Interrupting the courtroom organism: screaming bodies, material affects and the theatre of cruelty

This article offers a method of reading the courtroom which produces an alternative mapping of the space. My method combines a reading of Antonin Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty with a Deleuzian theoretical analysis. I suggest that this is a useful method since it allows examination of the spatial praxes of the courtroom which pulsate with a power to organize, terrorize and to judge. This method is also able to conceptualize the presence of ‘‘screaming’’ bodies and living matter which are appropriated to build, as well as feed the presence and functioning of the courtroom space, or organism. By using a method that articulates the cry of these bodies in the shadow of the organism, it becomes clear that this cry is both unwelcome and suppressed by the courtroom. The howl of anxious bodies enduring the process and space of the law can be materialized through interruptions to the courtroom, such as when bodies stand when they should not and when they speak when they should be silent. These vociferous actualizations of the scream serve only to feed the organism they seek to disturb, yet if the scream is listened to before it disrupts, the interruption becomes-imperceptible to the courtroom. Through my Artaudian/Deleuzian reading, I give a voice to the corporeal gasp that lingers before the cry, which is embedded within the embodied multiplicity from which it is possible to draw a creative line of flight. The creative momentum of this line of flight produces a sustainable interruption to the courtroom process, which instead of being consumed by the system, has the potential to produce new courtroom alignments. My text therefore offers an alternative reading of the courtroom, and in doing so also offers a refined understanding of how to productively ‘‘interrupt’’ the courtroom process.

Wind resource mapping using landscape roughness and spatial interpolation methods

Energy saving, reduction of greenhouse gasses and increased use of renewables are key policies to achieve the European 2020 targets. In particular, distributed renewable energy sources, integrated with spatial planning, require novel methods to optimise supply and demand. In contrast with large scale wind turbines, small and medium wind turbines (SMWTs) have a less extensive impact on the use of space and the power system, nevertheless, a significant spatial footprint is still present and the need for good spatial planning is a necessity. To optimise the location of SMWTs, detailed knowledge of the spatial distribution of the average wind speed is essential, hence, in this article, wind measurements and roughness maps were used to create a reliable annual mean wind speed map of Flanders at 10 m above the Earth’s surface. Via roughness transformation, the surface wind speed measurements were converted into meso- and macroscale wind data. The data were further processed by using seven different spatial interpolation methods in order to develop regional wind resource maps. Based on statistical analysis, it was found that the transformation into mesoscale wind, in combination with Simple Kriging, was the most adequate method to create reliable maps for decision-making on optimal production sites for SMWTs in Flanders.