my ideals
A way of making my ideal city; fragments of realities pieced together that forge a new reality. ‘A city without figures and form and that generates itself on a basis that allows cities to believe they are not work of the mind or chance but neither one nor the other suffices to hold up their walls.’ (Calvino) I am fascinated by conception and realisation of the concept of a city, any city, what is the place of the city in your memory, what does the name of the city provoke when you overhear it, what connotations does the memory of the sound of the city bring, what provocations, what evocations. , the sound of the city evokes, provoke and remind. As canals run through the city, memories flow through the mind. Engulfing the moment, taking the present into a new dimension, creating the city with all of the images I have amassed from my wanders, my walks, strolls, endlessly seeking to piece together my own map.
I walk the city calm, drawn to the broken maze of dream scapes fallen silent in the tremor of a hurtling bus. The city alone, the city unaccompanied is playful and lures its occupants into unsavoury haunts, offering a new place to play. Streets lit in fantaisiful glow, perfect illuminations of the lights that frame the street which should be as dark as the sky. A lover’s embrace between the grass and the dirt.
The home created does not await my return; I doubt if it ever noted my presence, I was careful not to leave traces, not to rearrange scenes I stumbled on, not writing on the walls, the camera was my only weapon, capturing shot by shot all I wished to see. The city now will flow seamlessly on; more births more deaths, rising falling decay and all the inevitable. The modernity is infectious I imagine it seeping into the healing wounds of decay, ripping the beautiful peeling paint and replacing it with a tacky gloss, age and decay do not sit close to future, all trace seeking a hiding place from the contractors gammy hands and desperate not to be removed
For days walking, looking, smelling, seeing and observing the city as I was not supposed to according to the development agencies, stumbling through fallen palaces, skipping amongst the barren wastelands, an interest continues city to city to unearth the realities of the effects of modernity. Wandering with intrigues through the backstreets, the unmarked places that the map cannot quite locate and the sat nav pauses for. Amongst people who murder pigeons as a warning of where not to pass. A wall of broken glass shatters slowly.
The city meets me with no expectation, offers me a brief show of it allures, vain and pouting then as I crawl to the darker streets; the make up and fancy dress is worn, tattered and reveal a darker layer. Flat blocks left empty, a security guard smiles, and an old smile as though tired of watching the police station. There is a bridge that over looks the motor way, you can stand and feel the breeze of five lanes of traffic brush you metal cheek.
Urban re:passages 