How to account for the actual nature of the urban environment? How to document? How to anaylse? To understand the ground beneath your feet, the walls beside you, the spaces that have become the background to everyday life and normally pass unnoticed during the A to B. Spending time deliberately looking rather than just dashing past can be relatively uninspiring. It was suggested I look at Georges Perec :
" We live in space, in these spaces, these towns, this countryside, these corridors, these parks.. there isn't one space, a beautiful space, a beautiful space round about, a beautiful space all around us, there's a whole lot of small bits of space ... spaces have multiplied, been broken up and have diversified. There are spaces today of every kind and every size and every use and every function. To live is to pass from one space to another, while doing your very best not to bump yourself". (Perec, Species of Spaces and Other Pieces,1974)
His chapter on The Street prescribes specific exercises -" exhaust the subject.. force yourself to see more flatly. Detect a rhythm: the passing of cars. The cars arrive in clumps.... decipher a bit of the town, deduce the obvious facts
i have embarked on a number of different exercises to document local spaces:
- time lapse
- redrawing maps from google earth to create maps of non consumption
- just sitting while the time lapses and doing the perec exercises
its an act of faith - hoping for clues to support my hypothesis
I need some other subjective experiences other than mine .........wish you werent here?
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