posts tagged ‘walking’
Walking… an act of subversion
20 September 2011 • out of context
tags: books, cities, psychogeography, quotes, walking
“This act of walking is an urban affair and, in cities that are increasingly hostile to the pedestrian, it inevitably becomes an act of subversion. Walking is seen as contrary to the spirit of the modern city with its promotion of swift circulation and the street-level gaze that walking requires allows one to challenge the official representation of the city by cutting across established routes and exploring those marginal and forgotten areas often overlooked by the city’s inhabitants. In this way the act of walking becomes bound up with psychogeography’s characteristic political opposition to authority, a radicalism that is confined not only to the protests of 1960s Paris but also to the spirit of dissent that animated both Defoe and Blake as well as the vocal criticism of London governance to be found in the work of contemporary London psychogeographers such as Stewart Home and Iain Sinclair.”
Psychogeography
Merlin Coverley
Through aimless drift
18 September 2011 • out of context
tags: books, cities, psychogeography, quotes, walking
“The Situationist concept of “psychogeography” had its roots in the aimless Surrealist drifts through Paris described in Breton’s 1928 novel Nadja and in Louis Aragon’s 1926 novel Le Paysan de Paris, and meant a purely subjective, para-scientific exploration of (chiefly) urban spaces through aimless drift. The surrealist drifts in turn were indebted to the romanticist “flâneur,” a wanderer “botanising the asphalt” as cultural theorist Walter Benjamin put it in his essay on 19th century poet Charles Baudelaire.”
Wandering
25 June 2011 • out of context
tags: books, music, painting, quotes, walking
“Si se me permite decirlo, declaro además que en la pared de la casita campaban pinturas murales o sublimes frescos celestialmente delicados y graciosos, que representaban un paisaje de los Alpes suizos en el que había pintada otra casita, una casa de las tierras altas de Berna. En verdad, la pintura en sí no valía nada. Sería osado querer afirmar otra cosa. Pero aun así se me antojaba espléndida. Simple y sin adorno como era, me encantaba; en realidad me encanta cualquier pintura, por necia e inhábil que sea, porque toda pintura recuerda, primero, la actividad y el celo, y segundo, a Holanda. ¿Acaso no es hermosa toda música, incluso la más limitada, para aquel que ama la esencia y la existencia de la música? ¿No es cualquier persona, hasta la más malvada y desagradable, amable para el filántropo?”.
El paseo
Robert Walser
Under our feet are images of walking men
16 May 2011 • outer
tags: signs, walking
A project begun in 2004 by Stephen Wragg to document the unique diversity of painted ‘walking men’ on the streets of the UK.
Saunter
29 March 2011 • out of context
tags: language, meaning, walking
saun·ter verb \ˈsȯn-tər, ˈsän-\
Definition of SAUNTER
intransitive verb
: to walk about in an idle or leisurely manner : stroll
— saunter noun
— saun·ter·er \-tər-ər\ noun
Examples of SAUNTER
1. They sauntered slowly down the street.
2. He sauntered into the store.
Origin of SAUNTER
probably from Middle English santren to muse
First Known Use: circa 1667
Readings
3 August 2010 • readings
tags: body, books, fiction, patterns, perception, psychogeography, rain, seitai, space, texts, uncertainty, walking
• Walking [read]
Henry David Thoreau. 1862.
• El cuerpo, su estado y la espontaneidad [download pdf]
Haruchika Noguchi
• The Crimes of the Flaneur
Tom McDonough. October Magazine, Fall 2002, No. 102.
• The Man of the Crowd [read]
Edgar Allan Poe. 1840.
• Théorie de la dérive [read]
Guy Debord. 1956.
• Sensorium
Edited by Caroline A. Jones
Watchings
25 July 2010 • watchings
tags: civilization, comedy, documentaries, fiction, humour, psychogeography, space, television, tv series, video, walking
• Nip/Tuck (2003 – 2010)
Ryan Murphy
• London (1994) [watch]
Patrick Keiller
• The IT Crowd. Series 4 (2010)
Pirotecnia para los tímpanos y la corteza cerebral
25 July 2010 • out of context
tags: articles, books, brain, cinema, dreams, quotes, senses, sound, texts, walking, waves
“El aire que vibra, la membrana que palpita, el hueso que se mueve, el líquido que oscila y los impulsos electroquímicos que se precipitan como fuentes sobre el cerebro expectante.
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Los sonidos tienen un acceso más directo al Subconsciente que la información visual.
(…)
Más allá de los efectos dramáticos o psicoacústicos, los ruidos y sonidos pueden generar un espacio de experiencia perfectamente físico.
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Según su propia etimología (sensatio), las sensaciones hacen referencia a sentir (sentire), es decir, al tacto, por lo tanto también a la relación mecánica del cuerpo con su entorno mediante la tracción y la resistencia.
(…)
El sonido es parte del cuerpo, penetra en él con sus ondas sonoras y nos afecta físicamente. Creo que este es uno de los motivos por los que puede emocionarnos tanto.
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Siempre me ha encantado evadirme, ya fuera mediante un paseo, un libro, películas o sueños; y es ahora cuando me doy cuenta de lo que he hecho estos últimos años. He practicado agujeros que daban a mis otros mundos.”
Pirotecnia para los tímpanos y la corteza cerebral by Ralf Beil
Sitting with crossed legs
13 June 2010 • out of context
tags: articles, books, civilization, mankind, nature, texts, walking
“When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them —as if legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon— I think that they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long ago.”
Walking by Henry David Thoreau