The implacable Deleuzian approach adopted by the Warriors of Chaos During lengthy combats against the established system, the “Warriors of Chaos” move around the Abode of Chaos, now the “Forbidden City”, through hun­ dreds of metres of tunnels on the surface and underground, through machine rooms, the Protestant Temple, buried or overhead con­ tainers, the roof, the tentacular Overground bridges, the Bunker, monumental sculptures, Roman springs and plant elements with slings in the trees. They constantly juggle between IPNs and steel trel­ lis frames. The tunnels are hollowed out in a dense, contiguous overall struc­ ture that uses the Roman springs of the Domain and the secret pas­ sages of the Protestant Temple. Although a large number of Warriors of Chaos move around si­ multaneously within the 9,000 m2 of the Abode of Chaos, they blend so totally into the local architec­ ture that very few are visible from outside. This form of movement, described by the Warriors of Chaos as “in­ festation“, seeks to redefine the inside as the outside, and domes­ tic interiors as paths of commu­ nication. We juggle through our analogue labyrinths and digi­ tal tunnels leaving the scars of skin strips attached to all the walls of the Abode. The strategy of the Warriors of Chaos of “walk­ ing through walls” implies a con­ ception of the “Forbidden City” as not only the site but also the very heart of the war, a flexible and al­ most liquid, organic milieu, which is always random and undergo­ ing constant change. A real shad­ ow world opposing the established order. The Abode of Chaos is never dead. It is a block of raw, primordial

matter; the worship of a unique, inert, spontaneous monster, more ultraviolet than all the other my­ thologies such as the shadows be­ fore Babylon between the Tigris and the Euphrates. You must nev­ er forget that Chaos precedes all the principles of order and entro­ py; it is neither good nor evil, be­ cause the world isn’t binary, mate: it’s the uncertainty of power. It is not a beginning, or even an end. It’s a black hole, which in essence, makes Warriors of Chaos, terror­ ists of thought… Chaos is a quan­ tum void in which we, as pirates, are virtual particles; it is the Prima Materia, the territory of all the possibles. Chaos arises in the interstices of a controlled world... The order we fight creates Chaos. Contemporary military theorists are now busy re-conceptualising the moving maps of megalopolises. In play, the concepts, assumptions and fun­ damental principles are what de­ termine military strategies and tactics. There are very many points in common between the theoret­ ical texts considered essential by the military academies and archi­ tecture schools. Duchamp’s Infrathin is also this interface between the two antagonistic worlds. This is because the reading grids of contemporary military in­ stitutions include works from around 1968 onwards, particular­ ly the writings of Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and Guy Debord, together with more contempo­ rary writings on the post-colo­ nial and post-structuralist town planning theories, psycholo­ gy and cybernetics. The Warriors of Chaos have integrated this in­ formation as essential for the Resistance and the set-up of a TAZ (Temporary Autonomous Zone) as the Borderline Biennial.

The Warriors of Chaos say “the space you look at, the work you look at, is nothing other than your interpretation”. The ques­ tion is, how do you interpret the Abode of Chaos? As a no-man’s land or an open space, according to Thiel’s notation? The enemy in­ terprets the Abode of Chaos as the “Forbidden City” when moving around, the central gates as some­ thing it is forbidden to cross, in sacred or profane terms, and the surrounding walls as something it is forbidden to look through, be­ cause weapons or something much worse are waiting for it behind the walls, and traps of every kind are behind the central and outer gates of the “Forbidden City”. The Abode is a bomb, whose slow explosion spreads through ev­ ery interstice of our enemies. The Abode is the stomach of the dream; the form and shadows of enemies disappear, they be­ gin to scream and to be digested by Chaos. To profane the sanctu­ ary of the Abode of Chaos is to vi­ olate all the measures ensuring its guarantee, its protection, with el­ ements of safeguarding, being set apart, intangibility. It is because our enemies inter­ pret the space in a convention­ al, classic manner that we do not want to obey this interpretation and fall into its traps.The Warriors of Chaos want to surprise them! This is the very essence of war. We need to vanquish the established order. We are here, we Warriors of Chaos, slipping between the cracks in the walls of the Temple, the State, the law courts, the University, the Stock Exchange - the walls of all those paranoid monoliths. Cut off from the tribe by raw nostalgia, we dig a tunnel towards the lost words and imag­ inary bombs of the “Forbidden City”.

its way forward, emerging at cer­ tain points, then disappearing. As power gradually disappears, our wish for power must be disappear­ ance... The Warriors of Chaos know that the Abode holds the reality of our enemies and their forms be­ tween the jaws of its madness, to consume them in non-combus­ tible sulphur and Philosopher’s Mercury. On their bodies, the Warriors of Chaos bear the motto “Nutrisco ET Extinguo” embody­ ing the alchemical Salamander that symbolises the Abode of Chaos. We have deliberately refrained from defining the TAZ, which is self-explanatory. We do not want to create political dogma. We are content to circle around the sub­ ject, firing off exploratory beams, based on the principle of pi­ rate utopias. The TAZ is strongly linked to this, if only through an association of ideas: the designers of TAZs flaunt the filbuster spir­ it of rebellion. We also find a long part about the TAZ in Mikhaïl W. Ramseier’s book on pirates, “La Voile noire” (The Black Sail), which explores the possible association between anarchy and pi­

racy asserted by certain libertar­ ians. I have already touched on this in previous Abode of Chaos let­ ters: it is absolutely essential to read about the history of piracy in, for example, the book by Marcus Rediker: “Villains of all nations”. Pirate folklore has it that when­ ever a new crew was formed, the ship newly launched under its black and white flag would person­ alise it by adding a sign or a partic­ ular feature. The “Jolly Roger“ was thus a must in the Abode of Chaos as a standard of values shared by the clan. Three other essential signs were added: the band over the eyes, signifying not only the terrorism of which the Abode of Chaos was accused at the Grenoble hearing but also the state of mind behind the graffiti; and the cap of the spray can associated with the pin of a grenade, each symbolising a “bombe“ (French for both ‘aero­ sol’ and ‘bomb’): a controversial art form and a weapon.

tition”, “Formless rival entities­”, “Fractal manoeuvre”, “Rapidity versus Rhy­thm”, “War ma­ chine”, “Post-modern anarchists” “Intellectual terrorists” “Organs of Stalin” and “Fifth column”. They make frequent reference to Deleuze and Guattari. According to philosophers, war machines are polymorphous; diffuse organ­ isms characterised by their abil­ ity to metamorphose, composed of small groups that break up or merge with each other depend­ ing on contingencies and circum­ stances. Deleuze and Guattari knew very well that the State could also de­ liberately turn itself into a war machine. Immersed in deep wa­ ters, the Borderline Biennial goes beyond counter-cultures, and pos­ sesses that festal aspect of the uncontrolled instant which sub­ scribes to spontaneous self- or­ ganisation. It is an epiphany, a huge experience on both

the social and individual levels. Our TAZ of 40 days and 40 nights implies a certain wildness, an evo­ lution from the domestic to the untamed, a going-back which is a giant step forward. It also implies a dance of Chaos in the face of the apparatus of con­ trol: the State, which continues to  Page 456

Guy Debord

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Le Bunker de la Demeure du Chaos et l'emblème de la République du Chaos le "Jolly Roger", vu du ciel. Remerciements à Pierrick aka Cart'1. Aerial view of the Abode of Chaos Bunker and its roofpainted emblem of the Republic of Chaos "Jolly Roger". Thanks to Pierrick aka Cart'1.

Our enemies give us names such as “Difference and Repe­

This is why we have opted for the method of moving around through the walls and basements of the Abode… Like a worm eating

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manifestation