纠缠、争斗所能带来的各种想像和可能性。
城市是一个“理性世界”的意象，这个世界经过了盘算、规划、知识的重新布置，在这个世界中的各种实践都有一个谋划的思虑、一个可预计的期待、一个能预测结局的目的，这些谋划、盘算总是锁定在一个时间上的未来，产生一种功利性的充足结局。这个由理性宰制的世界的特征是具体的功利性生产，它被理性的算计、规划和知识宰制，被禁忌和秩序规训。“是一个生产的社会，即实用的社会。”（乔治 巴塔耶）在这个世界中，每一个人、物，所有的知识和实践都和别的人、物，知识和实践相关，互相发生作用，都卷入到一个紧凑的生产的链条中。这个被盘算、谋划重新布置的世界也是对偶然性、无目的性的实践的拒绝，是对生命力和狂喜的否定，按照尼采的观点，即是呈现了一种衰败的征兆。
城市这个意象还意味着过剩和堆积，城市中充盈着生产的过剩、消费的过剩、商品的堆积、景观的堆积。而这些过剩和堆积又在揭示着商品拜物教统治这个世界的全部秘密。
我们绝不能说乡村的世界相对城市的世界是一个相反的意象，乡村的世界绝不是城市的世界的倒影，不是理性世界的反面，但是在许多方面，乡村的世界是城市的理性世界这个强大的机器所无法触及的领域。城市意味着与自然的完全割裂，即使是体现都市之美的绿色的植物，也是一种“绿色景观整形手术”（鲍德里亚），这种“绿色景观整形手术”其实是一个剧场，在城市中不断上演着人和自然的绝对地、持续地斗争，人总是要将自然生长地植物修剪成自然世界中不存在的各种几何形状，这是目的性的行动，而自然的法则则是无目的性的，所以这些植物又会在不经意间朝着无目的的方向生长，人又会再一次的修剪，人不断对这些植物进行修剪和整形，植物也不断的胡乱生长、旁逸斜出⋯⋯从这些“绿色景观整形手术”我们可以看到人对自然的否定是如此的孜孜不倦、乐此不疲。
在乡村的世界，人对自然的否定和割裂没有那么彻底，乡村的生产实践是从土地里获得农作物，以及饲养牲畜。农作物和牲畜为所有人类提供使之能够得以生存的最基本的能量，城市的世界也需要不断从乡村获取这些农作物和牲畜作为得以生存的能量。农作物和牲畜的生产的机制可以看作是人和自然一种共谋的机制，而乡村世界的环境则是极低限度改造过的自然。相比城市的世界，乡村跟自然的关系更为密切，乡村的世界也更能容忍更多的偶然性和无目的性。 相对于城市的疯狂的理性，乡村表现出的是有限度的野性和原始的生命力。城市所呈现出的目的性、秩序、过剩和堆积在乡村更多的表现为散漫、无序、短缺和贫乏。
城乡结合部是城市和乡村的中间地带，它是如此不泾渭分明地分隔着这两个世界，它成为这两个世界的中介和传送带。城乡结合部总是跟道路密切相关，大路总是划开城乡结合部的中心，再穿过田野，从一个城市到另一个城市，小路则连接城乡结合部和乡村，直到这些道路消失在自然的原野中。道路在这里呈现出一个双重的意象，即为离乡和还乡，人和物的流动。商品在道路上流动，沿着市场的轨迹，从一个城市到另一个城市，失去价值的商品——垃圾，这些商品的剩余物则在这里停留下来，在城乡结合部被堆积和清理。
生产的行为要产生大量的垃圾、令人不快的粉尘和气体，消费的行为需要整洁、明亮的空间（消费的行为也会产生大量的垃圾），城市中的空间慢慢被消费的行为占据，于是生产的场地——工厂，逐渐在城乡结合部安家，城乡结合部的空间逐渐承担起生产的功能。失去土地的农民成为工厂里的劳动者，耕地变为厂房；耕牛变为流水线上的机器；农作物变为塑料、金属、陶瓷等各种材质的产品。这些产品源源不断的供应给城市，而它们的剩余物又回到这里。
除了商品的剩余物，人群的剩余物——背负屈辱的人、失去土地却又被城市驱赶的农民、拾垃圾的人，也在城乡结合部集结，城乡结合部使剩余的人和物再次获得生命力。还有一个社群，流浪狗的社群，也在城乡结合部游荡，城乡结合部的狗的社群中既有来自乡村的看门土狗，也有被城市遗弃的宠物狗，这些狗一开始是一种商品，被饲养以后成为人的伴侣，融入人类社会成为一种“亚人”。狗依赖人，如同人依赖这个物化的世界、这个坚固的系统。流浪狗是被遗弃的对象，它们或结成狗群，或独立生活，它们与垃圾为伍，从垃圾中获取能量，从人的社会中独立出来，依靠人的剩余物——垃圾过活。它们无意之中逃离了这个系统，它们自成一个系统，组成了一个新的社会，一个别样的社会，实际上，流浪狗的社群呈现出一种我们对于未来的想像。
城乡结合部是城市和乡村的边界，同样它也是理性和律法与野性和自然的边界，它成为自身的边界，它即是边界。理性世界的秩序、律法、规训和来自乡村的野性和自然、无序与偶然在城乡结合部融合、彼此纠缠、此消彼涨。在这样的斗争中，城乡结合部以一种解域——再结域的方式不断生成新的现实。 相对城市的秩序和乡村的自然，城乡结合部呈现出一种绝对的嘈杂、混乱、肮脏和无序。它以这种嘈杂、混乱、肮脏和无序实现着对城市和乡村的调停。这种嘈杂、混乱、肮脏和无序也是自然世界的法则在面对城市世界的效率和理性的宰制时做出的反抗。
在这样的前提下，我们可以想像，城乡结合部不但在非此即彼中漂浮，同时它还是理性和野性、秩序与自然的战场，只有在它们的斗争和彼此纠缠中，偶然性和各种关于未来的想像才能得以浮现，而城乡结合部是一个彰显偶然性、彰显不同可能性的想像的空间。
WHAT IS THE URBAN-RURAL FRINGE, AND WHY IS IT THE URBAN-RURAL FRINGE?
撰文：城乡结合部小组
TEXT: The Urban-Rural Fringe Group / TRANSLATION: Daniel Nieh
[lede]
The Urban-Rural Fringe Group, an association of artists established in 2012, composed this article prior to initiating their artistic activities, which address China’s urbanization process. The group’s preliminary considerations could be compared to sociological research and practice; their focus is on the cerebral dynamics to which the urban-rural fringe, as a political realm, gives rise.
[body]
The process of urbanization and the expansion of cities has created economic and physical spaces where urban and rural characteristics mingle together. Various land uses and administrative systems come together at what is known as the urban-rural fringe.
In fact, we (the Urban Rural Fringe Group) are not concerned with the aesthetic, political, and everyday reality of these economic and physical places. There is a broader abstract space implied by the concept of the urban-rural fringe: a place where various forces tangle and compete. We are interested in this space and the imaginable possibilities suggested by these tangling, competing forces.
The city is a concept of the rational world. This world has been rearranged according to calculations, plans, and knowledge. This world’s various activities all possess schematic intention: an anticipated result, a goal with a forecasted outcome. These calculations and schemes are always bound to some temporal future. They produce satisfactory utilitarian results. The signature trait of this world dominated by rationality is utilitarian production. It is ruled by the calculations, plans, and knowledge of reason; it is disciplined by order and prohibition. In this world—“a productive society, namely, useful society” (Georges Bataille)—all persons, things, knowledge, and practice correlate. They function mutually within a compact production chain. This world, the product of calculated and planned reorganization, rejects aimless practices, denying that which is wild and vital, manifesting what Nietzsche would describe as signs of decline.
The concept of the city also implies accumulation and excess. The city is rife with excess production, excess consumption, accumulated products, and accumulated landscapes. These excesses and accumulations expose how commodity fetishism rules this world.
We certainly cannot say that the rural world is a concept diametrically opposed to the urban world. The rural world is not the inverse of the urban world or the opposite of the rational world. But in many ways, the rural world is one realm that the powerful machine of the urban, rational world cannot touch. The city signifies a complete separation from nature. Of course, green spaces are an aesthetic component of cities. Through the “cosmetic surgery applied to green spaces” (Baudrillard), they serve as a theater in which the absolute, eternal struggle between man and nature is incessantly reenacted. People always want to prune naturally growing plants into geometric shapes that do not exist in the natural world. This is goal-oriented action. The laws of nature have no goals, of course, so if these plants are left unattended, they begin to grow in purposeless directions. Then people prune them again. People are always pruning and arranging these plants, which are always growing carelessly, escaping at sidelong angles. From this “cosmetic surgery” we see that mankind’s denial of nature is indeed indefatigable.
In the rural world, negation of and separation from nature is less thorough. Rural means of production entail deriving crops from the earth and raising livestock. Crops and livestock provide all mankind with the most basic energy required to survive, and the urban world must also continually obtain these crops and livestock from the countryside. The mechanisms of producing crops and livestock can be seen as mechanisms of collaboration between nature and people. The rural environment is a minimally modified version of nature. Compared to the urban world, the rural world has closer ties to nature and is more tolerant of aimlessness. Compared to the unbridled rationality of the city, the village manifests limited unruliness and primeval vitality. The purposefulness, order, excess, and accumulation of the city stand in contrast to the dispersion, disorder, scarcity, and impoverishment of the village.
The urban-rural fringe is the intermediate zone between the city and the countryside. It is a blurry boundary between two worlds that serves as a point of transit and transformation. The urban-rural fringe is always closely bound to roads. Main roads traverse the urban-rural fringe before passing through the countryside to other cities. Smaller roads connect the urban-rural fringe to the countryside, where they disappear into the expanses of nature. Roads are the manifestation of two concepts: first, leaving and returning to the countryside, and second, the flow of people and objects. Products move along roads, gravitating toward the locus of the market, from one city to another. Excess materials and valueless products—garbage—they stop here, piled up and sorted at the urban-rural fringe.
The behaviors of production produce large amounts of waste, as well as harmful dust and gases. The behaviors of consumption require clean, well-lit spaces (these behaviors also produce large amounts of waste), gradually taking over urban space. As a consequence, the sites of production—namely, factories—are gradually relocating to the urban-rural fringe. The spaces of the urban-rural fringe are gradually assuming the functions of production. Peasants who have lost their land become workers in factories as farmland becomes factory buildings. Oxen become assembly line machines and crops become products made from plastics, metals, ceramics, and other materials. These products supply the cities in an unceasing stream, and the surplus materials end up back here.
In addition to the surplus materials from products, there are also surplus materials from populations. The humiliated people, the peasants who have lost their land and yet been rejected by the city, the trash collectors—they too accumulate at the urban-rural fringe, where surplus materials and people take on a new vitality. There is another social group, the stray dogs, that drift about at the urban-rural fringe. The dogs at the fringe include watchdogs from the countryside as well as abandoned pets from the city. These dogs were once a kind of product. They were raised, and they became people’s companions, a kind of second-class citizen integrated into human society. Dogs rely on people just as people rely on the objectified world, the material system. Stray dogs are abandoned objects. They either form bands or live independently. They associated with the garbage, deriving energy from it. Having gained independence from human society, they depend upon people’s surplus materials—a life of garbage. They inadvertently escape the system to form their own system, a new, alternative society. In fact, this society of stray dogs presents a portent of our future.
The urban-rural fringe is the boundary between the city and the countryside; it is also the boundary between reason and nature. The order, law, and discipline of the rational world meets the nature, disorder, and aimlessness of the natural world at the urban-rural fringe, where they ebb, flow, and entangle. In this contest, the urban-rural fringe, as a site of dissolution and recombination, continually produces new realities. Compared to the order of the city and the nature of the countryside, the urban-rural fringe presents a definitively noisy, chaotic, and filthy disorder. This noise, chaos, filth, and disorder mediate between the city and the countryside. This noise, chaos, filth, and disorder are also reactions of the laws of nature to the efficiency and rationality that dominate the urban world.
Given this premise, we can imagine the urban-rural fringe afloat between the two sides. It is a battlefield between rational and wild, order and nature. Only in the interaction and conflict between these elements can spontaneity and future possibilities emerge. The urban-rural fringe is a place rife with imagination, a place in which various possibilities and contingences are manifest.
随着城市化进程，城市的扩张，在城市和乡村的交汇处出现的不同所有制的土地、不同行政体制交汇的；混合了城区和乡村风貌和特点的一种经济和物理的空间，被称为城乡结合部。
实际上，我们（城乡结合部小组）关注的并不是这个经济和物理的空间中的美学的、政治的、日常的事实，我们关注的是城乡结合部这个意象所蕴涵的一个抽象的，更为广阔的空间，一个各种力量纠缠、争斗的场域，以及这些力量的纠缠、争斗所能带来的各种想像和可能性。
城市是一个“理性世界”的意象，这个世界经过了盘算、规划、知识的重新布置，在这个世界中的各种实践都有一个谋划的思虑、一个可预计的期待、一个能预测结局的目的，这些谋划、盘算总是锁定在一个时间上的未来，产生一种功利性的充足结局。这个由理性宰制的世界的特征是具体的功利性生产，它被理性的算计、规划和知识宰制，被禁忌和秩序规训。“是一个生产的社会，即实用的社会。”（乔治 巴塔耶）在这个世界中，每一个人、物，所有的知识和实践都和别的人、物，知识和实践相关，互相发生作用，都卷入到一个紧凑的生产的链条中。这个被盘算、谋划重新布置的世界也是对偶然性、无目的性的实践的拒绝，是对生命力和狂喜的否定，按照尼采的观点，即是呈现了一种衰败的征兆。
城市这个意象还意味着过剩和堆积，城市中充盈着生产的过剩、消费的过剩、商品的堆积、景观的堆积。而这些过剩和堆积又在揭示着商品拜物教统治这个世界的全部秘密。
我们绝不能说乡村的世界相对城市的世界是一个相反的意象，乡村的世界绝不是城市的世界的倒影，不是理性世界的反面，但是在许多方面，乡村的世界是城市的理性世界这个强大的机器所无法触及的领域。城市意味着与自然的完全割裂，即使是体现都市之美的绿色的植物，也是一种“绿色景观整形手术”（鲍德里亚），这种“绿色景观整形手术”其实是一个剧场，在城市中不断上演着人和自然的绝对地、持续地斗争，人总是要将自然生长地植物修剪成自然世界中不存在的各种几何形状，这是目的性的行动，而自然的法则则是无目的性的，所以这些植物又会在不经意间朝着无目的的方向生长，人又会再一次的修剪，人不断对这些植物进行修剪和整形，植物也不断的胡乱生长、旁逸斜出⋯⋯从这些“绿色景观整形手术”我们可以看到人对自然的否定是如此的孜孜不倦、乐此不疲。
在乡村的世界，人对自然的否定和割裂没有那么彻底，乡村的生产实践是从土地里获得农作物，以及饲养牲畜。农作物和牲畜为所有人类提供使之能够得以生存的最基本的能量，城市的世界也需要不断从乡村获取这些农作物和牲畜作为得以生存的能量。农作物和牲畜的生产的机制可以看作是人和自然一种共谋的机制，而乡村世界的环境则是极低限度改造过的自然。相比城市的世界，乡村跟自然的关系更为密切，乡村的世界也更能容忍更多的偶然性和无目的性。 相对于城市的疯狂的理性，乡村表现出的是有限度的野性和原始的生命力。城市所呈现出的目的性、秩序、过剩和堆积在乡村更多的表现为散漫、无序、短缺和贫乏。
城乡结合部是城市和乡村的中间地带，它是如此不泾渭分明地分隔着这两个世界，它成为这两个世界的中介和传送带。城乡结合部总是跟道路密切相关，大路总是划开城乡结合部的中心，再穿过田野，从一个城市到另一个城市，小路则连接城乡结合部和乡村，直到这些道路消失在自然的原野中。道路在这里呈现出一个双重的意象，即为离乡和还乡，人和物的流动。商品在道路上流动，沿着市场的轨迹，从一个城市到另一个城市，失去价值的商品——垃圾，这些商品的剩余物则在这里停留下来，在城乡结合部被堆积和清理。
生产的行为要产生大量的垃圾、令人不快的粉尘和气体，消费的行为需要整洁、明亮的空间（消费的行为也会产生大量的垃圾），城市中的空间慢慢被消费的行为占据，于是生产的场地——工厂，逐渐在城乡结合部安家，城乡结合部的空间逐渐承担起生产的功能。失去土地的农民成为工厂里的劳动者，耕地变为厂房；耕牛变为流水线上的机器；农作物变为塑料、金属、陶瓷等各种材质的产品。这些产品源源不断的供应给城市，而它们的剩余物又回到这里。
除了商品的剩余物，人群的剩余物——背负屈辱的人、失去土地却又被城市驱赶的农民、拾垃圾的人，也在城乡结合部集结，城乡结合部使剩余的人和物再次获得生命力。还有一个社群，流浪狗的社群，也在城乡结合部游荡，城乡结合部的狗的社群中既有来自乡村的看门土狗，也有被城市遗弃的宠物狗，这些狗一开始是一种商品，被饲养以后成为人的伴侣，融入人类社会成为一种“亚人”。狗依赖人，如同人依赖这个物化的世界、这个坚固的系统。流浪狗是被遗弃的对象，它们或结成狗群，或独立生活，它们与垃圾为伍，从垃圾中获取能量，从人的社会中独立出来，依靠人的剩余物——垃圾过活。它们无意之中逃离了这个系统，它们自成一个系统，组成了一个新的社会，一个别样的社会，实际上，流浪狗的社群呈现出一种我们对于未来的想像。
城乡结合部是城市和乡村的边界，同样它也是理性和律法与野性和自然的边界，它成为自身的边界，它即是边界。理性世界的秩序、律法、规训和来自乡村的野性和自然、无序与偶然在城乡结合部融合、彼此纠缠、此消彼涨。在这样的斗争中，城乡结合部以一种解域——再结域的方式不断生成新的现实。 相对城市的秩序和乡村的自然，城乡结合部呈现出一种绝对的嘈杂、混乱、肮脏和无序。它以这种嘈杂、混乱、肮脏和无序实现着对城市和乡村的调停。这种嘈杂、混乱、肮脏和无序也是自然世界的法则在面对城市世界的效率和理性的宰制时做出的反抗。
在这样的前提下，我们可以想像，城乡结合部不但在非此即彼中漂浮，同时它还是理性和野性、秩序与自然的战场，只有在它们的斗争和彼此纠缠中，偶然性和各种关于未来的想像才能得以浮现，而城乡结合部是一个彰显偶然性、彰显不同可能性的想像的空间。
WHAT IS THE URBAN-RURAL FRINGE, AND WHY IS IT THE URBAN-RURAL FRINGE?
撰文：城乡结合部小组
TEXT: The Urban-Rural Fringe Group / TRANSLATION: Daniel Nieh
[lede]
The Urban-Rural Fringe Group, an association of artists established in 2012, composed this article prior to initiating their artistic activities, which address China’s urbanization process. The group’s preliminary considerations could be compared to sociological research and practice; their focus is on the cerebral dynamics to which the urban-rural fringe, as a political realm, gives rise.
[body]
The process of urbanization and the expansion of cities has created economic and physical spaces where urban and rural characteristics mingle together. Various land uses and administrative systems come together at what is known as the urban-rural fringe.
In fact, we (the Urban Rural Fringe Group) are not concerned with the aesthetic, political, and everyday reality of these economic and physical places. There is a broader abstract space implied by the concept of the urban-rural fringe: a place where various forces tangle and compete. We are interested in this space and the imaginable possibilities suggested by these tangling, competing forces.
The city is a concept of the rational world. This world has been rearranged according to calculations, plans, and knowledge. This world’s various activities all possess schematic intention: an anticipated result, a goal with a forecasted outcome. These calculations and schemes are always bound to some temporal future. They produce satisfactory utilitarian results. The signature trait of this world dominated by rationality is utilitarian production. It is ruled by the calculations, plans, and knowledge of reason; it is disciplined by order and prohibition. In this world—“a productive society, namely, useful society” (Georges Bataille)—all persons, things, knowledge, and practice correlate. They function mutually within a compact production chain. This world, the product of calculated and planned reorganization, rejects aimless practices, denying that which is wild and vital, manifesting what Nietzsche would describe as signs of decline.
The concept of the city also implies accumulation and excess. The city is rife with excess production, excess consumption, accumulated products, and accumulated landscapes. These excesses and accumulations expose how commodity fetishism rules this world.
We certainly cannot say that the rural world is a concept diametrically opposed to the urban world. The rural world is not the inverse of the urban world or the opposite of the rational world. But in many ways, the rural world is one realm that the powerful machine of the urban, rational world cannot touch. The city signifies a complete separation from nature. Of course, green spaces are an aesthetic component of cities. Through the “cosmetic surgery applied to green spaces” (Baudrillard), they serve as a theater in which the absolute, eternal struggle between man and nature is incessantly reenacted. People always want to prune naturally growing plants into geometric shapes that do not exist in the natural world. This is goal-oriented action. The laws of nature have no goals, of course, so if these plants are left unattended, they begin to grow in purposeless directions. Then people prune them again. People are always pruning and arranging these plants, which are always growing carelessly, escaping at sidelong angles. From this “cosmetic surgery” we see that mankind’s denial of nature is indeed indefatigable.
In the rural world, negation of and separation from nature is less thorough. Rural means of production entail deriving crops from the earth and raising livestock. Crops and livestock provide all mankind with the most basic energy required to survive, and the urban world must also continually obtain these crops and livestock from the countryside. The mechanisms of producing crops and livestock can be seen as mechanisms of collaboration between nature and people. The rural environment is a minimally modified version of nature. Compared to the urban world, the rural world has closer ties to nature and is more tolerant of aimlessness. Compared to the unbridled rationality of the city, the village manifests limited unruliness and primeval vitality. The purposefulness, order, excess, and accumulation of the city stand in contrast to the dispersion, disorder, scarcity, and impoverishment of the village.
The urban-rural fringe is the intermediate zone between the city and the countryside. It is a blurry boundary between two worlds that serves as a point of transit and transformation. The urban-rural fringe is always closely bound to roads. Main roads traverse the urban-rural fringe before passing through the countryside to other cities. Smaller roads connect the urban-rural fringe to the countryside, where they disappear into the expanses of nature. Roads are the manifestation of two concepts: first, leaving and returning to the countryside, and second, the flow of people and objects. Products move along roads, gravitating toward the locus of the market, from one city to another. Excess materials and valueless products—garbage—they stop here, piled up and sorted at the urban-rural fringe.
The behaviors of production produce large amounts of waste, as well as harmful dust and gases. The behaviors of consumption require clean, well-lit spaces (these behaviors also produce large amounts of waste), gradually taking over urban space. As a consequence, the sites of production—namely, factories—are gradually relocating to the urban-rural fringe. The spaces of the urban-rural fringe are gradually assuming the functions of production. Peasants who have lost their land become workers in factories as farmland becomes factory buildings. Oxen become assembly line machines and crops become products made from plastics, metals, ceramics, and other materials. These products supply the cities in an unceasing stream, and the surplus materials end up back here.
In addition to the surplus materials from products, there are also surplus materials from populations. The humiliated people, the peasants who have lost their land and yet been rejected by the city, the trash collectors—they too accumulate at the urban-rural fringe, where surplus materials and people take on a new vitality. There is another social group, the stray dogs, that drift about at the urban-rural fringe. The dogs at the fringe include watchdogs from the countryside as well as abandoned pets from the city. These dogs were once a kind of product. They were raised, and they became people’s companions, a kind of second-class citizen integrated into human society. Dogs rely on people just as people rely on the objectified world, the material system. Stray dogs are abandoned objects. They either form bands or live independently. They associated with the garbage, deriving energy from it. Having gained independence from human society, they depend upon people’s surplus materials—a life of garbage. They inadvertently escape the system to form their own system, a new, alternative society. In fact, this society of stray dogs presents a portent of our future.
The urban-rural fringe is the boundary between the city and the countryside; it is also the boundary between reason and nature. The order, law, and discipline of the rational world meets the nature, disorder, and aimlessness of the natural world at the urban-rural fringe, where they ebb, flow, and entangle. In this contest, the urban-rural fringe, as a site of dissolution and recombination, continually produces new realities. Compared to the order of the city and the nature of the countryside, the urban-rural fringe presents a definitively noisy, chaotic, and filthy disorder. This noise, chaos, filth, and disorder mediate between the city and the countryside. This noise, chaos, filth, and disorder are also reactions of the laws of nature to the efficiency and rationality that dominate the urban world.
Given this premise, we can imagine the urban-rural fringe afloat between the two sides. It is a battlefield between rational and wild, order and nature. Only in the interaction and conflict between these elements can spontaneity and future possibilities emerge. The urban-rural fringe is a place rife with imagination, a place in which various possibilities and contingences are manifest.
