I was just browsing, and was sort of wowed by this gallery; how they function as a platform/ meeting point between the artist/audience. and I guess it is interesting to see an approach which is not entirely seperate to some of the issues and reasons and situations in engage
http://www.recessart.org/past
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
engage2012: Welcome!
engage2012: Welcome Hello to everybody,
I am looking foreword to come together in this project.
I am curious to meet and to exchange about how we observe the situation being part in the project and being outsiders of being “Bucharest people”.
I am attached to visions of artist from different venues as well as different point of views emphasised by the fact of different cultural back grounds and ethical, social disposition.
Beside I believe in creating a platform for cultural exchange which values a cultural identity as well as being open to expand towards a vision for a society which makes people feel integrated and responsible.
Coming from a dance-theatrical background and also performing a lot outside,
I have a natural interested in atmosphere of place, surroundings, environments or living conditions.
It would be inspiring to see the emotion of the city in terms of how warm hearted people are or closed off, including all different face of human kind.
How many different cultures life together, life standards, immigrants, gypsies …
How the sound of the city will be, the mood, the smell and the way of life.
How do the people response about their city and their country?
Are they sad or optimistic about life and future?
How do I feel there? Can we relate? Do we meet?
In that sense I would like to explore the city by walking around and follow my nose.
I am looking foreword to come together in this project.
I am curious to meet and to exchange about how we observe the situation being part in the project and being outsiders of being “Bucharest people”.
I am attached to visions of artist from different venues as well as different point of views emphasised by the fact of different cultural back grounds and ethical, social disposition.
Beside I believe in creating a platform for cultural exchange which values a cultural identity as well as being open to expand towards a vision for a society which makes people feel integrated and responsible.
Coming from a dance-theatrical background and also performing a lot outside,
I have a natural interested in atmosphere of place, surroundings, environments or living conditions.
It would be inspiring to see the emotion of the city in terms of how warm hearted people are or closed off, including all different face of human kind.
How many different cultures life together, life standards, immigrants, gypsies …
How the sound of the city will be, the mood, the smell and the way of life.
How do the people response about their city and their country?
Are they sad or optimistic about life and future?
How do I feel there? Can we relate? Do we meet?
In that sense I would like to explore the city by walking around and follow my nose.
Monday, 23 January 2012
Shared research
Hello all of us,
I thought maybe we could share some preparative research here on the blog by posting stuff connected to this tag - "Info on Bucharest". I know Emma and Tess are already piling stuff - maybe you could post it here?
Everyone else invited of course,
Josefin
I thought maybe we could share some preparative research here on the blog by posting stuff connected to this tag - "Info on Bucharest". I know Emma and Tess are already piling stuff - maybe you could post it here?
Everyone else invited of course,
Josefin
Welcome!
Welcome Karen!
Here is a tag that you can attach to stuff you put up. You can also "cross-reference" by adding more tags.
We would be really happy if you post something about yourself and your interest in this project here as a sort of introduction to the other participants,
With friendly regards,
Josefin, Emma and Tess
Here is a tag that you can attach to stuff you put up. You can also "cross-reference" by adding more tags.
We would be really happy if you post something about yourself and your interest in this project here as a sort of introduction to the other participants,
With friendly regards,
Josefin, Emma and Tess
Monday, 16 January 2012
on meeting
this is a very simple quote from a travel article. but it led me to think about meeting, gathering, and dialogue
Horia Diaconescu, a keen observer of the city in which he’s spent his 29 years, they represent a sea change. Under Communism, he explained, public life was restricted — people simply did not go out to meet friends (or strangers) in bars and cafes. They socialized in private homes, or not at”
http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/09/spying-on-bucharests-cool-underground/
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
Call out for participants
ENGAGE PROJECT 2012
_ CALL-OUT FOR PARTICIPANTS!
Engage 2012 is an artist initiative aiming to bring together artists in a 10-day long collaborative research session. This will take place in Bucharest, Romania, hosted by Bucharest Air, from 16th-25th of March 2012.
The purpose of the encounter is to explore Bucharest city combining individual investigations with a collective process consisting of daily meetings and conversations. The invited artists are encouraged to enter the project through the perspective of their own art-practice. The key issues of the project are ideas of inside(r)/ outside(r), separate/ integrated, subject/ object.
During the course of the project the participants will live together in close accommodations provided by Bucharest Air. They are expected to participate in the daily maintenance of the space during this time (ie. basic cooking and cleaning). During each day the participants of the project are expected to go out on their own, exploring the city as individual artists. These experiences, as well as thoughts, ideas or collected ephemera constitute the topics of the conversations later in the evening (or at other times as agreed within the group).
The project is dialogue based: It is about being in a dialogue with the city and with the other participants of the engage collective. The participants are not expected to make work during the time of the project, but instead the collective conversations will be recorded with video or audio. This material will be used for a publication and as documentation of the project.
During the course of the project the participants will live together in close accommodations provided by Bucharest Air. They are expected to participate in the daily maintenance of the space during this time (ie. basic cooking and cleaning). During each day the participants of the project are expected to go out on their own, exploring the city as individual artists. These experiences, as well as thoughts, ideas or collected ephemera constitute the topics of the conversations later in the evening (or at other times as agreed within the group).
The project is dialogue based: It is about being in a dialogue with the city and with the other participants of the engage collective. The participants are not expected to make work during the time of the project, but instead the collective conversations will be recorded with video or audio. This material will be used for a publication and as documentation of the project.
The engage collective will gather a group of ca 6-9 participants. The number of participants is restricted to this number to benefit good conversations (quality before quantity).
During the final three days of the project the collective dialogues will be held in public, and during this time anyone who wants can join, as a way of presentation.
_
DETAILS
Dates: 16th -25th March 2012
Where: Bucharest Air, Bucharest, Romania
Costs: Engage 2012 is an artist-initiative, and at this moment we have no funding secured. Participants are expected to cover their own travel expenses plus €175 towards housing and food. These are the basic, minimum costs for the project; it is a non-profit endeavor. We encourage selected participants to apply for local funding where possible.
Who are we looking for? We prefer that participants have never been to Bucharest before/ We prefer that participants are communicative and socially aware since an important part of the project is collective and communication based/ We prefer participants who can speak reasonably good English, since this will be the language used primarily / We prefer participants that are hungry, happy, passionate and adventurous.
Applications should contain: Letter of motivation, CV, and link to artists website or digital portfolio.
Applications can be sent to: engage.project2012@gmail.com. (Make sure to write Application in the “subject” field).
Deadline: The 15th of February all applicants will be notified. However, selected participants will be notified as early as possible (so as to facilitate individual fundraising). This means that early applicants have a better chance to enter the project than late ones.
About Engage 2012: Engage is an initiative developed by artists Josefin Rasmuson, Emma Haugh, and Tess Walkowski. For more information see http://engageinternational.blogspot.com.
About Bucharest Air: Bucharest Air is a residency program in the city of Bucharest, Romania, initiated by visual artist Tudor Bratu (http://www.bucharestair.com/).
Sunday, 25 December 2011
Monday, 19 December 2011
Interesting exhibition text
The Power of Doubt at Guangdong Times Museum
The Power of DoubtCurator: Hou Hanru
Participating Artists: Hamra Abbas, Adel Abdessemed, Du Zhenjun, Thierry Fontaine, Shaun Gladwell, Jiang Zhi, Dinh Q Lê, Wangechi Mutu, Pak Sheung Chuen, Dan Perjovschi, Shahzia Sikander, Dimitar Solakov, Nedko Solakov, Sun Xun, Tsang Kin-Wah, Wong Hoy Cheong
18 December 2011–6 February 2012
Our era is the one dominated, shaped and determined by digital technologies. Our existences and identities are continuously transformed and redefined by interfaces in the form of flux of digitalised images and texts. These interfaces are oscillating between facts and fictions. They construct the contemporary substance of reality and truth.
Art and artists today, like the world itself, are largely “globalised.” Digital media—from still and moving images to the internet—are both the resources and materials for artistic production. Artists continue to confront, embrace and inquire the nature of reality, truth and dreams. But the processes are unprecedentedly fluid, uncertain and precarious while the outcomes are generating more suspense, doubt and critique than conclusion and resolution.
This is a seemingly open and liberated globalised world that, in turn, violently imposes fictions of happiness and peace through flattening the reality into an interface that compress every human activity into act of communication of a single truth. Behind the “freedom” of expression and communication provided by Google, Facebook, Youtube and iPhone, etc., in the field of economy, we can only accept to survive in a neo-liberalism system while politically we are encouraged to embrace the hegemony of a kind of “democracy” dictated by the logic of global imperialism. This is particularly articulated in locations that are experiencing social transformations.
The Power of Doubt superposes site-specific installations and existing works—in various new and old media but relating to photography as a model of perception—that embody the necessity of doubting the “mainstream” way of seeing, recording and communicating the real world, which, once again, oscillating between spectacular “truths” and dramatic fictions. Most of the artists are from countries such as China, Eastern Europe, that experience drastic changes from communism to capitalism and South East Asia, Africa, who are constantly negotiating between post-colonial memory and geopolitical conflicts, searching solution to deconstruct the double-bind status quo blocked into post-colonial and neo-liberal systems. They are also highly individualised and singular voices that cry out the collective doubts and desires of their societies while expressing highly different and diversified interests in artistic and intellectual pursuits.
It’s the hybridity and multiplicity produced by the encounter, dialogue and debates within this multitude—which represent most intensely the formation of a new global multitude of people who refuse to trust the imposed truth of the dominant system and struggle to achieve an emancipated truth—that will form a fantastic space of meeting with the public and extend invitations to their participation in the process of struggle. Here, we’ll all share the very power of doubt!
For further information, please refer to www.timesmuseum.org
//emma
Art and artists today, like the world itself, are largely “globalised.” Digital media—from still and moving images to the internet—are both the resources and materials for artistic production. Artists continue to confront, embrace and inquire the nature of reality, truth and dreams. But the processes are unprecedentedly fluid, uncertain and precarious while the outcomes are generating more suspense, doubt and critique than conclusion and resolution.
This is a seemingly open and liberated globalised world that, in turn, violently imposes fictions of happiness and peace through flattening the reality into an interface that compress every human activity into act of communication of a single truth. Behind the “freedom” of expression and communication provided by Google, Facebook, Youtube and iPhone, etc., in the field of economy, we can only accept to survive in a neo-liberalism system while politically we are encouraged to embrace the hegemony of a kind of “democracy” dictated by the logic of global imperialism. This is particularly articulated in locations that are experiencing social transformations.
The Power of Doubt superposes site-specific installations and existing works—in various new and old media but relating to photography as a model of perception—that embody the necessity of doubting the “mainstream” way of seeing, recording and communicating the real world, which, once again, oscillating between spectacular “truths” and dramatic fictions. Most of the artists are from countries such as China, Eastern Europe, that experience drastic changes from communism to capitalism and South East Asia, Africa, who are constantly negotiating between post-colonial memory and geopolitical conflicts, searching solution to deconstruct the double-bind status quo blocked into post-colonial and neo-liberal systems. They are also highly individualised and singular voices that cry out the collective doubts and desires of their societies while expressing highly different and diversified interests in artistic and intellectual pursuits.
It’s the hybridity and multiplicity produced by the encounter, dialogue and debates within this multitude—which represent most intensely the formation of a new global multitude of people who refuse to trust the imposed truth of the dominant system and struggle to achieve an emancipated truth—that will form a fantastic space of meeting with the public and extend invitations to their participation in the process of struggle. Here, we’ll all share the very power of doubt!
For further information, please refer to www.timesmuseum.org
//emma
Friday, 16 December 2011
Tuesday, 13 December 2011
Emma Haugh - Artist Bio
Emma Haugh
Current ideas will find their way to Finland in summer 2012 when Emma will take up residence with Platform art collective in Vaasa for two months to make and present new work.Emma graduated from the Dublin Institute of Technology with a first class Honours BA in photography in 2010.
She has had two solo exhibitions (Without A Trace destroying the archive-The Joinery Gallery Dublin and BERGHAIN-Commonplace projects Dublin) and has shown work in-group exhibitions and screenings in Pallas Contemporary Projects, The Gallery of Photography and the Darklight film festival. Emma has been awarded two studio-based residencies and has taken part in several experimental residential projects organized by The Good Hatchery (Co. Offaly, Ireland).
Artist Bio - Tess Walkowski
Tess Walkowski
Tess Walkowski (US) is originally from Detroit but has lived in the Netherlands since 2006. In her work, which often has a strong performative aspect, she explores the boundaries between herself and her audience. In this process everyone is vulnerable and entangled in mutual attack, play and seduction. These events are often supported by the construction of a self-built room or a site, made from recycled or second hand materials. Surrounded by a collection of objects Tess Walkowski plays music and reads poetry, inviting the listeners to participate in an intimate/ spiritual exchange.
To abandon, means to enter the moment.
To seduce, means to invite into the moment.
To be present is to experience.
And to create is to attempt to open this to others.
Become.
Experience.
Be present.
Tess Walkovski has exhibited and performed in The Black Box, (Amsterdam), Planet Art (nominated for The Young Blood Award) and Extrapool (Nijmegen). She is currently doing impromptu shows on the streets of Amsterdam (ie. outside the Van Gogh Museum on Amsterdam Museum Night) and preparing to move to NY in the summer 2012.
Tess Walkowski is also currently busy with a series of oil paintings about transmission and abandon, and is experimenting with neu artuadian theatre.
Artist Bio - Josefin Rasmuson
Josefin Rasmuson
Josefin Rasmuson (SWE) is a Stockholm-based artist whose work is centered around the idea and imagery of the urban landscape.
In her drawings she explores city locations, from empty corridors and office spaces to deserted bus stops and crossings, showing a cold and sometimes hostile environment. In the drawings Untitled, Stairway in the metro (2010-11) this sense of emptiness remains, despite the fact that the depicted space is visibly crowded. The subject of these drawings is the movement and mass of people at metro stations during rush hour. Here it is precisely the contrast between void and the occupied space, the expressionlessness of the single individuals that becomes central to the experience of emptiness, loneliness and distance. The drawings are executed with black or blue ballpoint pen, a medium that - with its sheer banality - serves to further emphasize the uncanny undertone in the apparently everyday motives.
Josefin Rasmuson has studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam 2006-2010, and has since then been involved in a variety of different projects. Her work has been exhibited over the past year in The Black Box (NL), This is Not a Gateway (UK), The Circle Gallery (NL) and most recently in Reciclart (BE). She has also participated in various initiatives such as The Calendrier Publication (launch 24 nov 2011, Brussels) and Aerial Blue, organized by the Good Hatchery, Ireland. Drawings from the series Untitled Stairway in the Metro will be shown at Liljevachs Vårsalong, Stockholm, SWE, 27 Jan-25 March 2012.
Wednesday, 7 December 2011
About Bucharest Air
Contemporary Romania seems to be characterized by a prolonged and seemingly permanent state of anxious and sometimes schizofrenic transition between Nicolae Ceausescu’s oppressive socialist regime and an imported, aggressive capitalism that often seems to lack defined moral guidelines or rules; this period of transition confronts citizens with new and specific challenges at every step, making Romania a place of discovery proper as well as a country which during the past 20 years has been in a constant and dynamic development.
Romania’s social, demographic and economic divisions would place the country in between second and third world countries: unbridgeable gaps between a relatively small but financially powerful ruling class and the common citizen, huge differences in living standards between industry and commerce orientated cities and the rural, agriculture based countryside as well as deeply rooted corruption and a lack of a practicable direct democracy being only a few criteria to name; Romania’s adherence to the European Union, soon to be as equal partner, contradicts the above, generating a specific kind of visual and culture-based conflict, between that which ‘is’ and that which is ‘hoped for’, generating in this way a rich source of information as well as inspiration.
Due to its history and geographic location, Romania could also be perceived as a melting pot of different European cultures and identities: with over 45 local dialects based on a mixture of Latin and Slavonic languages and minorities ranging from Russian speaking Lipoveni to a strong Hungarian, Turkish, German and Gypsy community, Romania is a strong example of the historical development of a truly multicultural society with both its flaws and positives to go along.
Viewed in this light, the artist best suitable for a residency in Bucharest would be found in the segment of art which deals with issues closely related to an analysis of society as either fragment or whole; research and on-site investigation, dialogue and a will to enter intellectual, cultural and artistic exchange on both an international level as well as a local one, a feel for context and a desire to work within a local scene or situation seem to be prerequisites.
The Residency program is open to all art professionals who have a genuine interest in a period of working and living in Bucharest and can host artists working with photography, video, new media and internet, drawing, performance, research based work, installation, site specific (public space) interventions and similar. The Residency is less suitable for painters and artists who work with large scale studio-based sculpture. However, if need be, there are opportunities for renting an external workplace which could suit specific artistic needs and projects.
Tudor Bratu
Romania’s social, demographic and economic divisions would place the country in between second and third world countries: unbridgeable gaps between a relatively small but financially powerful ruling class and the common citizen, huge differences in living standards between industry and commerce orientated cities and the rural, agriculture based countryside as well as deeply rooted corruption and a lack of a practicable direct democracy being only a few criteria to name; Romania’s adherence to the European Union, soon to be as equal partner, contradicts the above, generating a specific kind of visual and culture-based conflict, between that which ‘is’ and that which is ‘hoped for’, generating in this way a rich source of information as well as inspiration. Due to its history and geographic location, Romania could also be perceived as a melting pot of different European cultures and identities: with over 45 local dialects based on a mixture of Latin and Slavonic languages and minorities ranging from Russian speaking Lipoveni to a strong Hungarian, Turkish, German and Gypsy community, Romania is a strong example of the historical development of a truly multicultural society with both its flaws and positives to go along.
Viewed in this light, the artist best suitable for a residency in Bucharest would be found in the segment of art which deals with issues closely related to an analysis of society as either fragment or whole; research and on-site investigation, dialogue and a will to enter intellectual, cultural and artistic exchange on both an international level as well as a local one, a feel for context and a desire to work within a local scene or situation seem to be prerequisites.
The Residency program is open to all art professionals who have a genuine interest in a period of working and living in Bucharest and can host artists working with photography, video, new media and internet, drawing, performance, research based work, installation, site specific (public space) interventions and similar. The Residency is less suitable for painters and artists who work with large scale studio-based sculpture. However, if need be, there are opportunities for renting an external workplace which could suit specific artistic needs and projects.
Tudor Bratu
Tudor Bratu (1977, NL) is an internationally active artist currently living and working in Amsterdam and Bucharest. Besides his involvement with visual art, his activities include teaching, lecturing and critical writing. In March 2010, Tudor Bratu set up Bucharest AIR, an artist in residence project meant to facilitate international artistic production, research and cultural exchange in Romania. For more information visit Tudor Bratu.
Bucharest AIR collaborates closely with the Centre for Visual Introspection, The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture (Fonds BKVB) and Transartists.
Bucharest AIR collaborates closely with the Centre for Visual Introspection, The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture (Fonds BKVB) and Transartists.
Alex Mirutziu
Alex Mirutziu is a Romanian artist who makes work that's pretty queer, he has an interesting website which can be found HERE the navigation of the site is a little unusual but it's worth the effort, I came across him in an issue of DIK Fagazine which is a queer art zine produced in Poland, their recent issue focuses on Romania.
//emma
Monday, 5 December 2011
parkour
have also been finding parkour really interesting as a method of exploration navigation
though it is only cool when you are like her. Had to search a while to find female parkour which was not trivializing. in one they shopped high heels.....just sayin.....
guy debord on derive (i know you guys know it :)
One of the basic situationist practices is the[literally: “drifting”], a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances. Dérives involve playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psychogeographical effects, and are thus quite different from the classic notions of journey or stroll.
In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there. Chance is a less important factor in this activity than one might think: from a dérive point of view cities have psychogeographical contours, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones.
But the dérive includes both this letting-go and its necessary contradiction: the domination of psychogeographical variations by the knowledge and calculation of their possibilities. In this latter regard, ecological science — despite the narrow social space to which it limits itself — provides psychogeography with abundant data.
The ecological analysis of the absolute or relative character of fissures in the urban network, of the role of microclimates, of distinct neighborhoods with no relation to administrative boundaries, and above all of the dominating action of centers of attraction, must be utilized and completed by psychogeographical methods. The objective passional terrain of the dérive must be defined in accordance both with its own logic and with its relations with social morphology.
In his study Paris et l’agglomération parisienne (Bibliothèque de Sociologie Contemporaine, P.U.F., 1952) Chombart de Lauwe notes that “an urban neighborhood is determined not only by geographical and economic factors, but also by the image that its inhabitants and those of other neighborhoods have of it.” In the same work, in order to illustrate “the narrowness of the real Paris in which each individual lives . . . within a geographical area whose radius is extremely small,” he diagrams all the movements made in the space of one year by a student living in the 16th Arrondissement. Her itinerary forms a small triangle with no significant deviations, the three apexes of which are the School of Political Sciences, her residence and that of her piano teacher.
Such data — examples of a modern poetry capable of provoking sharp emotional reactions (in this particular case, outrage at the fact that anyone’s life can be so pathetically limited) — or even Burgess’s theory of Chicago’s social activities as being distributed in distinct concentric zones, will undoubtedly prove useful in developing dérives.
If chance plays an important role in dérives this is because the methodology of psychogeographical observation is still in its infancy. But the action of chance is naturally conservative and in a new setting tends to reduce everything to habit or to an alternation between a limited number of variants. Progress means breaking through fields where chance holds sway by creating new conditions more favorable to our purposes. We can say, then, that the randomness of a dérive is fundamentally different from that of the stroll, but also that the first psychogeographical attractions discovered by dérivers may tend to fixate them around new habitual axes, to which they will constantly be drawn back.
An insufficient awareness of the limitations of chance, and of its inevitably reactionary effects, condemned to a dismal failure the famous aimless wandering attempted in 1923 by four surrealists, beginning from a town chosen by lot: Wandering in open country is naturally depressing, and the interventions of chance are poorer there than anywhere else. But this mindlessness is pushed much further by a certain Pierre Vendryes (in Médium, May 1954), who thinks he can relate this anecdote to various probability experiments, on the ground that they all supposedly involve the same sort of antideterminist liberation. He gives as an example the random distribution of tadpoles in a circular aquarium, adding, significantly, “It is necessary, of course, that such a population be subject to no external guiding influence.” From that perspective, the tadpoles could be considered more spontaneously liberated than the surrealists, since they have the advantage of being “as stripped as possible of intelligence, sociability and sexuality,” and are thus “truly independent from one another.”
At the opposite pole from such imbecilities, the primarily urban character of the dérive, in its element in the great industrially transformed cities — those centers of possibilities and meanings — could be expressed in Marx’s phrase: “Men can see nothing around them that is not their own image; everything speaks to them of themselves. Their very landscape is alive.”
One can dérive alone, but all indications are that the most fruitful numerical arrangement consists of several small groups of two or three people who have reached the same level of awareness, since cross-checking these different groups’ impressions makes it possible to arrive at more objective conclusions. It is preferable for the composition of these groups to change from one dérive to another. With more than four or five participants, the specifically dérive character rapidly diminishes, and in any case it is impossible for there to be more than ten or twelve people without the dérive fragmenting into several simultaneous dérives. The practice of such subdivision is in fact of great interest, but the difficulties it entails have so far prevented it from being organized on a sufficient scale.
The average duration of a dérive is one day, considered as the time between two periods of sleep. The starting and ending times have no necessary relation to the solar day, but it should be noted that the last hours of the night are generally unsuitable for dérives.
But this duration is merely a statistical average. For one thing, a dérive rarely occurs in its pure form: it is difficult for the participants to avoid setting aside an hour or two at the beginning or end of the day for taking care of banal tasks; and toward the end of the day fatigue tends to encourage such an abandonment. But more importantly, a dérive often takes place within a deliberately limited period of a few hours, or even fortuitously during fairly brief moments; or it may last for several days without interruption. In spite of the cessations imposed by the need for sleep, certain dérives of a sufficient intensity have been sustained for three or four days, or even longer. It is true that in the case of a series of dérives over a rather long period of time it is almost impossible to determine precisely when the state of mind peculiar to one dérive gives way to that of another. One sequence of dérives was pursued without notable interruption for around two months. Such an experience gives rise to new objective conditions of behavior that bring about the disappearance of a good number of the old ones.[1]
The influence of weather on dérives, although real, is a significant factor only in the case of prolonged rains, which make them virtually impossible. But storms or other types of precipitation are rather favorable for dérives.
The spatial field of a dérive may be precisely delimited or vague, depending on whether the goal is to study a terrain or to emotionally disorient oneself. It should not be forgotten that these two aspects of dérives overlap in so many ways that it is impossible to isolate one of them in a pure state. But the use of taxis, for example, can provide a clear enough dividing line: If in the course of a dérive one takes a taxi, either to get to a specific destination or simply to move, say, twenty minutes to the west, one is concerned primarily with a personal trip outside one’s usual surroundings. If, on the other hand, one sticks to the direct exploration of a particular terrain, one is concentrating primarily on research for a psychogeographical urbanism.
In every case the spatial field depends first of all on the point of departure — the residence of the solo dériver or the meeting place selected by a group. The maximum area of this spatial field does not extend beyond the entirety of a large city and its suburbs. At its minimum it can be limited to a small self-contained ambiance: a single neighborhood or even a single block of houses if it’s interesting enough (the extreme case being a static-dérive of an entire day within the Saint-Lazare train station).
The exploration of a fixed spatial field entails establishing bases and calculating directions of penetration. It is here that the study of maps comes in — ordinary ones as well as ecological and psychogeographical ones — along with their correction and improvement. It should go without saying that we are not at all interested in any mere exoticism that may arise from the fact that one is exploring a neighborhood for the first time. Besides its unimportance, this aspect of the problem is completely subjective and soon fades away.
In the “possible rendezvous,” on the other hand, the element of exploration is minimal in comparison with that of behavioral disorientation. The subject is invited to come alone to a certain place at a specified time. He is freed from the bothersome obligations of the ordinary rendezvous since there is no one to wait for. But since this “possible rendezvous” has brought him without warning to a place he may or may not know, he observes the surroundings. It may be that the same spot has been specified for a “possible rendezvous” for someone else whose identity he has no way of knowing. Since he may never even have seen the other person before, he will be encouraged to start up conversations with various passersby. He may meet no one, or he may even by chance meet the person who has arranged the “possible rendezvous.” In any case, particularly if the time and place have been well chosen, his use of time will take an unexpected turn. He may even telephone someone else who doesn’t know where the first “possible rendezvous” has taken him, in order to ask for another one to be specified. One can see the virtually unlimited resources of this pastime.
Our loose lifestyle and even certain amusements considered dubious that have always been enjoyed among our entourage — slipping by night into houses undergoing demolition, hitchhiking nonstop and without destination through Paris during a transportation strike in the name of adding to the confusion, wandering in subterranean catacombs forbidden to the public, etc. — are expressions of a more general sensibility which is no different from that of the dérive. Written descriptions can be no more than passwords to this great game.
The lessons drawn from dérives enable us to draw up the first surveys of the psychogeographical articulations of a modern city. Beyond the discovery of unities of ambiance, of their main components and their spatial localization, one comes to perceive their principal axes of passage, their exits and their defenses. One arrives at the central hypothesis of the existence of psychogeographical pivotal points. One measures the distances that actually separate two regions of a city, distances that may have little relation with the physical distance between them. With the aid of old maps, aerial photographs and experimental dérives, one can draw up hitherto lacking maps of influences, maps whose inevitable imprecision at this early stage is no worse than that of the first navigational charts. The only difference is that it is no longer a matter of precisely delineating stable continents, but of changing architecture and urbanism.
Today the different unities of atmosphere and of dwellings are not precisely marked off, but are surrounded by more or less extended and indistinct bordering regions. The most general change that dérive experience leads to proposing is the constant diminution of these border regions, up to the point of their complete suppression.
Within architecture itself, the taste for dériving tends to promote all sorts of new forms of labyrinths made possible by modern techniques of construction. Thus in March 1955 the press reported the construction in New York of a building in which one can see the first signs of an opportunity to dérive inside an apartment:
“The apartments of the helicoidal building will be shaped like slices of cake. One will be able to enlarge or reduce them by shifting movable partitions. The half-floor gradations avoid limiting the number of rooms, since the tenant can request the use of the adjacent section on either upper or lower levels. With this setup three four-room apar
on the road
On the road was a book which used the idea of the moment and the situation......being there.....as the thing in itself, the beat mindset.....a movement......and the words, that which was left behind, almost a relic of the moment, but a way to lead others into the moment.
“They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn…”
And for just a moment I had reached the point of ecstasy that I always wanted to reach, which was the complete step across chronological time into timeless shadows, and wonderment in the bleakness of the mortal realm, and the sensation of death kicking at my heels to move on, with a phantom dogging its own heels, and myself hurrying to a plank where all the angels dove off and flew into the holy void of uncreated emptiness, the potent and inconceivable radiancies shining in bright Mind Essence, innumerable lotus-lands falling open in the magic mothswarm of heaven. I could hear an indescribable seething roar which wasn't in my ear but everywhere and had nothing to do with sounds. I realized that I had died and been reborn numberless times but just didn't remember because the transitions from life to death and back are so ghostly easy, a magical action for naught, like falling asleep and waking up again a million times, the utter casualness and deep ignorance of it."
http://www.terebess.hu/english/ontheroad1.html < full book here
More Roni Horn
I've always loved the simplicity of Roni Horns work...I kind of envy it actually. I like the consideration of water because I live on an Island and am constantly reminded of the sea...most cities are built beside water sources, Bucharest is situated on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, which flows into the ArgeșRiver, a tributary of the Danube...this is where we travel to.
//emma
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