Sunday, November 30, 2008

leaving a mark - a small act of rebellion

After a conversation about the power of quotes, and thoughts about my relationship with the city - i walked and left these marks (look for the red tape);
















I mapped my walk as i walked. marking places that i felt needed it. the length of red tape in response to the space. leaving messages for passers by. Being pleased with my fleeting existence, and the fragility of the red tape. curious of who would read it, and what they would think. being anonymous, but not invisible. adding to the image of the city, my bit of red tape.





'in the south of Russia it is a an old tradition to leave a piece of red tape of cloth around a tree as a sign that you will once return there'





A second walk continued this exploration of leaving a trace of my walk, this time i had researched into the Graffiti of May 1968 and the revolution being directly influenced by the Situationists, i felt a political spin on my walk - walking as a small act of rebellion. i put my messages in a place where they would be seen (postboxes) and wrote them in french.





(Poetry is in the streets - a direct quote from May '68 Graffiti)




(Take a long a walk without a map)




(I like a stroll)




(You could be anywhere)

These walks pose a new exchange between me and the city - leaving rather than taking.
My walk lingers longer than my presence - lingering until the writing has been washed away or the red tape ripped off.

problems

I feel my walking is beginning to suffer because of these three reasons;

1. It's incredibly cold

2. The holes in my boots

3. A new love for reading on the metro

Thursday, November 27, 2008

HOW I USE MY CAMCORDER...

to collect;

to save;

to pry;

to catch the end;

to show;

to have;

to experiment;

can i make my camera walk?...

Since being in Paris i have built a library of video. This library goes under the title 'Paris Postcard'. Since i have been in Paris my mum has been keeping all my postcards in an envelope, probably on the mantle piece, or above the microwave in the kitchen..or possibly in her bedroom as she said she has been practicing reading them.

On return to England i intend to join these moving images and written words to create 'Paris Postcard', a sort of documentary, of my videos and my mothers recorded voice (reading the postcards). This is inspired by Chris Marker's 'sans soleil'.

Experimenting with the combination of moving images and narrating text. like a postcard; a choice of image, a choice of words, to communicate a place. does the text have to be about the image? what happens when you hear about one place whilst looking at another...?...

i am collecting, gathering, waiting..

i treat video like i treat my walks.

i am collaborating with chance.

i walk out of the door/i press record.

i create a frame. the street/the route/the lens.

i allow the city to act, for people to pass, to capture/witness what occurs, within this frame.

by being there, by witnessing, by recording, the everyday events/objects/sounds of a particular place at a particular time become precious, archived in my cameras memory....buried into my own memory to gradually become lost, deteriorate and fade away.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

decisions and faith

WALK 36

I decide that just walking home is enough. Today i do not need a big adventure - that decision opens enough doors. i have confidence in this cities talents.

They hang like monkeys from the buildings, pulling strips of tape from the walls that coil from their hands like viscous snakes.
A market is celebrated with bunting and balloons.
In a quite street under the balconies oak leaves have been carved into the stone - forever in fall.
She bends over her crutches, her dry grey hair covering her face, she prays to her small brown yogurt pot.
On crossing roads the streets open up, the metro track rolls away, like great rivers cutting through mountains, gleaming slug slime, scooping a pathway out of the city.
Yellow post boxes stand back to back, ready for the countdown, ready for shoot out. here the clock strikes twelve. dong...dong...dong...dong..dong...dong...dong...dong...dong...dong...dong...dong
Trocodero jingles.
the world 'SALAD' is engraved in a tree.
In the the patisserie are two blue roosters.
Two business men leave a Chinese restaurant they walk under scaffolding with their hands in their pockets.
The gates to parc morceau are black with gold frills, the faces of lions stare down at the passing cyclists.
i pass spider webbed Christmas trees that are guarded by a lady in a green bandanna and a has a lip piercing.
i find a rare pedestrianised street that makes me change direction, round the corner is a fish tank of blue and yellow neon fish, they blow kisses at me through purple smoke.
children stand aproned around the table, their hands a grey.
at place de clichy the background is bright blue where the white fluffy trail of a plane disappears behind the statues stern face. his out stretched arm holds her back from tearing though avenue de clichy.

It is a matter of direction, time and faith.
walking restores me faith.
The city performs.

Monday, November 24, 2008

sunrise.roads.study.laws.sunset

Paris is nicely contained within a Periphery road that cuts out the suburbs. Chatelet metro is supposedly a bad place to go because it's where 'they get in'..the metro lines from the suburbs meet here. This road is 32 km long and it marks the limits of Paris, it is punctuated by doors into the city. Paris is protected by this road, made to feel intentionally small its citizens can enjoy it.

in the eye of the storm.

A law was passed last year that no building could be built taller than 37m - mostly in reaction to Montparnasse tower, which is considered by many Parisians as a 'monstrosity'. Ultimately new developments in Paris are few - i cant help but think that this stunt on new architecture has an affect on the mentality of Paris. Is it the reason that Berlin is the currently the hub of contemporary art because its buildings scream modernity. This is part of my take on Psychogeography, that yes how a city in planned affects out physical behaviour, the route we decide to take, but also our mental state. new environments encourage new thinking. Paris saves itself, preserved and fragile (this is definitely part of its beauty) but all that can come of that is a slow and painful decay...?

'i went to Paris because Paris is where you go to think, i wanted to hide out and think, and maybe learn. Paris is the university of the west, and anybody who doesn't understand that doesn't need to go. i went to Paris because i was ignorant; i went as a matriculator, not a pilgrim.'


Paris is full of students. 'Satie studied at my school'. the past is so easily available here, that study and research is of top quality. 'if you want to study that, you have to study it in Paris'. Young students who idolise writers, composers, painters who worked and lived here, it makes perfect sense - it is a place to look back and learn rather than look forward and succeed..?

In Paris i am studying...i know that the flaneur was here, that Baudelaire walked here, that so many people i have read about sat in that cafe...but there is a tension in my project, where theoretically i am firmly based in this past, whereas practically walking is still clinging on to edge of 'contemporary' art/theatre, as it can be considered in many different ways - as performance, as drawing, as exploring, as narrative, as writing, as reading, as exploring, as alternative tourism....this sometimes on explanation makes it hard to grasp and interesting as it is so closely linked to everyday life. Paris has been painted, written about, photographed... i am playing with how i treat Paris, sometimes with a lighter touch of just strolling with no intention of disturbing it, others i cut a straight line through its flesh, others i take and save, sometimes i leave things for passers by.


'what was i looking for when i came to Paris? i don't know. i was chasing some romantic illusion, looking for something genuine, but the feeling got lost among the crowded souvenir shops in front of the Notre Dame' (i say just don't go to there!)


WALK 33

I walked along the part of the Periphery, aware that this line would be drawn on my map, showing i had touched the edge, i had crossed it, it felt the same. the bridges reminded me of other bigger bridges - Brooklyn bridge, golden gate bridge. the road disappeared beneath them, underground, under trees and lakes. this is a strange place i thought where a main road turns so suddenly into a forest - Bois de Boulogne.


This walk was inspired by Tony Smith's walk on the New Jersey Turnpike, he was considered one of the fathers on 'minimal art' and this event is seen as the 'end of art' as he wonders on this walk; 'The road and much of the landscape was artificial but it couldn't be called a work of art.'

My walking and mapping is also a take on Richard Long's a 'line made by walking'....here the body is a tool for drawing, a tool for measuring space and time, and walking is not only an action, it is also become a sign that is superimposed on paper.

WALK 34




22nd November. sunrise at 8.08 at the Sacre Coeur. a 9 hour and 5 minute walk. sunset at 17.11 at Montparnasse tower.


This walk was inspired by;
'The average duration of a derive is one day'

Friday, November 21, 2008

the tale of a space crossed

Today i walk on recommendations...i form a fragmented map... i have destinations i only have titles for...i get on the metro like lifting the pen from the paper...i can chose the places that exists on my blank sheet of paper that is today.


go to la defense he said it is the city in the air

go to cafe cheri she says its so cute

you should walk the river she said

la defense:
after a month of low skylines and noisy streets, la defense is a real shock. the space. the silence and the buildings made of windows that cut they sky like shards of glass. i was comfortable in the past, here i am confronted with the present which feels to much like the future. these free standing buildings make no sense to me, i look in on meetings and computer screens. Beneath the ground i walk on in a network of roads, car parks and shopping malls. who knows where the real ground starts. it is so quiet. There are cities working within these icicles, that reflect my woolen hat. i know they grew like trees from the ground, but they feel more like they landed like meteorites, crashing and flickering with strange new energies. A woman pours a bottle of beer into a glass. suited people stand still on red carpet. i am handed a free microwavable meal in a plastic bag. it is so quiet.

cafe cheri:
Under the metro track from jaures homeless people has made a sitting room out of sofas and coffee tables, they left their dinner over one of the grids that lets heat out of the metro to keep it warm. Miniature football pitches, skate parks and basketball courts are squeezed under the shadow of the metro line. In an archway he scribbled poetry on to the pavement with chalk. The men playing bowls have hung their satchels on hooks on a lamppost. i walk through the bones of a market, its skeletal archways. a black man jogs by with a cd player in his had he shouts 'fuck the pigs, fuck the white man, fuck him again'. cafe cheri appears, it is a small white block on the corner of the street, a string of red neon lights crawls out of the top window. i can see its mirrored pillar and collection of school desks for tables. The chandeliers have red bulbs and a cafe creme is 3 euros. i am inside the cherry, consumed in its sickly redness, its sticks to me skin making it an odd shade of pink - i nest in my sticky sweet corner.
La seine;



The river catches the movement of living lights



The taxi boat is loading up, on this end the path is broken stones and worn grass, it starts to rain and a cyclist shelters under an arch to change into his water proofs


i pass a police scene and church bells ring, i am bothered by my misbehaving umbrella. i enter this time warp of wet cobbled stones where it is easy to imagine couples in appropriate period costume.

The river widens after the islands and the louvre, the walkways are punctuated by spotlights over benches.



i catch a glimpse of the Eiffel tower and know that the river will begin to bend towards it. i am accompanied by a small white dog, we walk across the bridge.

a healthy community of house boats soften the edges with their creaking and plant pots. i pass a monster of rubbish in a corner of the river, that is so thick it forms an island for large rat to crawl over


it is true that Paris looks good under a grey sky. It seems as though the stars saw the lights of Paris and just gave up.
i pass lady Di's memorial, a golden flame frozen in a south westerly breeze. me and an old couple witness the leaves being blown from their branches, we come to a place where white birds are evenly spaced.



i think about walking on the sea bed. about the depth of the seine. the sea bed is an accumulation of debris that has been thrown in, passed through and caught, grown. this is the ground we walk on.
whilst walking the seine i became aware that i was walking a line that had already been drawn, and once mapping that line the map would be more recognisable as Paris - the first things people draw when drawing a map of Paris would be the river and the periphery. i am interested in the walking as drawing lines in the city, drawing lines on the city and attempting to walk them and walking lines that have already been drawn. The river was hear before the city (the city is here because of the river), but the periphery road was drawn on to it, someone must have drawn that line before it was built, and building it was drawing too. i decided to walk the periphery. when you have a line, you can walk on it, around it, across it, on either side of it, it was like this with the periphery, which made it altogether a good adventure.
what do i remember?
i remember the roar under the bridge and the orange glow
i remember being scared in abandoned places that lead to the railway track
i remember a van that felt lived in
i remember a boy lifting a girl over a climbing wall
i remember the road disappearing beneath me as i stood on the bridge that reminded me of Brooklyn bridge
i remember the point when i didn't know if i was inside or outside
i remember carrying a broken mirror
i remember being lost in the woods and coming across a campsite
i remember being the only woman in crowds of men, so many bowls games
i remember a race
i remember her standing with a buggy by the car
i remember the lake
i remember puppets and yellow trees
i remember them listening to the radio on steps
i remember his gut
i remember the journey
i remember the road like a tunnel or a well.
Walking has real potential for story telling, as a journey is the ultimate story. tales of travelers arriving and discovering. The narrative quality of a journey can be found in every walk.

This is currently one of my major concerns, on return, how will i tell the stories of my walks.
through words, through conversation, through pictures, through video, through maps.
i could lie...well, exagerate?

Sunday, November 16, 2008

sketches, maps and plans

SKETCHES:
there are two types of line; threads and traces. threads can be entangled, suspended between two points, threads have surfaces. traces can be an extra layer or scratched, etched and engraved.






MAPS:
'maps bear witness to walks'
'the map, although static, implies a narrative idea'





PLANS:
by the string of metro tickets it says; for everytime i didn't walk



www.couchsurfing.com

www.couchsurfing.com

A project that is bigger than me.

A way to infiltrate the city.

To create and build exchange.

A shared umbrella of ‘alternative tourism’, throwing away the guide book, experiencing a place for what it is, through the filter of a person – a host, but not a guide, a friend.

I walk with the people I meet to fill the streets with conversation.
To aid memory – fixing words to places.
To encourage pondering thoughts.
To allow silence.

I have made Conversation maps. The spoken lines linger around places, floating just of a street name.

Strangers in a strange city. Another blank canvas – a new relationship.

For fresh eyes

New stories, histories, lies, answers, questions
So you are writing a book? What are you looking for?
She said this and he said that they are both wrong he says it’s like this.
Different backgrounds. Time periods. Circumstances.
“So you are gathering samples? Yes?”

In the evening, at lunch, in a museum, a cafe, a street, usually a metro stop…reaching the top of the elevator transforming a photograph into 3D…bald head beard bald head beard bald head bead brown eyes.

Odeon at 2pm

Hotel de Ville at 1pm

Abbesses at 10pm

Academically speaking, I am investigating conversation as research and walking as a research tool.

standing still, car crashes and 7am

i caught the metro to nation in the 12th and walked with the rule of filming myself standing still where there was a surface for my camera. when i had filmed i left a strip of red tape where the camera sat. i filmed until my battery ran out, which was quite soon..


after this walk i began to follow people (based on the work of sophie calle and vito acconci - i follow until i lose them or they enter a private space), i do this when i feel lost...it is a way to escape decision, to change direction, to change pace, to have a focus, to be loosely attached to someone else...i don't want to know where they are going or where they came from, i am interested in the information i receive in the moments when we are attached. i purposefully join our paths.

an old lady leaves the tabac with a lotto ticket in her hand. she is in a blue coat and has a grey bob that is tucked behind her ears. we both witness a car crash. the silver car hit the parked blue van. it is stuck in the middle of the cross roads and is steaming...she stays to watch the scene pan out - she gossips with the gathering and stays long enough to tell the late comers what has happened. the driver is obviously drunk and there are two young children in the back. he tries to restart the car but is taken out by a policeman and helpful civilians...the policeman leaves and so does the old lady. i attach myself to a black coated lady who moves to fast for me to keep her...she runs her hands along railings and pushes her fingertips together when she walks. i lose her around a corner. i cross the lady with a lady who has a see-through bag...she enters the dry cleaners and i wait. she leaves and enters the pharmacy. i wait. green brooms sweep the small yellow leaves, that rest on the ground like fallen confetti - the scene after a wedding - after it all fell...i lose sight of her. i left the car crash rehearsing how i would tell its story... a man with crooked legs and a cigar - he is easy to follow as his cigar stink lingers far behind him. i am a sniffer dog with a path to follow. we return to the street of the crash and the car is being towed away, soon it will be like nothing happened in this quiet area of the city...i look up from writing and he has gone...i am left with high pitched drills, a group photo being taken outside restaurant lupin and a man trying to balance his bike laden with bags.

TODAY I WALKED WITH WILL IN TOKYO...(instruction: film whilst walking)

prewalk (7am) - i wake at this ungodly hour. i watch the street i will enter, it looks unprepared for my arrival. he is in the midst of his day and i have just been woken from a dream. i am excited about seeing sunrise. i have thoughts of a wartime wife - she wakes up when he does just to feel joined to him - so they can at least keep breakfast time together. i wait cloaked and backpacked for the clock to strike 7 and i will enter that familiar smell of morning, i will witness the beginning.

post walk (10am) - the early morning belongs to the homeless, deep in dreams in cardboard boxes, makeshift cocoons, or rising out of tunnels woken by the first ruptures of city traffic...i can walk in the middle of the road...i watch the sky change colour from black, to navy, to grey. i watch it change with the rooftops. a man was being sick and a woman unconscious. people checked in to hotels, tall and being tailed with wheeled belongings...i cross the river alone..i walk through the vast space which is usually so populated...jogger jogs towards me jogger jogs away from me..it closes in on 9 o clock and i find my self muttering 'i just want a croissant' but Paris is in no hurry to open. this time is for dog walking and jogging - no hurry at all. i have ventured west and so am in a rich area. grand flats where arguments leak out but cannot be pinpointed...on passing a large red oriental building that jumps me straight to Tokyo. its corners flick out like an 80s hairdo...the park is beautiful, with a ring road of determined joggers and two women with suitcases who look lost...the streets are wet but not from rain. he kneels on the curb - the early bird.

Friday, November 14, 2008

walking just to hear the sound of my new boots

place d'estienne (trinite square)

The church is encased by a half shell of cafes and wedding dress shops. In front is a small park of low hedges and green benches which i have never seen fully occupied. There is a small boutique with fancy hats and a chocolatier with a curtain to stop the sun melting its goods. The churches archways shelter the homeless, who curl up in the corners. directly opposite is royal trinite cafe, whose sign is in capitals and red neon, but i am in la rotonde which is always busy. inside are purple chairs with a round seat and purple and gold striped backs. The waiters and alert, fast and efficient. at one point you can see a slither of the kitchen, where the plates are put on silver shelves and taken on the palm of a waiter. its cool because the door is open but the concentration of people means it doesn't matter. i hear the coffee machine and the cling clang of spoons. the round tables are floating islands of conversations, the waiters bounce between them like dodgem cars of steam boats. The glass panes look out on to the metro where people disappear down the escalator. The floor is tiled with beige stones and the lights are striped orange and red. i have been sitting here so long that the waiter must have passed the thought of me leaving anytime soon. the round table is dark brown, almost black. i am saving this cafe. here is the only time i have thought about returning to Paris. i am listing the places i feel the urge to write about...buttes chaumont, the 19th, opera, gare du nord, montmatre cemetery, st Georges....i am suddenly intrigued as to my feelings of this city on return. i am a foreigner and so apparently their are secrets in this city that i am apparently denied. but i have secrets too. i share them with the city. and on return, i Will walk and retrace and smile..and no1 will know what i am smiling about. small bubbles rise from a shapely glass of kronenburg. two men in moss green coats rest on the bar. outside i can see the clock that is square with cut off corners, they appear on all useful lampposts. in the park are bright pictures and the church is lit up, not grandly, but just enough.

after this i walk for two hours in the company of my fairly new shoes that sound so good. I ponder on buying silver buttons. I decide what to do tomorrow. I discover how much i like rue du marche saint honore, as by day the glass walkway is filled with business people in black but by this time it is occupied by silent BMX riders, practicing, gliding and plugged in to their ipods.

i like your scooter (updated)

i walked with Jack in New York..it was strange as sometimes when i walked i knew exactly what it would feel like if he was walking beside me..i know what jack's presence feels like. i imagined him on the left side of me when i was in the park. i also suddenly heard many American voices..

'you go ahead I've got the ticket'...'have we been this way'...'sure honey whatever you want'...

i was very central so a prime area for tourists, but maybe my New York connection was bringing them to my attention more than usual. i managed to wonder into Musee d'orsay on this walk, my wandering mentality meant i breezed pass security without a problem, i was invisible to them, i strolled past huge oil paintings and stone statues of women with arched backs and young men with tambourines. I know what New York looks like, so i became aware of the differences, the sky line is much lower here, the tops of buildings are not straight and the corners are curved. the shop fronts are smaller but then seem to swell outwards once you are in. many of the shops are empty, their windows are like islands of lights drawing towards them the moths of the street, but nobody goes in. i wrote Jack a postcard with no intention of sending it. I have done many of these walks with my friends in many places. I like that i am crossing places over, overlapping journeys...and just through the simple action it brings to light the connections and overlapping of people all over the world. when you see someone walking in the street they have a world of connections, pathways, places and people trailing off behind them...but we cannot see this, we can only imagine when we try. but it is impossible to do this for every walker in the street, its similar to feeling empathy for every person you see, its a nice idea but ultimately it will drive you crazy. so i stick to this simple action of walking, knowing that i am walking, and so is someone else, and that everything i see on my walk is being balanced out, merged, compared to everything he sees on his walk. i am moving tectonic plates, defying gravity, forming a new map. i can cut out new york city with my scissors and place it over Paris with some glue.

text from postcard:

i bought this card for jack - it cost one euro
in the tuleries the sun is low, i hear American voices.
people are wrapped up around the pond. They play bowls. They walk arm in arm.
The Gravel crunches under scooters. SOUPE DE LEGUMES 8,50
"and then one day..many things...fools and kings..the greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." *trombone solo*
By the Seine the grass has been worn down.
In Musee d'orsay the ceiling is curved - the lights hang like droplets.
a girl draws a sketch of this statue (sketch of statue)
I find out that the original la danse statue from de l'opera is here - the one at l'opera is a copy.
SPOTTED DRESS AND WELLINGTON BOOTS.
a piece of red tape..next to a yellow post box.
It grows darker and the show windows begin to light up patches of the street.
here the cars are the dominant sound. black poles with round tops punctuate the street and the antique shops walls are painted scarlet red.
chickens turn in the oven and Nike trainers walk in front of me.
UNDER ST.RITA's STATUE ARE FOLDED NOTES OF VARIOUS SIZES.
in the church the chairs are in rows but empty. wooden and wicker. CREPE SUCRE 2 euros
He holds a white paper cup quietly and they eat sandwiches on the steps. The fence is decorated with pieces of sellotape from previous posters.

i have become aware of how my style of writinghas developed, being descriptive, i am constantly writing for someone who isn't there. postcard writing. how can you create the image of a place, a walk, a scene, a city...just by the words you chose..the lines you make. this is echoed in my drawings, thin squiggly lines, trying to capture a place to be shown to someone later..or just as a memory, lines that will trigger the real image in my mind. my words just as my drawings, are not the complete picture, they require filling in the gaps. i think about theatre and how can we take the audience somewhere they have never been just by the lines we create - spoken, written, performed, drawn...
Paris feels particular to this topic, feeling satisfied by the city whilst frustrated by not finding the write words to describe such a place..i have constantly been asking people about paris..'that is paris' 'paris is this' 'paris is that' they say, all with different opinions but equally as sure.

'everything in this city has a quality that defies analysis but enables you to say without hesitation: 'That is Paris' - even if it is a milk can dangling from a door knob, or one of those coarse brooms sweeping up the leaves at the pavements edge in October with a sound like the sea, or an array of tired-looking volumes in a booksellers box on the embankment between pont neuf and pont royal. Why this should be so i do no know, Paris sets it seal on everything that belongs to it.' Julian Green

i went on a night walk with some friends i used this as an opportunity to make a video. i like using walks as a way of seeking out shots for the camera. having a simple action (jumping) and letting it be the place that defines it. i like how the camera is a type of selection. a cutting and pasting. i form a new map with this film, i rearrange shots...and therefore places. in the construction of this video i formed a simple narrative. the joining and meeting of people...and then the separation. i chose jumping as i am interested in peoples physical behaviour in space. how jumping in one place can be completely acceptable but taking it out of context, and into another space, the act of jumping is viewed differently (and the space) as being about effort, trying to lift off, failing, weight, humour. making this at night was also interesting in terms of light, i have noticed in Paris how some streets appear lime green or orange depending on the light...and then you have the Eiffel tower which glows blue. ultimately this video was fun to make, impulsive and part of (and the documentation of) a good long walk..

i filmed this on a my small digital camera so the quality is poor and also i couldn't rotate the shots. this isn't a complaint this is just how it is.





since i came to Paris i have been filming scooters. it started as just filming red things, red scooters are very popular. but then i discovered yellow scooters, blue scooters, pink scooters and orange scooters..i filmed them all and have formed a healthy collection. after one walk i began to think about my relationship with the city, my presence in the city. so i decided to leave bits of red tape where i went - adding to the aesthetic of the city. this then developed into leaving red bits of tape on the scooters i film. these bits of red tape are attached to a note simply saying... j'aime votre scooter...for this is true, i just like the scooter.


message to anyone who got a note on their scooter:


hello, i like your scooter. I am walking in Paris, filming and writing about what i see on my walks. i like to walk with people..i also have a dream to ride on a scooter whilst i am here...contact me h.sullivan@dartington.ac.uk. alternatively, if you didn't appreciate my note, sorry, have a nice day.


i am bored of being silent in the city. i feel Paris has made such a big impression on me that i somehow need to lean back on it or i will just fall over.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

writing, running and holding hands

WALKING AND WRITING

(instruction walk and alternate between writing whilst moving and still)

moving:

The lights hang from buildings as not to disturb the street.
no long shadows.
glass buildings whine wit electronic systems,
their doorways shelters ten snoring souls.
i look for glowing eyes.
i meet none.


still:

i like the expression 'darkness falls'
it lies still, and like oil fills all the gaps.
the sky is now a negative space, not the panoramic screen it had been,
featuring weather reports, races and cartoons.
its switched off
not even the stars are on.
i can no longer pose as a day dreamer.
it is night time; you are either asleep or awake.
the tops of buildings disintegrate, islands of light guarded by spindly railings.
they are far removed from the stone doorway.


moving:

people gather at the casino
i find my way through without getting burnt.
the criss cross of shop gates form a honeycomb on the pathway.
red lights dance around no exit signs.
the waltz.
counting and turning
counting and turning
an empty suitcase next to a bin of clothes.
a traveler has decided to lose themselves here.
i am no traveler,
i carry no suitcase,
i carry no clothes.
they ended at this place and left anonymous.
i am a witness but i arrived to late.

still:

he doesn't kiss her face
he much prefers her neck
two people and two post boxes




WALKING AND FILMING

(instruction: walk and then run for the camera wherever you find a surface for the camera to rest)




WALKING WITH ANNELIES - in Berlin

(instruction: walk in Paris whilst Annelies walks in Berlin, both cut out a filter out of paper previous to the walk, use this filter to take photos along the walk)

A parrot sitting on a bucket of sweets

The metro rumbles over the church

bored sales car sales woman

she waits for her dry cleaning

two boys share a scooter ride to school

they pass a green bottle between them on a green park bench


two girls take pictures of themselves in a shop mirror

the babies green coat reaches over his chin

this street is for repairing - striped down typewriters and motorbikes

here they are whispering prayers and bottle feeding children next to bought bouquets


in red trousers and red jacket he parts with his friend

stopping outside the pharmacy to look at the cardboard woman.

then he appears again on the wheels of a scooter, he disappears round a corner.

he is my red balloon today.



she cant stay on her roller skates.

(thanks Annelies)








Sunday, November 2, 2008

Paris cafe and drawing lines

I have been using Paris as a meeting place, a cafe, a meeting place for people and cities. I have met people in Paris and took walks with them, discussing Paris - why they are here? how long for? why? whats it like? in comparison with where they are from or have been? will you stay? gradually building up a complex opinion about Paris' network of people. I have always been interested in why people do things, the rationale behind action, the task. The usual response to 'Why Paris?' is 'Why not?'. When i discuss these questions i like to walk, a way of connecting the psychological to the geographical, almost to confirm the information by giving it a place in the city, a kind of take of psycho geography. also as method of remembering...i can retrace these walks and therefore retrace the conversation. These meetings have also felt like meetings with other cities, asking people to tell me about their city, San Paulo, Seville...it has become apparent that this context is important, as location is a point of view, it effects the initial image of Paris...from a big city it looks small, from the french countryside it looks horrible...i am interested in this changing image of Paris. Common topics raised in discussion are about the tension between the suburbs and the city, how Paris doesn't include its suburbs as the city, the 'fake' Paris, the tourist Paris, the functions of Paris - practical reasons to stay (education, culture, job opportunity).

I have also been meeting my friends and colleagues in Paris by organising and performing simultaneous derives - an idea taken from the situationist. I am fortunate enough to have friends in many places at the moment, so took this as an opportunity to connect places through simultaneous action. I like to perform the same action in many spaces as away of connecting them, forming a collection, a map. In these simultaneous derives i contact a friend, organise a time to start (taking time difference into consideration) and duration for the walk and a mode of recording the walk that is specific to them...

Walk with Beatrice lane in Portland (1 hour walk) - every 10 minutes write a word to form a performance score

Walk with Lisa Caddy in Wellington (2 hour walk) - write four songs in response to 4 places you pass through, write these songs on postcards and post along the way



















Walk with Natalie Clarke in Memphis (2 hour walk) - take a spoon for a walk, use it to take photos This has become a form of collaboration, using my walk as a form ( a carrier), a means of carrying out their creative activity. I am concerned that this has taken attention away from the act of walking as the focus lays in the output...this may have to change. These walks make it possible for me to overlay cities, play with the map of the world, move places against geographical laws. Scoop Memphis up on a spoon and let it fall over Paris.

I am here building my own Urban Fabric, sewing together scraps of map, pieces of Paris i discover each day through wandering along side scraps of map from other places that i explore imaginatively when they are described to me...in conversation of after a simultaneous derive.

urban fabric - cities have a feeling of 'lacking a place', relationships and situations and place intertwine to create a urban fabric, which is then placed under the mysterious name of 'city'.
i am documenting how i create this urban fabric, how i build a context for myself in this city. starting with the unknown, a black canvas (almost, as i too have a place i have come from). By drawing/mapping out my wanderings and walks i have created maps that visually show this process of acquainting myself with a new place.
similar to the artist Dan Bellasco Rogers who says;

'I do not consider the drawing of my life more important or more interesting than anyone elses. i want to record mine because it's mine.'

I am filling the city with words lines patterns of my time here. The outcome of a walk for me is usually a line on paper. a red line. This has become important as i know look at a map of the world and see it covered in many lines, my line, and the millions of others branching across countries and cities. I have begun to think about life as a walk, as the making of a line. walking as drawing. Tim Ingold writes well about lines;

'it takes only a moments reflection to recognise that lines are everywhere - walking, talking - humans generate lines wherever they go. They appear in all aspects of everyday human activity and in so doing, brings them together into a single field of inquiry.'

My mum once told me how she told someone the story of her life and how satisfying it was to do...similar to the satisfaction of following a well engraved grove in a hard surface or pulling a long piece of thread between your fingers...i thought.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

being lost and writing postcards

i wandered through Paris without a map, giving in to the currents of crowds and the meanders of pavements. i became aware of traveling through different areas, spaces..how my walk was rich with variety, ever changing textures.

'a street is more spell binding because it is not his own, not private'

after my walks i write and make a rough map of my route...in black i note places and roads that i remember and then in red a draw the line of my walk.
















My writings are influenced by what i was reading at the time - 'Paris peasant' a highly descriptive surrealist text by Louis argon. some extracts of mine;

'characters float by, hanging by shop windows, jogging or one of those fleshy faces crammed under the marque of a bistro'
'it crawled on its slimy belly out of the depths of the murky river and finally rested on its banks, hard stones and steps lying still'
'on the thick green carpet - a conveyor built of wide eyes and sneaky camera...outside the bees are buzzing on various tiers. decorations on a wedding cake. they perch on tip toes ready to lift of and skip along the rooftops that are laid out before them.'

when i walk i often reflect on the situation in relation to something i have researched...it usually occurs to me very naturally, like the walk is a form of selection, the circumstance i am in causes me to pick a certain aspect of my research and use the walk to investigate it further. for example...when i first walked without a map i discovered that i didn't feel lost. i had previously read Rebbecca Solnit's 'a Field guide to getting lost' which discusses many theories on being lost;

'leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. that's where the most important things come from, and where you will go.'

in this book she talks about a place in north central California where there is no left and right. the people describe their own bodies and cardinal directions in reference to the environment, so consequently the self only exists in reference to the rest of the world. my arm that is closest to that mountain.

'i do not feel lost even though i have been walking without a map. i would feel lost in an unchanging landscape - a desert, a stretch of emptiness. here i am constantly in relation to something else, i share this space with people, with buildings, with trees. the relationship i create as i breeze through this urban landscape keep me located - grounded - they pin me down to this city so i am never lost.'

on another walk i formed a reason for the walk 'i want to see the river', in the walk i lost myself..i forgot my reason...i got swept into the crowds and was then washed up by the river and remembered my reason for walking.

'if you set off on a derive in the right frame of mind, you will certainly wind up in the right place'

this experience reminded me of Virginia Woolf's essay 'street haunting' where she sets out into London in search for a pencil.

'on a fine evening between four and six, we shed the self our friends know us by and become part of a that vast republican army of anonymous trampers...one must, one always must, do something or another; it is not allowed to simply enjoy oneself. was is it for this reason that, some time ago, we fabricated the excuse, and invented the necessity of buying something? but what was it? ah, we remember, it was a pencil.'

here is another example of being lost, of losing oneself because nobody knows who you are. one of the glories of being part of the masses, you lose all responsibility, you become anonymous - and therefore you can become anyone.

after more time here i have begun to feel the labyrinthine construct of the city, it being centreless, and ultimately being lost in it. this happened in my latest walk - at the time i was doing a simultaneous derive with a friend in Memphis (i have done these with people in Portland and wellington also). i was uninspired and from recently having negative conversations about Paris being fake, heartless and imbalanced my thoughts were being echoed by the environment i was walking in. i had seen it all before, it had become familiar, and that felt sad. but on turning the corner i was meet by a bright yellow sign saying 'MEMPHIS' - the city does this, it has the capability to create what can only be described at the time as small miracles. you can sink until you think you are just about to hit the bottom and then it will spit out a lifeboat and you arrive at the surface again and for a short while you are safe. This experience reminded me of something John Berger wrote in 'about looking';


'it is a question of contingencies overlapping. the events which take place in the field...acquire a special significance because they occur during the minute or two during which i am obliged to wait. it is as though these minutes fill a certain area of time which exactly fits the spatial area of the Field. time and space conjoin.'

other walking related issues i have strolled along is the tension between walking as pleasure or torture, as freedom or punishment. also urban planning, psycho geography, how place is organised so we never go beyond the unknown. also how walking develops a linear narrative that is real time, and then this in relation to film. also how the 'city' is a mysterious name given to a complex machine made of many systems, cogs, wires and by walking i occasionally get a glimpse of these inner workings, the living city beneath.

i have been documenting my walks in various ways, mainly maps, but also through writing..which then i write on postcards and send to my mum. i like to incorporate family into my practice, it has the feeling of two worlds colliding. also when family is present in my work i think it becomes more accessible, is immediately something that can people can relate to. i am aware the work i make has a domestic feel, usually through the materials i like to use, i think a family members presence adds to this. the sending of postcards also intrigues me, the image that you chose to send - particularly the image of Paris - i have been asking people about the image of Paris, why people come here, why is it attractive. these postcard images feel like another part of that ongoing conversation.