Wandering

What makes cities interesting? For me it is the unexpected and the chance of discovery – the concept of serendipity – finding what is right under your feet, in front of you, above you and around you – if only you take the time to look. To be in cities like London and Paris, layered with history and humanity, seem to require more than just viewing – not to mention queuing – ‘the top 10 tourist attractions’. So I may see none of those but I am hoping I see and experience much more. There are two theories to these wanderings.. Psychogeography -  more structured and maybe restrictive in its rules and strategies with algorithmic walking – take the ‘first right, second left’ approach. "It's the psychological and the geographical. It's about how we're affected by being in certain places -- architecture, weather, who you're with -- it's just a general sense of excitement about a place." Read more: http://www.utne.com/2004-07-01/a-new-way-of-walking.aspx#ixzz2WFqiO5yM Flâneurs or for me Flâneuses   Modern psychogeographers are influenced by the earlier flâneurs who sauntered through the 19th century urban environment. Observing and investigating with no real destination, but a real purpose in mind  to take the time to absorb the details of the city. Street photography has become the toll of the modern flâneuses. Susan Sontag in her 1977 essay “on Photography”  ‘The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur finds the world 'picturesque.'

This is how Psychogeography could work when we are in Clerkenwell : “Unfold a street map of London, place a glass, rim down, anywhere on the map, and raw round its edge. Pick up the map, go out into the city, and walk the circle, keeping as close as you can to the curve. Record the experience as you go, in whatever medium you favour: film, photography, manuscript, tape. Catch the textual run-off of the streets; the graffiti, the branded litter, the snatches of conversation. Cut for sign. Log the data-stream. Be alert to the happenstance of metaphors, watch for visual rhymes, coincidences, analogies, family resemblance, the changing moods of the street. Complete the circle, and the record ends. Walking makes for content; footage for footage. It's the psychological and the geographical. It's about how we're affected by being in certain places -- architecture, weather, who you're with -- it's just a general sense of excitement about a place."

… or maybe I could  just wander out the door and see what I see …