Flânerie : 'A walk for walk's sake.'
An active line on a walk, moving freely, without goal. A walk for walk's sake. The mobility agent is a point, shifting its position forward.
Paul Klee, Pedagogical Sketchbook (Bauhaus,1925)
This project explores how we use and relate to public spaces: how we move through them, what we see in them, what we overlook, and ask whether we should add or take away from them. The flâneur offers a different image of the urban dweller: ‘he uses his time deliberately and generously’, ‘viewing time as a continuum for his unmeasured drifting’ through the city observing the people, their actions and places they inhabit with obsessive attention. He is attentive to the small objects and overlooked places without the superficial and protective urbanity of the sophisticate. See Gleber A (1999) The art of taking a walk, Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ).
David Batchelor’s Found Monochromes were the catalyst for my exploration of the street. I photographed the multitude of metallic grids and plates, steel drains and manhole covers, shooting circles and curves. Besides the sheer number of the objects that mark and line our thoroughfares, the different textures, patterns and colours make these interesting. But can they all be necessary? Imagine rolling them up to clear the ways leaving subterranean networks – city life support – revealed.
Note, the French term flâneur for this languid observer was always male; the feminine noun flâneuse had a pejorative interpretation of a morally loose woman. I choose to use the term flâneur as ungendered. For some further reading on this practice see the next page here: Flânerie Melbourne.
Copyright ©
An active line on a walk . . .
Paul Klee, Pedagogical Sketchbook (Bauhaus,1925)
This project explores how we use and relate to public spaces: how we move through them, what we see in them, what we overlook, and ask whether we should add or take away from them. The flâneur offers a different image of the urban dweller: ‘he uses his time deliberately and generously’, ‘viewing time as a continuum for his unmeasured drifting’ through the city observing the people, their actions and places they inhabit with obsessive attention. He is attentive to the small objects and overlooked places without the superficial and protective urbanity of the sophisticate. See Gleber A (1999) The art of taking a walk, Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ).
David Batchelor’s Found Monochromes were the catalyst for my exploration of the street. I photographed the multitude of metallic grids and plates, steel drains and manhole covers, shooting circles and curves. Besides the sheer number of the objects that mark and line our thoroughfares, the different textures, patterns and colours make these interesting. But can they all be necessary? Imagine rolling them up to clear the ways leaving subterranean networks – city life support – revealed.
Note, the French term flâneur for this languid observer was always male; the feminine noun flâneuse had a pejorative interpretation of a morally loose woman. I choose to use the term flâneur as ungendered. For some further reading on this practice see the next page here: Flânerie Melbourne.
Copyright ©
An active line on a walk . . .
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Active lines
1. Observed circles, 2017
2. Curves and grids, 2017
3. Urban landform, 2017
4. Curves and knobs, 2017
5. Underworld, 2017
6. City slalom, 2017
1. Observed circles, 2017
2. Curves and grids, 2017
3. Urban landform, 2017
4. Curves and knobs, 2017
5. Underworld, 2017
6. City slalom, 2017