stepping into Arnhem

workshop one: I considered the spaces that I share with my roommates in the apartment where I live

workshop three: Anushka, Ella, Korina and I played with the idea of "proxemics" and mapped physical and dialogical levels of intimacy

workshop four: I walked in Arnhem and took photographs. I positioned the camera on surfaces that I found in the city landscape

workshop five

prompt one: I recorded steps of passers-by in Arnhem Central station. I sat in the square outside the train station and placed the recorder between my feet on the ground. As people walked by, I picked one person at a time and I tapped their pace with my feet.
During editing I overlapped the recorded paces.

prompt two: I walked slowly in the square outside the train station. I held the camera at the height of my waist and recorded my feet moving and the sounds of the square.

In the third workshop of the module Anushka, Ella, Korina, and I played with cultural anthropologist Edward T. Hall’s idea of “proxemics”. Hall categorizes “the relative distances between people” into 1) intimate space, 2) personal space, 3) social space and 4) public space, by use of a numerical scale. Our first thoughts were that this numerical scale oversimplifies parameters that affect interpersonal distances, such as cultural habits, gender or occasion of encounter. Secondly, we assumed that a certain category of space corresponds to certain types of conversation that range, respectively, from intimate to public. We decided to reverse this pattern. We took various positions around a long table. We discussed intimate subjects while being the furthest apart and more formal subjects while standing close together. During the experiment we used pieces of clay to imprint our lived experience.

As a second phase, we mapped the experiment. My initial reaction was to start with tools of cartography that I was familiar with: the Cartesian model and scale. We cut a piece of paper that corresponded to the size of the table on a scale of 1:3. We placed it on a bigger drawing paper that served as the space around the table. Using this as a basis, we marked our positions and dialogues from phase one. This process of mapping combined several actions: reflecting on how we experienced the experiment, re-assuming the positions and tracing the movement of our bodies around the table, recalling phrases of the conversations, marking, writing, calculating and discussing the various levels of intimacy. Finally, we placed the pieces of clay on the map.

A map that adheres to the Cartesian system transforms the world into a two-dimensional depiction. In the case of the workshop, we attempted to translate an experiment of multiple facets and dimensions. Although we started making a 2D map, we incorporated several dimensions of the experiment using following tools:

"There is no knowing or sensing a place except by being in that place, and to be in a place is to be in a position to perceive it."

Edward S. Casey, 1996
'How to Get from Space to Place in a Fairly Short Stretch of Time: Phenomenological Prolegomena'
p. 18

"The conventional city plan adopts a view point as if in the sky above the city, looking down from god's eye, the position of power from which alone such an all-knowing representation can be conceived."

Malcom Miles, 1997
'Art, Space and the City: public art and urban futures'
p. 26
London: Routledge

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"A flat map has only two dimensions: width (left to right) and length (bottom to top). Transforming the three dimensional Earth into a two-dimensional map is subject of map projections and coordinate transformations [...] two-dimensional Cartesian coordinates (x, y), also known as planar rectangular coordinates, are used to describe the location of any point in a map plane, unambigiously."

"[...] feminist scholars have critiqued the
Cartesian rationality of modern cartography as being a
particularly masculinist way of thinking and representing
the world. Such a way of thinking employs the ‘god trick’ of
a disembodied and emotionless view from nowhere, floating some way above the Earth, wherein spatial relations can
be holistically mastered and manipulated (Haraway 1991;
Rose 1993). As noted by Huggan (1994, excerpted as
Chapter 5.5), from a feminist perspective mapping codifies,
defines, encloses and excludes, subjugating land to a male
gaze and representation (also see Kwan 2007, excerpted as
Chapter 5.9). Such an approach pre-supposes that it is
possible to objectively and neutrally capture and process
the world, and to know, dominate and master it."

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Byung-Chul Han, 2017
'The scent of time: a philosophical essay on the art of lingering' Cambridge: Polity Press

a reflection on the module 'Intraplaces'

frame: Master's of Performance Practices

module leader: Elena Cologni

here you can find

- a list and short description of the workshops and links to the respective blogs

- a written reflection in five sections

- a link to the map 'paces in Arnhem'

Arnhem, the Netherlands, is currently the site of my artistic practice. As I have lived here for a few months, I feel that I don’t know the city and its rhythms yet. In an attempt to get acquainted with Arnhem, I placed myself in it and listened to the footsteps of the passers-by. I tapped with my feet the walking paces that I observed and audio recorded them. I did so in four locations that are frequented by passers-by and are in walking distance (five to twenty minutes) from my flat share.

Maps and dimensions

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Conventional cartography has been critiqued of employing “the ‘god trick’ of a disembodied and emotionless view from nowhere”. The disembodied all-knowing bird-eye view promises objectivity and accuracy in depicting the world. In quotidian occasions it conveys mostly visual information about the city and aids the user to find a desired location. Personally, I struggle with maps. They confuse me more than they help me find my destination. I have difficulties relating my body, which moves and navigates the streets, to a two-dimensional grid designed to look on the city from above. The myth of objectivity, the two-dimensional grid and the prioritization of vision result in a cartography that omits the multidimensional lived experience of the city.

A short consideration of conventional maps

I consider that rhythms, which emerge from a correlation of public and individual schedules, moving bodies, temporalities and landscapes, are part of the experience of the city. Focusing on temporality as a culturally specific perception of time, I argue that temporality of productivity dominates the Western world today. It connects time to the notion of work. It attributes value to uses of time that relate to production of outcomes, consumption, activity, progress and movement. It disvalues other modes of attending to time, such as contemplation and lingering in-between. In this sense, time spent to transition from one place to another and from one activity to another is considered time lost (which means non-productive). This conception influences the human walking pace in the city. It creates a habitual pace that aims at transitioning from one location to another while loosing as little time as possible. The senses of the body are, thus, steered towards the desired destination and disconnected from the environment one is walking in. In order to question this habitual pace (and consequently normative uses of time in public space) in my artistic practice, I walk slowly without destination in public locations (see video of workshop five) and focus on listening to the city landscape.

Temporality of productivity
and walking pace

two layers of paper
clay sculptures in their original size
colored pens
text
legend
dotted lines
signs
perspectives of four artists
collaboration.

Questions:

-If there is such a thing as habitual walking pace, what are the habitual paces of the people who live and walk in Arnhem?

-Will the pace of walking vary from one location to another?

-Will the pace of walking vary in relation to the time of day and the day of the week?

With the materials I collected from my embodied observations, I created an audible map of Arnhem. For its design I used four points of perception, which draw from and, at the same time, question the Cartesian model and the prevalence of vision:

bird-eye view: I used pictures from google maps as a basis to built on

surfaces of the city landscape: photographs were taken with my camera positioned on a surface I found in the city (e.g. bench, wall, stairs)

ground: I positioned the audio recorder on a low base, close to the ground, between my feet.

my body: my body was in a seated position while I observed, listened and recorded.

Creating an audible map

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Observations