We are all alone in the Cultureverse.

Blogging was a nice phase.

Tusedae.

I wandered lonely as a clod, then *** came here and we went to town and had a food and then came back and went in the car and reached C_y and went to the Roman Museum and had a food and then left there and here I am now.

My love is so empty, look at what it has become:



I suppose that we all want a life like that.

Phrohm Wickypaedophile.

Nihilism, Self-consistency, and Paradox

Nihilism is often described as a belief in the nonexistence of truth. In its more extreme forms, such a belief is difficult to justify, because it contains a variation on the liar paradox: if it is true that truth does not exist, the statement "truth does not exist" is itself a truth, therefore showing itself to be inconsistent. A formally identical criticism has been leveled against relativism and the verifiability theory of meaning of logical positivism.

A more sophisticated interpretation of the claim might be that while truth may exist, it is inaccessible in practice, but this leaves open the problem of how the nihilist has accessed it. It may be a reasonable reply that the nihilist has not accessed truth directly, but has come to the conclusion, based on past experience, that truth is ultimately unattainable within the confines of human circumstance. Thus, since nihilists believe they have learned that truth cannot be attained in this life, they look upon the activities of those rigorously seeking truth as futile. However, this interpretation is open to the same criticism as above, since, barring mystical revelation, the only way the "truth" of nihilism can have been learned is from within the confines of human experience. An attempt at reconciliation may be made in the following way: I have logically deduced that I cannot obtain absolute truth (as opposed to logical truth) with logic. Thus, from the confines of human experience, I am convinced (by logical reasoning) that I cannot obtain absolute truth. The nihilist, then, cannot profess to know something absolute, but he can say that, in terms of the human method of problem solving (logical reasoning), absolute truth cannot be obtained by human logic.

Yes, man makes anything into anything. I will not be having a career in art because it simply lacks the depth that a 'depressing' job could bring. This stark view of the working world is a result of wanting to see millions of people hang for watching Big Brother instead giving their attention to global somethingismness.

Art history deserves big satire but satire is stupid crap stupid, even if 'genius' Peter 'miserable pissed to death smart-arse' Cook make lots of it. He was very funny and died. None of this matters, remember, none of us matter, remember, none of what we say matters, remember, we can have so much fun, remember. I think that I shall do something new later this week.

Smug, smug, wealthy cock, smug. Niiyaht.

Crunching mints and spitting the bits on a new carpet.

I have been spending pieces of my 'conscious existence' [really...aren't all estimations pretentious? Psycho-anything is certified moneybollocks] on the cyberinterweb, reading about things that did happen during the 1980 decade into the 1990 decade. One of those things, which in itself is proof that I care far more about personal politics [computer games] than any of that unreal celebrity power cack [all news is shite made for arsehole purposes] and also a direct portal to happy times in any time [meaning that my mental age is frozen at around twelve]. Perhaps I have developed into a keyboard aesthete, that would account for my fractured dress sense.

Without further self-everything marksmanship, this is the road to Theo's Grotto...

Do you not wish that you were as lucky as I am? Life is sky-size brilliant for giving me human life at a time when I can access this material. I wish that I was immortal, with infinite lives and a death option. I'd probably hang around the apocalypse ['our' fault - only united when we fuck up eh?] and piss on some dickheads then hold my breath and float, via space, to loads of other places and then die by swimming into the sun and speaking the death code. Remember that if everyone else in the world was dead, you would have no competition and you would be the best and the worst at everything. This is how I live my life, because nobody else is alive because another person's life is irrelevant. You only live yours, no matter what those dozy twats tell you at house parties. In fact, next time I am wrongfully jargoned by a spaced-up shithair I will do my best to cause a gentle mental collapse in them that results in several shrugs at the shrink house and one very long spell down the well.

Fuck all of those twits. They are almost as boring as that gallery was.

"Fite tha Mundayne".

Went Whitting. Saw ***. Came home. Ate a lovely dinner, thank you ***. I must confess that before any of this business I was working on something which was not strictly related to ART [it was music].

No dissertation efforts but lots of thoughts - doesn't everyone? Hahaha! *** and I will be involved in a shortened film hyperpathetically named Miracle Bay. It may not be romantic but it WILL be complete!

PS: Fuck conceptual art, this image shows enough about my tastes...you can ignore the character sprite if you prefer.



And yes, everything we think about is conceptual. Ergo fuck everything*.

* What a title for something that I will never make.

All about Chorlton.

Chorlton-cum-Hardy or Chorlton is a suburb of Manchester. It is situated about three miles south west of the city centre, on the crossroads of two main roads - A6010 Wilbraham Road & B5218 Barlow Moor Road. Chorlton was originally a separate village outside of the City but, along with Hardy Farm, became a part of the Manchester conurbation due to urban sprawl.

It is a separate area which should not be confused with Chorlton-on-Medlock, a different area in the centre of Manchester.

Chorlton likely derives from 'tún' (meaning farm, settlement or homestead) and 'ceorl' (meaning a freeman of the lowest class), giving us a full title similar to 'settlement of the peasants'. Hardy was an adjoining farm area probably meaning 'hard island' in Old English. These two parishes were brought together in 1555 with the Latin word cum (meaning with) used to seal the union.

Chorlton Green is a conservation area in a tranquil part of Chorlton, and is the last remaining vestige of the original village. Bull-baiting was introduced into Britain around the year 1209, and it remained active in Chorlton Green until it was made illegal in 1835. Now on hot summer days locals congregate and relax on the Green with refreshments from the adjacent pub, the Horse and Jockey.

The area is well-populated with creative people, with many artists, writers and actors based locally. Also, the Bee Gees spent their early childhood living on 51, Keppel Road, Chorlton, and the artist/musician Badly Drawn Boy currently lives in Chorlton. The Stone Roses were another Chorlton band, with guitarist John Squire living and working for Cosgrove Hall in the suburb. Mike Pickering, the M of M people lived on Ryebank Road. Another famous and long term resident of Chorlton-Cum-Hardy was the actress Doris Speed who lived in Sibson Rd. For over twenty years she played Annie Walker - the posh talking landlady of the Rovers Return in the ITV soap opera Coronation St.

Until the 1990s, Chorlton was largely a working class area. Whilst this is still true in many regards, the area has seen much gentrification and urban development, particularly around the Beech Road area. This was perhaps brought about by an influx of outsiders, such as students from the Manchester universities, many of whom chose to live in the area whilst studying and chose to stay in the area after graduation.

Chorlton is also known for Cosgrove Hall animation studios where Chorlton and the Wheelies (which get their name from the area) and Dangermouse were both created, amongst many other series.

Every year, Chorlton has a summer festival called the Beech Road festival, at the end of June, centred around the "Rec" (the recreational area just off Beech Road), Chorlton Green, Beech Road, the Horse and Jockey, and the Beech pub. A traditional tug-of-war game is played between teams from the all the older pubs around the area and stalls are set up the whole length of Beech Road.

Chorlton neighbours Stretford, Didsbury, Old Trafford, Fallowfield, Withington, and Whalley Range.

Chorlton ward is represented by three Labour councillors - Angela Gallagher, Sheila Newman, and Val Stevens.

We went to Kit's Coty House:



[This picture was from another person's camera]

I am going to this:



I live a life of variety. It is spicy.

Semantics after Eno.

I read this:

Semantics (Greek semantikos, giving signs, significant, symptomatic, from sema, sign) refers to the aspects of meaning that are expressed in a language, code, or other form of representation. Semantics is contrasted with two other aspects of meaningful expression, namely, syntax, the construction of complex signs from simpler signs, and pragmatics, the practical use of signs by agents or communities of interpretation in particular circumstances and contexts. By the usual convention that calls a study or a theory by the name of its subject matter, semantics may also denote the theoretical study of meaning in systems of signs.

Though terminology varies, writers on the subject of meaning generally recognize two sorts of meaning that a significant expression may have: (1) the relation that a sign has to objects and objective situations, actual or possible, and (2) the relation that a sign has to other signs, most especially the sorts of mental signs that are conceived of as concepts.

Most theorists refer to the relation between a sign and its objects, as always including any manner of objective reference, as its denotation. Some theorists refer to the relation between a sign and the signs that serve in its practical interpretation as its connotation, but there are many more differences of opinion and distinctions of theory that are made in this case. Many theorists, especially in the formal semantic, pragmatic, and semiotic traditions, restrict the application of semantics to the denotative aspect, using other terms or altogether ignoring the connotative aspect.

And remembered some of this:

BRIAN ENO lyrics - "King's Lead Hat"

Dark alley (dark alley) black star
Four turkeys in a big black car
The road is shiny (bright shine) the wheels slide
Four turkeys going for a dangerous ride
The lacquer crackles (black tar) the engines roar
A ship was turning broadside to the shore
Splish splash, I was raking in the cash
The biology of purpose keeps my nose above the surface (Ooh)
King's lead hat put the innocence inside her
It will come, it will come, it will surely come
King's lead hat was a mother to desire
It will come, it will come, it will surely come.

In New Delhi (smelly Delhi) and Hong Kong
They all know that it won't be long
I count my fingers (digit counter) as night falls
And draw bananas on the bathroom walls
The killer cycles (humdrum), the killer hurts
The passage of my life is measured out in shirts
Time and motion (motion carried) time and tide
All I know and all I have is time
And time and tide is on my side
King's lead hat put the poker in the fire
It will come, it will come, it will surely come
King's lead hat was a mother to desire
It will come, it will come, it will surely come.

The weapon's ready (ready Freddy) the guns purr
The satellite distorts his voice to a slur
He gives orders (finger pie) which no-one hears
The king's hat fits over their ears
He takes his mannequin (tram line) cold turpentine
He tries to dial out 999999999
He dials reception (moving finger): he's all alone
He's just a figment on the telephone!
King's lead hat made the Amazon much wider
It will come, it will come, it will surely come
King's lead hat was the poker in the fire
It will come, it will come, it will surely come
King's lead hat was a mother to desire
It will come, it will come, it will surely come
King's lead hat put the innocence inside her
It will come, it will come, it will surely come.

I know now that all I care about is the pleasing exterior of the thing. All this theory is making me...oh goodnight.

Baudie and Benji.

Who the hell cares what either of these two clowns had to say?





In fact, Chucky Baudelaire and Walt Benjamin [represented in a reversed order] are famed for their thinking, writing and cleverness.

Charles Pierre Baudelaire(April 9, 1821 – August 31, 1867) was one of the most influential French poets of the nineteenth century. He was also an important critic and translator.

Walter Benjamin (July 15, 1892 – September 27, 1940) was a German Marxist literary critic and philosopher. He was at times associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory, and was also greatly inspired by the Marxism of Bertolt Brecht and the Jewish mysticism of Gershom Scholem.

As you can see, they are both rather dead as of August 2006. An extra large cry of who cares? spills across the keyboard and mouse. I care. I care because these two verbally special human males gave us lots of ideas about people who walk around being pretensiously busy, in a way that I enjoy pretending to be myself. And should we, you and I, have reached a situation in which you are in a state of suspicion as to the verity of my claims, stick this up your fucking eyes:

"Flâneur" is a French word. A flâneur is a detached pedestrian observer of a metropolis, a 'gentleman stroller of city streets', first identified by Charles Baudelaire. The word has no exact equivalent in English. The concept of the flâneur is important in the work of Walter Benjamin, is important in academic discussions of the phenomenon of modernity, and has become meaningful in architecture and urban planning.

Around 1850, Baudelaire began asserting that traditional art was inadequate for the new dynamic complications of modern life. Social and economic changes brought by industrialization demanded that the artist immerse himself in the metropolis and become, in Baudelaire's phrase, 'a botanist of the sidewalk', an analytical connoisseur of the urban fabric. Because he coined the word about Parisians, the 'flâneur' (the one who strolls) and the 'flânerie' (the stroll) are associated with Paris and the kind of pedestrian environment which accommodates leisurely exploration.The Flâneur is typically well aware of his slow, leisurely behaviour and had been known to exemplify this state of being by walking turtles on leashes down the streets of Paris.

Walter Benjamin adopted this concept of the urban observer both as an analytical tool and as a lifestyle. From his Marxist standpoint Benjamin describes the flâneur as a product of modern life and the Industrial Revolution, unprecedented in history and definitely of a certain social class, parallel to the advent of the tourist. His flâneur is an uninvolved but highly perceptive bourgeois dilettante. Benjamin became his own prime example, gathering his social and aesthetic observations from long walks through Paris. Even the title of his unfinished Arcades Project comes from his affection for covered shopping streets.

In the context of current architecture and urban planning, designing for flâneurs is one way to approach issues of the psychological aspects of the built environment. Architect Jon Jerde, for instance, designed his Horton Plaza and Universal CityWalk projects around the idea of providing surprises, distractions, and sequences of events for pedestrians.

I will be buried in Wikipedia.

It's all fucking wank.

With image.

A bulge of hedgehog gut off the grubby pavement:



The diagrams shall live and the text shall die. Except for the titles.

A whole load of crap words part 100000.

From a flurry of A6 notelets:

extremes/contradictions/paradoxes/extensions/exaggerations/enhancements/embellishments/decoration

what is the purpose of academia?
what is the purpose of art?

what is not valid?

can anybody really own anything?

prove connections...
intelligent argument...
clear and concise...

'behaviour' in 'environment'

how are people different from each other?
from the quantifier/beholder/opinioneer/subjectifier?

universal metasubstance? debugging an argument? mass dissertation?

individual responsibility?
[name/reputation/experience/perspectives]
identity: limits and a basis?
[necessary in language?]
intellectual property laws

idea-theft-share: conscious/unconscious [honesty/truth/oblivion/denial/accident]

mass memory - who remembers the source?

head world, body world - are there exact divides?

entertaining/stimulating...

[I] enjoyed [it]
person product
consumer show
punter service
audience process
member
individual etc
viewer etc

Logic/formula
Opinion/perspective

Mass fact

eye/brain/product [what of other senses?]

To walk in...city [love constant change]

Identity in town [English town]
Identity in city [Cant/Manc]

Describing the experience of being [x] in [place].
Describing the experience of being [label] in [collective term].

How to stand out.
How to belong.
How to receive criticism.
How to treat anything with humour.

Subcultures etc. Tourists. Photographers. Visitors. Locals. Shoppers. Workers.

Observers aren't involved. Why? Everyone is involved. We're all here moving, join us, we're all strangers, judge us, make a scale.

In city media, the categoric descriptions are far more advanced than outside. Everyone belongs [this gibberish demands rational editing - read what you write or at least think about it first], semi-anonymous, there is so much mystery and room for imagination - faster by the day. You accept that you too exist among others. You are not isolated and tend not to be scrutinised, at least, not for long. You can carry your dreams and your self image solid. You are seen is snap shots. Through the middle, fast, out of the way. The feeling of 'safe' city centre suits me perfectly.

The scale of people - the things we love to see and be seen by - there is a comfortable maximum. That amount of time for which each person is visible - what is the optimum? Vanity and stories - what in a look cannot lie - these strangers with 'backgrounds', look into their eyes and allow unlimited assumptions. You can discard, edit and waste no paper in the process. There is a lot to be glad about in the centre of a city. You are definitely there, truely alive.

Whoops.

Walking? Who cares about that?

I am thinking about a wider set of words now - searching, that hunt for inspiration, the ability to steal, the mess of intellectual property and all such grey-area laws, sampling culture, digital equality of files, accessability magic. But that stuff is dull as fuck and has been looked at in all ways. Besides, I am not being asked to present a journalistic article about iLife. This is a DISSERTATION:

A thesis (literally: 'position' from the Greek θέσις) is an intellectual proposition. ----In academia, a thesis or dissertation is a document that presents the author's research and findings and is submitted in support of candidature for a degree or professional qualification.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissertation

How dare I pretend to give three boiled shits about this field of hypothetical pumpkin bollocks? The idea of bookish geniuses has melted my lust for ideas long enough. Yet more extreme imagination, a unwarrented prejudice that I created and revived for silly and lazy paranoid underdog purposes. It's good to have invisible enemies because you will never meet them and be proved wrong. Keep an exception at both ends. What about art searching though?

Back to my yesterday idea about everyone searching for something, what am I searching for? Identity? Truth? Something lasting and definite? I still find it hard to accept academic pursuits because words can never be facts and all the pedantry in the world still hinges upon artificial things that don't tend make me laugh or dance. Back to my yesterday idea. Art searches go all over the place, from the tiny walls of popular culture references to grown-up, black and white history books. It's all complete bollocks. Wouldn't you rather be having sex? But we are not just sex animals - we have big brains and a need for deep stimulus. Snigger.

So, sex and food are not enough and we are sophisticated beings capable of making ourselves seem far greater than mere catfish. We make clever art and invent logical theories that give society a golden shadow. What a bottomless crock. I can't be bothered wasting my life on complicating things until they become utterly lifeless any longer. I want to play table football in a thunderstorm and smoke Lucky Strikes on a plane. I want to walk into a club and get a nod from the manager. I want to be happy and far away from the deadly torture that I am told is adulthood. Fuck this.

Another Sack Of Sin.

Collecting, gathering, finding, seeking, discovering, wondering, wandering, meeting...why is this done? Because the only fact is that it is done, everything else is speculation, no matter how qualified. It is my reasoning that will get or lose me those vital points [academia is no better than a gameshow], it I will assume that this activity is a compulsion for some ['compulsion' could be another word, and words are ideas, and essays are made of both so you can see my philosophical dilemma at having to believe/believe in any of this, even though I could choose to] and as natural as breaking wind after a healthy feast. Let's say that we do it to use time in a way that we prefer and invent any old 'deep reason'. It all relates to how the individual feels about toys during infancy, were they replaceable...no it fucking doesn't.

Or does it?

Really, it is time for breakfast.

Beachcombing.

I threw the word 'beachcomber' into a online thesaurus's mouth and deposited some of the results below. Widening your definition can only be educationally gladdening.

Main Entry: loafer
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: idler
Synonyms: angishore, beach bum, beachcomber, bum, deadbeat, do-nothing, drugstore cowboy, goldbrick, good-for-nothing*, goof off, idler, indolent, lazybones*, lizard, lollygagger, lounger, malingerer, ne'er-do-well*, shirker, slacker, slouch, slug, slugabed, sluggard, wanderer, waster, wastrel
Source: Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.3.1)
Copyright © 2006 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved.
* = informal or slang

Main Entry: vagabond
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: wanderer
Synonyms: beachcomber, beggar, bum, deadbeat, derelict, down-and-out*, drifter, floater, gypsy, hobo, idler, itinerant, loafer, migrant, nomad, outcast, piker, ragbag, rascal, road agent, rogue, rolling stone, rover, stiff, stray, stumblebum, tramp, transient, traveler, vagrant, wayfarer
Antonyms: inhabitant
Notes: a vagabond refers to a person who leads a carefree, roaming existence; a vagrant ekes out a living by begging and is often considered a nuisance
Source: Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.3.1)
Copyright © 2006 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved.
* = informal or slang

Main Entry: wanderer
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: drifter
Synonyms: adventurer, beachcomber, bum, drifter, explorer, floater, gad*, gadabout, gallivanter, globe-trotter, gypsy, itinerant, meanderer, nomad, pilgrim, rambler, ranger, roamer, rolling stone*, rover, saddle tramp, straggler, stray, stroller, traveler, vagabond, vagrant, voyager
Source: Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.3.1)
Copyright © 2006 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved.
* = informal or slang

Main Entry: wave
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: sea surf
Synonyms: beachcomber, bending, billow, breaker, coil, comber, convolution, corkscrew, crest, crush, curl, curlicue, current, drift, flood, foam, ground swell, gush, heave, influx, loop, movement, outbreak, rash, ridge, ripple, rippling, rocking, roll, roller, rush, scroll, sign, signal, stream, surge, sweep, swell, tendency, tide, tube, twirl, twist, undulation, unevenness, uprising, upsurge, whitecap, winding
Source: Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.3.1)
Copyright © 2006 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

After all that hard work I think I need a day to recover. "Breakfast time" scream the teaspoons.

Don't they focus on the negatives, the filthy capitalist fools?

ARTWALK MEGAPHOR!

I couldn't go.

Walk/art...the walk is the 'work'? Art=product? Process? Art idea, say 'is', choose, statement=fact, such thing as subjective fact? Belief is fact enough, belief is permission, permission is infinite, could be seen as submission if the idea of power be acknowledged/allowed/permitted/submitted to. Art is what someone says about something, you might see art in something, the arguments are, unless entertaining, probably dull and pointless, subjectivity and language are head life, the body life is physical stuff, though what we feel from our fingers, are they brain signals or is that just the most modern name or metaphor that describes the process?

We body our brains around in order to lay leaves in our caves. We stroll to make sex fantasies up. We roam to cause information upstairs. We drift to avoid isolation or static telly days. We move for many reasons and do things to make money to live and to feel good about ourselves or bad about others. The subjective things pack life with variety - but is it that a trick? We move to leave things behind, to escape, to renew. We move to go to the cinema via the bus to eat popcorn and fart. We move to die slowly and prove ourselves physically active in public. We move towards the same as everything else, gradual 'fate', prolonged delusion. Death is there, us still when we are dead, walking is living, living is breathing and heart beating and seeing and picking up plastic and gazing at the snow. Walking and art are diversions from the big box of black.

Walking Through The Rubble To The Light.

I hadn't thought of this - some practices are impossible [or made difficult, or result in shite, or produce 'interesting experiments' and 'unforeseen techniques'] when you are walking. For example, drawing whilst walking. But you had to walk in order to reach that things that you draw? Perhaps I am interested in the process of searching more that the act of walking itself, the walk is the method of searching. You do not always know what you are searching for. You may set a destination first and the rest is extra lives.

Mental and physical exercise, materialist/conceptual/aesthetic greed, curious hunger. There is stuff everywhere. You can let anything become more interesting somehow. You must allow or create new ideas around what exists to make it seem new and exciting, or you might accept a timeless idea of natural beauty, or you might reject all suggestions that your surroundings are anything but what they are - a road is a road and a plant is a plant. Walking and looking, walking and collecting...what is being collected, by whom and how? Who is doing the looking? Are they hoping to see something specific? Do they await surprise? Does anything surprise them? Are they just pretending to be surprised? Who would walk around, just looking at things? Could this practice be described differently? How?

People out looking, are they wasting time? Are walking and looking not glued together for most of us? Can you walk and not look? Can you see and not look? What is the difference? Which of the senses are being used? What artificial senses are being used? How do you intend to capture/catalog/describe/share your discoveries? Why do you do it? When will you stop? What made you start? Where do you like to go? How often do you go?

I think that I shall roam now and do some more estimating. That may not appear on the list. I admit that I am scared that being logical will totally sprue this all up because I will end up with a flowchart of options and categories for walking and art. Hands write and draw and feel and hold, eyes go all over the place and close and stare. Feet tap and trip and tread. Noses detect gas. Goodbye [sorry, I still think of the internet as a Ouija board].

Mr. Addiction.

Beware the following link:

Begin.

Person.

Luke Wright.

This man was brilliant at the Latitude festival. He made me like poems.

Move to Discover.

I have been watching people as they walk around the city, from street, house window and bus window level [upper and lower deck]. At first I noted the parts of the body that moved as they walk. Next I saw the clothes and accessories, then facial movement. Hands hanging, the speed of the up/down cycle, the limits in variation, the pace and the mindset that controls it...Foot A/Foot B, limp loop, strut width, bobbing torso, gap between upper arm and ribs.

After that I got back to the art+walk connection, thinking more about people who walk with the conscious intention of finding something [or incidental hope, unexpecting optimism], be they out with a pad or a camera or a bunch of sandwich bags. I left the following hyphen string on my telephone handset:

sense samples-collectors-data gatherers-scientists-historians-geographers-analysts-doers-objects-containers-work-job-money-survival-prompts-shops-browse-SALE

What kind of activities take place within the gulch of art and walking?

Photographers roam with cameras, poets with notepads, sketching the landscape, drawing...I think that I shall focus mainly upon the city as there appears to be more to observe or really because I prefer the pace and amount of people, constant movements at certain times, lots of different faces, bodys, clothes, accessories, heights. Walk observation is visual so I can be deaf to everything else.

There are people collecting sound with minidisc recorders and microphones, people looking, collecting unconsciously. Do you know what you are capable of remembering and why might that be important or useful? Why are people doing what they are doing? Why do I care?

Anyway, back to the art/walk overlap. I will attempt to find ten people who use the walk in different ways, to inspire their work or to provide materials. I will find at least one person from a place that I have never heard of. I will go now.

Art+Walk.

I watched a Hamish Fulton video and thought "talking is bollocks". I do like some of his work. I borrowed this and several other items from this library and used this search mechanism to learn their names. I got an ace of a book, look:

The Flaneur
Publisher: Routledge,an imprint of Taylor & Francis Books Ltd
Publication Date: 1994-10-06
ASIN / ISBN: 0415089131
List Price: £21.99
Paperback
224 Pages

This book here below deals with Hamish again:

Hamish Fulton (Fondazione Antonio Ratti)
Author: Angela Vettese, et al
Publisher: Edizioni Charta Srl
Publication Date: 1999-10
ASIN / ISBN: 8881582325
List Price: £22.50
Paperback
176 Pages

And this one showed Andy Goldsworthy to be a bit of a loon:

Stone, wood, water [Videorecording] . - The Quarry . - London : BBC, 1998 videocassette. - y6832919

Art+Walk two seperate things with which to play. I have to see new ways that their 'worlds' meet. Art can be walked to and around and inside and over. You can spot hidden art on your walks to the castle. Art might be placed in a shopping centre. Art, intended objects, turning up on YOUR route. Neighbourhood Watch out!

Art then, stuff that might be there when you are. Keep watching the railings!

PS: We got a house in Chorlton and it wins.

Mince.

Once again, the brilliant BookButler helps me to manage my reads.

A Walk Across England
Author: Richard Long
Publisher: Thames & Hudson Ltd
Publication Date: 1997-11
ASIN / ISBN: 0500279764
List Price: £18.95
Paperback
192 Pages

Richard Long: Walking the Line
Author: Paul Moorhouse
Publisher: Thames & Hudson Ltd
Publication Date: 2002-11
ASIN / ISBN: 0500510660
List Price: £31.46
Hardcover
300 Pages

Navigation for Walkers
Author: Julian Tippett
Publisher: Cordee
Publication Date: 2001-02-01
ASIN / ISBN: 1871890543
List Price: £8.99
Paperback
128 Pages

The Norton Anthology of English Literature: v. 2
Publisher: W W Norton & Co Ltd
Publication Date: 2000-01-26
ASIN / ISBN: 039397491X
List Price: £27.99
Paperback
2978 Pages

I consulted this for information about Thomas de Quincey because he arose in that Wanderlust book. He lived and walked in the past and wrote things that some people consider to be very good to read for different reasons. I am sorry that I do not find that very interesting, I am trying to kill irrelevant information by leaving it 'here'. He did smack before it was cool and for that we should all lick his gravestone to pieces. Why is any of this important?

I am just minutes away from scooping new objects, all of which must be far more exciting than the ones that I have lazily de-shelved thus far. This is not a joke - this is your future. I understand that, I do care about it, I just cannot find a philosophical victory over the 'mankind made it so it's probably crap' angle. Just a phase. I hate all of this complication, art I love slays it. Things are things. Be simplest with Simplism, my art brand, where stuff is stuff and food is food. I don't give a shit about intellectual pursuits. I just want to live and look at things and eat and be adult [!] and have shelter and die. I think that making unnecessary things is destructive to the simplicity of the world. I want to make simple things. I will, I will write a simple essay and enjoy a simple understanding knowing that I am happy like that. Death to bulk. Ironic pause. Slump.

John Gay.

From Poemhunter I racked an excerpt from a little beauty called Trivia; or, the Art of Walking the Streets of London, written years ago [1716], allegedly by a human male named John Gay. Here is a sub-excerpt.

For ease and for dispatch, the morning's best;
No tides of passengers the street molest.
You'll see a draggled damsel, here and there,
From Billingsgate her fishy traffic bear;
On doors the sallow milk-maid chalks her gains;
Ah! how unlike the milk-maid of the plains!
Before proud gates attending asses bray,
Or arrogate with solemn pace the way;
These grave physicians with their milky cheer,
The love-sick maid and dwindling beau repair;
Here rows of drummers stand in martial file,
And with their vellum thunder shake the pile,
To greet the new-made bride. Are sounds like these
The proper prelude to a state of peace?
Now industry awakes her busy sons,
Full charg'd with news the breathless hawker runs:
Shops open, coaches roll, carts shake the ground,
And all the streets with passing cries resound.

Here is his face from Wikipedia.



Notice how he described things that happened on a street in that poem. Wasn't he clever? Be it people, buildings, vehicles, signs, notices, stars or lost pocketwatches, there is nothing that poetry cannot touch indirectly. So one form of walking art is the poem, made by the poet, the name that gives a job to a look-think-write person. Not many are that rich and they probably have to work quite hard so I don't want to be one, plus I ain't funny enough. This is interesting because I don't want to be anything except someone who can walk around wasting paper and water by pressing the wrong flush button. This dissertation is me asking the world about careers and blocking out the crushing truths.

W.A. Comp.

From the stages of thought and pages of notes, some passages perhaps of note or no worth, no matter, there is no need to judge at this juncture, just be just and gentle and gracious for once in the third person subjunctive and junk all the guilt gestures. Get some gestalt and be brave.

Some newest.

Apply concept to place:

Constant+Constant
[walk+art]+[location]
[work] + [place to work]
+ [place to gather materials]
+ [place as concept]
+ [place as historical source]
+ [place as layout/path]
+ [place as symbolic relation]

Start - walk to - location - walk from - end.
Cut away a bit of day/night.

Location factors - how to describe/catalogue.
Multilocation - a journey is one long location.
Is life a location? 'Earth'[material/name for planet]? What about 'space' and 'sky'?

Walk & Write
Think best with beat - Foot A, Foot B
Comforting repetition?
Sound of footsteps - what surface? What footwear?
'Location' Vs 'Environment'
Walker's eye - slow motion detail
Other pavement traffic?

Eye level, ear shot - the time to consider, control of pace
Option/Maximums [your height, eyesight, speed, reach, safety...]
Isolated senses: walking with covered eyes, blocked ears/nose, bound arms...
The sound of clothing as it rubs

Walkers. Who? What? Where? Why? When?

Artists. Who? What? Where? Why? When?

Dynamics:
[Amount of people/occupation of walker or walkers] Solo walkers, dog walkers, couples, families, friends, walking groups, diviners [rare], metal detectives, beach combers

Motive for walking:
Love of the view, the air, nature, outdoors, to be with loved ones, to be dedicated to thoughts...

Walking...
...to a specific place?
...for a specific reason?
...a particular route?
...as part of a daily routine?
...to find a picnic spot?

Occupation titles
Job: postperson, beating Bobby, deliverer, salesperson [hawker/canvasser]
Hobby: rambler
Aim:
For enjoyment:

These are just names, categories overlap, are there absolutes? Why bother with them at all? Can these things ever be true? What are the facts, what about leaky facts that you cannot trust? Does it matter that these are loose descriptions when they are similar? Are precision and pedantry extra pointless for their boring/smug/rule kissing dependency? Should I get back to my typing?

Fact:
People do walk. Some choose not to, some cannot. People walk for different reasons to different places in different conditions. Some people use walking sticks and some people use snow shoes.

Next I will give some good.

Hidden* Message/s** [* terms and conditions apply] [** Contents may vary: !/?/./...]

Bye.
I'm going to Manchester.

Walking? Again?

Some pictures I know give off strong hints of foot movement. And here's why:


To flanerr is flanhuman. Here is one doing its role like a decent representation.


Richard Long's walking art. Does it do it for you? It makes me think of sex, as usual.


Better than the R. Brand brand (R), Snufkin of the Moomin universe was my first nomadic crush. Here is he, shown in his natural habitat of anywhere he likes.


Hamish Fulton gave us this. It's not my favourite Hamish Fulton piece of work but it does have a lovely signlike quality. I am sorry for writing that, I will never review anything ever again. At least I didn't use French or Latin.

And thus misery was again averted. Fuck you, seeds of blues.

A Life Concise.

That'll be me in hours.



That'll be mine in hours.

From that Oxford English Dictionary.

walk

• verb 1 move at a regular and fairly slow pace by lifting and setting down each foot in turn. 2 travel over (a route or area) on foot. 3 guide, accompany, or escort (someone) on foot. 4 take (a dog) out for exercise. 5 N. Amer. informal be released from suspicion or from a charge.

• noun 1 a journey on foot, especially for pleasure or exercise. 2 an unhurried rate of movement on foot. 3 a person’s manner of walking. 4 a route or path for walking.

— PHRASES walk (all) over informal 1 treat in a thoughtless and exploitative manner. 2 defeat easily. walk it informal achieve a victory easily. walk off with (or away with) informal 1 steal. 2 win. walk of life the position within society that someone holds. walk out 1 depart suddenly or angrily. 2 Brit. informal, dated go for walks in courtship.

— DERIVATIVES walkable adjective.

— ORIGIN Old English, roll, toss, also wander.

art1

• noun 1 the expression of creative skill through a visual medium such as painting or sculpture. 2 the product of such a process; paintings, drawings, and sculpture collectively. 3 (the arts) the various branches of creative activity, such as painting, music, and drama. 4 (arts) subjects of study primarily concerned with human culture (as contrasted with scientific or technical subjects). 5 a skill: the art of conversation.

— ORIGIN Latin ars.

So walking art is something like this:

a journey on foot, especially for a skill: the art of conversation

an unhurried rate of movement on foot through a visual medium such as painting or subjects of study primarily concerned with human culture (as contrasted with scientific or technical subjects)

a person’s manner of walking the product of such a process; paintings, drawings, and sculpture collectively
a route or path for walking the various branches of creative activity, such as painting, music, and drama

I deserve Tea Tags.

Video

The Shape of a Walk.

Chapter sixteen held some new names. I jammed these names into the Wikipedia engine and now I can see a wider range of walking-related art. Rather than just hog the information, I have decided to leave it here:

Mona Hatoum

Mona Hatoum (born 1952 in Beirut, Lebanon) is a performance artist of Palestinian origin who moved to London in 1975. Trained at both the Byam Shaw School of Art and the Slade School of Art between the years 1975 and 1981. In 1995 she was nominated for the Turner Prize for her exhibitions at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and for her show at the White Cube.
In the early 1980s Hatoum began her artistic career with performance pieces, though later she moved from 'live' work to more mechanical installations, involving video, light, and sound. While mostly focusing on confrontational themes such as violence, oppression, and voyeurism, she has often made powerful references to the vulnerability and resistance, of our human bodies.
During a visit to London in 1975, civil war broke out in Lebanon and she was forced into exile. With this shadow on her shoulders, her early works can be seen as a metaphor for eternal conflict and resistance.
In 1989 Hatoum exhibited her first major scuptural work 'The Light At the End' in the Showroom Gallery. The same piece was shown the following year in the British Art Show.

In 1997, one of Hatoum's works which had been purchased by Charles Saatchi was included in the Sensation exhibition which toured London, Berlin and New York.
In 2000, her work The Entire World as a Foreign Land was at the inaugural launch of the Tate Britain. She had a work called Home at the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art in 2004.

Marina Abramović

In 1988, after several years of tense relations, Abramović and Ulay decided to make a spiritual journey which would end their relationship. Each of them walked the Great Wall of China, starting from the two opposite ends and meeting in the middle. As Abramovic described it: “That walk became a complete personal drama. Ulay started from the Gobi desert and I from the Yellow Sea. After each of us walked 2500 km, we met in the middle and said good-bye.” (Daneri 35)
Abramović conceived this walk in a dream, and it provided what she thought was an appropriate, romantic ending to a relationship full of mysticism, energy and attraction. She later described the process: “We needed a certain form of ending, after this huge distance walking towards each other. It is very human. It is in a way more dramatic, more like a film ending … Because in the end you are really alone, whatever you do.” (Daneri, 35)

Abramović reported that during her walk she was reinterpreting her connection to the physical world and to nature. She felt that the metals in the ground influenced her mood and state of being; she also pondered the Chinese myths in which the great wall has been described as a “dragon of energy.”

Allan Kaprow

Allan Kaprow (August 23, 1927 - April 5, 2006) was an American painter, assemblagist and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of performance art. He helped to develop the "Environment" and "Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well as their theory. His Happenings - some 200 of them - evolved over the years. Eventually Kaprow shifted his practice into what he called "Activities", intimately-scaled pieces for one or several players and devoted to the examination of everyday behaviors and habits in a way nearly indistinguishable from ordinary life. Fluxus, Performance art, and Installation art was, in turn, influenced by his work.
He studied (time-based) composition with John Cage at his famous class at the New School for Social Research, painting with Hans Hofmann, and art history with Meyer Schapiro. Kaprow's work attempts to integrate art and life. Through Happenings, the separation between life and art, and artist and audience becomes blurred. He has published extensively and was Professor Emeritus in the Visual Arts Department of the University of California, San Diego. Kaprow is also known for the idea of "un-art", found in his essays "Art Which Can't Be Art" and "The Education of the Un-Artist."

Performance art can get its power from people not being afraid of their own public nudity. This conflicts with the glossy nude, which makes us uneasy. "Am I that hairy?" scream the audience [except Cousin It]. An activity like walking half of the GWOC [couldn't resist] could've made a lot of money for nappies, though they do clog up the pipes, p'r'aps it's all for the better.

I think the conviction on people's faces during the often-patronising pisses me off, the absolute seriousness. I laughed a lot at the Twin Peaks pilot episode last night because I felt that David Lynch was taking the piss, it may not have existed without those beautiful faces all over it. Or it was just a tv programme with mild attempts at subversion, I don't care, it made me laugh, unlike any of the performance art I have seen yet [unless you consider comedy to be a performance art, in which case why bother with the tag at all?].

Tags are for tea.

Walking - The Doing of it.

It's alright, but the weather is horrible and makes me feel far more elderly that I expected - unimpressed, unsurprised, uninterested and most of all unable to concentrate on anything for longer than a few moments. This does make you fall down the impolite company sofa, if somehow hidden by a more general air of detached crapishness. I am afraid that I am developing a habit of rejecting emotional views of things, then again, this is probably the best thing that you can do when you are young and lack direction.

Far from turning bleakmongerous, you can afford not to care about former problems of the world and focus instead upon building a philosophy of denial, delusion and normality.

I am sure that overcomplicating life only makes it appear more interesting, when the best things happen after you're shitting in the limbo chute. I finally have the healthy disrespect for life and its contents which allows me to justify being a lazy and boring platter of insect guts and not even care if anything hears it. We invented this language because we are too stupid to ear stones.

Also, how much talk is necessary? How much action? What is essential for survival and nice survival? What is worth taking all that seriously? What is worth becoming upset about? I think I will be writing a much better essay now that I know how pointless it is. There are two types of pointless and they are both determined by the sun. The end of this year feels scary as a result, but once that rubbish ends then a well-adjusted young adult shall emerge and do a job and wonder about stupid things like this as it enjoys a fresh carton of concentrate between the times where it is stood to receive people's words and perform relevant actions.

It helps to imagine that when we are all asleep all of our confused subjective views of ourselves and others are destroyed by a breath that cares, but that doesn't happen, dreams are for children and the antipublic. Dreams are stupid and useless and dangerous. I don't believe that at all. Dreams are internal things, cinema for one. Dreams is a word, dreams are a phenomena, dreams are ideas, ideas are all over the place, place meaning mind, mind being a concept and a name for internal things.

My worry is that when I grow logic, life will be very boring. I don't want to become someone that enjoys the memory of enjoyment. That is why I am going to drink some water because that, my dear and yet free-to-use-as-an-internet-site diary, is the most important fake moral bullshit ending of all.

Did I mention that I love music?

Walk Yourself Off.

Pedestrian

a person who travels by foot
lacking wit or imagination; "a pedestrian movie plot" wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

So that told me. Here's a V-Capture of my walking wordsearch:



The aim of this is to loosen my idea of what I can mean by 'walking'. Of course it is a physical process, but on the melting pavements of Artstown it could be ANYTHING. Today I have been generating little lists like this:

Walking on water
Walking in space
Walking on the Moon
Walking in the air
Walking on stones
Walking on fire
Walking on glass
Walking on sand [hot/warm/cold]
Walking on a roof
Walking on ice
Walking at a height
Walking at night
Walking at dawn
Walking by a motorway
Walking by the sea
Walking in the sewers
Walking in/on bracken
Walking through walls
Walking up stairs
Walking across a bridge
Walking through a tunnel
Walking to work
Walking to London
Walking for England
Walking in your sleep
Walking on my grave

I love that blockquote/indent function. I am considering things to do tomorrow when I join L** and L***** on the Road to Reculver [Official Walk 2]. Bet your yucky stirrups that my other stupid screen diary will be crashing with tedious bullshit. Fuck me, ain't life anything?

Earth/Land/Walking Art.

I am readihg chapter 16 of Wanderlust, which is named The Shape of a Walk. The chapter's main focus is on walking artists and their work. I shall list some names below with links, because these word books aren't all that visually pleasing and Google Image can give me shrunken versions of the art. This is a minor personal development - I don't really enjoy looking at words any more. Especially the ones I've laid. Literal/verbal communication and the opposite, a mess of ideas too simple to bother with?

Here's that list:

Thomas Gainsborough's Morning Walk
Gustave Caillebotte's Paris Street, Rainy Day [gigantic]
Carl Andre's Lever
Patricia Johanson's Stephen Long
Michael Heizer's land drawings [possibly produced with a motorcycle]
Walter De Maria's Nevada earth art
Robert Smithson's Spiral Getty
Richard Long's Line Made by Walking
Hamish Fulton
Something by Stanley Brouwn

S'all about the outdoors innit.

Because Art Really Should Be Visually Good (C).

Reverse Demise Sir Trekalot.

I have started a Trek Log to keep my stupid pictures away from my stupid text. Today's walk was lovely.

I getted 2 books from Canterbury Library. Details [thanks BookButler] :

Wall: Andy Goldsworthy
Publisher: Thames & Hudson Ltd
Publication Date: 2000-05
ASIN / ISBN: 0500019916
List Price: £22.50
Hardcover
96 Pages

Wanderlust: A History of Walking
Author: Rebecca Solnit
Publisher: Viking/Allen Lane
Publication Date: 2000-04
ASIN / ISBN: 0670882097
List Price: £13.54
Hardcover
326 Pages

I have two excellent chapters to savage tomorrow in Wanderlust and the concept of Land Art to consider from Wall. References, gradually...

Sprue!

Now you understand my obsession. To me, the sprue is the pefect illustration of how words, memories and ideas are connected in our minds. I like finding the bad connections in private but I do get a lot of help.



I wish I was a piece of plastic, then I wouldn't have to worry about being a human doing something unpleasent in the future to pay for shelter, heat and food, stupid us. Mind you, I'd only by chewed up by the human plastic with whom I switched.

I refuse to admit that I wouldn't mind doing the bad stuff on certain days. Ow, my toes.

Walking Words.

It's not an exclaimation by Batman's Robin, it's the title of an activity that I set for myself to thaw out the common descriptive terms that tend to arise during the telling of tales from the path. So here they are:

Walking/Solitude/Thought/Stroll/Dream/Look
Watch/Think/Journey/Distance/Process/Photo
Drawing/Collecting/Memories/Smells/Map/Route
Plan/Conditions/Legs/Feet/Eyes/Hands
Rambling/Flanêur/Hamish Fulton/Richard Long/New references/Travel
Art/Activity/Produce/Product/Timeline/Video Capture
Writing/Diagrams/Documents/Descriptions/Audio Capture/Illustrations
Diary/Solo/Duo/Group/History/Geography
Locality/Pace/Soundtrack/Foot Beat/Weather/Time
Start/Finish/Destination/Stops/Provisions/Sights
Scenes/Observations/Ground/Terrain/City/Town
Countryside/Coast/Trek/Upright/Outdoors/Indoors
Scanning/Surprise/Discovery/Passing/Away/Origin
Navigation/Alive/Animated/Outside/Real/Move
Choosing/Focus/People/Animals/Vehicles/Smile
Cyclists/Dogs/Boats/Toilets/Grass/Concrete
Glass/Drivers/Runners/Joggers/Discard/Ideas
Arrive/Consider/Clarify/Fantasise/Talking/Alone
Yourself/Decision/Conclusion/End/Sequence/Story
Parallel/Metaphor/Order/Structure/Transfer/Trade
Music/Ears/Natural/Artificial/Past/Present
Future/Remembered/Actual/Typical/Comparison/Speed
Leaving/Being/Contexts/Interacting/Adventures/Physical
Mental/Social/Biological/Psychological/Physiological/Shoes
Tread/Landscape/Features/Results/Output/Education
Reflection/Exercise/Endorphins/Tan/Pneumonia/Places
Options/Wanderer/Observer/Nomadic/Hobo/Freewheeling
Calming/Soothing/Clearing/Promenade/Amongst/Isolated
Separate/Detached/Stride/Trudge/Go/Move
Step/March/Advance/Pace/Hike/Tramp
Amble/Saunter/Traipse/Plod/To/From
By/Where/Who/When/Knowledge/Meet
Idle/Hear/Listen/Gather/Speak/Sing
Rhythm/Legs/Arms/Brain/Mouth/Breath
Heart/Lungs/Soles/Hair/Sensation/Air
Sky/Carpet/Temperature/Hazards/Clothing/Slopes
Walls/Beauty/Sun/Flora/Fauna/Path
Signposts/Understanding

I will try this again tomorrow.

No apology for simpleton novelty but ambition in poverty.

Row and be held, a small juglet of grubby skunk for you to vulcanise. These hidden tigers were reared and first exposed to our earth during my span in the South West. I do hate them all, don't fear.



Sprue Duet tea tag.



Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms Plughole and the problem of the teeming options.



A very happy robot in an extra decent word top.



Two escapees.



Prototypes for a dried life of soft running gales.



Detail from a Sprue Duet ideas sheet.

Bye.

A mature entry.

Class
796.51

Author
Solnit, Rebecca

Title
Wanderlust, a history of walking

Publisher/date
Verso, 2001

Physical description
Hbk

Price
17.00

ISBN
1859846238

Information code
010905s2001 en W 00000 eng

Format
Book Non-Fiction

Using the library's intersearch, I shall prevail.

Reference, the place.

This page provides some good suggestions and links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fl%C3%A2neur
Basically, Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin are the ones to read. Poe's "Man of
the Crowd" is also a biggie; the full text is here:
http://www.kingkong.demon.co.uk/gsr/mancrowd.htm

There's also a spectacular recent book on this subject called "wanderlust,"
which incorporates the above and much, much more:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140286012/

I hope this helps.

Regards,

Lawrence Levi
www.flaneur.org

Enjoy your meal mister Advantage.

Gold, oil and a chest filled with useful books.

I am going to write my dissertation about walking and art, don't even try to stop me. The likes of Hamish Fulton and Flâneurs will be making cameos in my conversations for the next few months.

Falmouth is lovely, the walks around the Penryn/Truro areas have been brilliant. I will show some pictures from the walks but I am thinking about making words instead, not a few but loads, about all kinds of things and not just me and the shade of a duck's beak under the glassy sky. I am reading Some Luck by John Bird, who is invented the Big Issue magazine. He has and had short sentences, in prose and in prison. Now I'm going. First: A prize Wikipaste. Be gentle.

Flâneur
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Flâneur" is a French word. A flâneur is a detached pedestrian observer of a metropolis, a 'gentleman stroller of city streets', first identified by Charles Baudelaire. The word has no exact equivalent in English. The concept of the flâneur is important in the work of Walter Benjamin, is important in academic discussions of the phenomenon of modernity, and has become meaningful in architecture and urban planning.

Around 1850, Baudelaire began asserting that traditional art was inadequate for the new dynamic complications of modern life. Social and economic changes brought by industrialization demanded that the artist immerse himself in the metropolis and become, in Baudelaire's phrase, 'a botanist of the sidewalk', an analytical connoisseur of the urban fabric. Because he coined the word about Parisians, the 'flâneur' (the one who strolls) and the 'flânerie' (the stroll) are associated with Paris and the kind of pedestrian environment which accommodates leisurely exploration.The Flâneur is typically well aware of their slow, leisurely behaviour and had been known to exemplify this state of being by walking turtles on leashes down the streets of Paris [1].

Walter Benjamin adopted this concept of the urban observer both as an analytical tool and as a lifestyle. From his Marxist standpoint Benjamin describes the flâneur as a product of modern life and the Industrial Revolution, unprecedented in history and definitely of a certain social class, parallel to the advent of the tourist. His flâneur is an uninvolved but highly perceptive bourgeois dilettante. Benjamin became his own prime example, gathering his social and aesthetic observations from long walks through Paris. Even the title of his unfinished Arcades Project comes from his affection for covered shopping streets.

In the context of current architecture and urban planning, designing for flâneurs is one way to approach issues of the psychological aspects of the built environment. Architect Jon Jerde, for instance, designed his Horton Plaza and Universal CityWalk projects around the idea of providing surprises, distractions, and sequences of events for pedestrians.