Ricerc@Sapienza

In the period 1954-1974 the Dutch artist known as Constant (Constant Nieuwenhuys,
1920-2005) elaborated a series of artworks and writings depicting a future urban
agglomeration: New Babylon. Stretching over the whole globe, New Babylon hosts
wandering individuals who freely move around the interactive space of the hyper-city
without any fixed abode, or any reference to an established culture and habits. As the
progressing automation of all productive activity allows the people to dispose of free
time without any limitation, the main activities of New Babylonians are of a ludic kind.
After a concise introduction, this article concentrates on the written work
accompanying the project, by focusing on two recurring key terms: “nomadism” and
“play”. These are the “travelling concepts” (Bal 2002) surfacing in a number of texts
by other authors, diverse in scope, disciplinary field, and date of composition. Next to
Deleuze and Guattari’s Nomadologie (Mille plateaux, 1980), Edouard Glissant’s Poétique
de la Relation (1990), Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens (1938), the net of relations among
texts outlined in this article comes to encompass also Dutch authors such as Menno
ter Braak (1902-1940) and Simon Vinkenoog (1928-2009), with the aim of
reconnecting New Babylon with its Dutch background, too often underplayed in
scholarship on this subject. Urban planning, social trends and the development of
counter-cultures in the Netherlands in the Fifties and Sixties offer a better insight into
Constant’s internationally revered artwork.