Routes and routines

A publication accompanying the project Routes and Routines, Hasselt Network walks. Published by Constant vzw and Z33. Authors: Liesbeth Huybrechts, Wendy Van Wynsberghe, Peter Westenberg.

http://routes-routines.constantvzw.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/ctt_routes-routines-interieur-small.pdf

Balearic Routes + Routines proposed a group action in the center of Palma on 18 october 2008. Departing from the hectic Plaça Major, we walked with 10 people through the shopping center, scanning electro magnetic fields, sniffing video surveillance and wifi TV, amplifying distorted sounds from the souls of our feet, filming with camera equiped shoe’s, and more nifty out of the ordinary ways of capturing data produced by walking.

Here’s a video capturing some of the highlights of the day. (Ogg/theora, 20 mb)

Here’s another one, with snapshots taken from the rotating mirrors shoe.
(Avi, 700k)

(Video doesn’t play in browser? Install VLC, right-click, save file, open in VLC)

Balearic Routes + Routines takes place in the framwork of the Majorcan media festival PING!, taking place in cultural center Sa Taronja in Andratx.

In the framework of the Open Source Architecture module of the KHLIM Genk Media design course, students followed a workshop around the soon to be redeveloped train station of Hasselt. Loosely based on the work of the delicious Francis Alys, many elegant situationist performances, the exquisite Sophie Calle and lets not forget the delightful Christopher Nolan, I prepared three short exercises.

1: Walking in someone elses footsteps

While walking through the station you are listening to a recording of a walk through a park. (Download here; mp3, 12mb ) The paste of the walk you are hearing is steady and unbroken. Play the sound loud, step into the rhythm, and don’t stop until the file ends. Your paste is influenced several factors: are you walking alone or in a dense crowd? What surface are you walking on, how is the infrastructure, roads, traffic, buildings? What shoes are you wearing … and let’s not forget: your body. The length of your legs, do they match the ones of the original walker, can you keep up with him? what is your physical condition? Fit enough to transpose a walk through the park to a busy railway station?

download ogg/theora movie 4.8 mb
(Video doesn’t play in browser? Install VLC, right-click, save file, open in VLC)

2: Identify with others
Copy behavior of people you meet in the street. Select the people you follow by a feature they have in common. For example: follow only people with red shoes. Of every person you meet wearing red shoes, you imitate, copy, and embody one specific gesture or movement. Be like a sponge, add them up, incorporate them in your walk. Make small loops: repeat the movements, improvise and construct coherent movements out of the collaged gestures, behaviors and moves. Your final character looks nothing like the original people you imitated. You have created a new, extravagant persona, acting extraordinary, and very probably not wearing red shoes.

download ogg/theora movie 5 mb
(Video doesn’t play in browser? Install VLC, right-click, save file, open in VLC)

3 Follow blind
Walk in teams of two. One person is leading the other following with closed eyes. You don’t speak. The person leading guides the follower with th sound of him / her footsteps. In a silent place: step gentle, in a place bursting with sounds: stamp like a madman, kick against dustbins, make a noise. Experiment with speeds, proximity to passers by, smell and disorienting elements.

There is no category old news on this blog, but this image would definitely qualify: found stuck in between pages of a two year old agenda.
Depicted is a loose protest in Mexico -city against the outcome of the elections in august 2006, supporters of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador demanded a re-counting of the votes. They surrounded three big foreign banks, claiming that they “ransack the country” and “widen the barrier between rich and poor” and because, supposedly, these banks had participated in the politics of the country supporting the PAN candidate Felipe Calderón. The protestors put up banners with the text ‘Smile!’

The controversial anti-teenager tool ‘mosquito’ has been turned against the generation that invented it. Using the principle of the ultrasone tone, kids have made a ringtone that is only audible for those under 30. A ringtone that can be used to set of mobile phones in classrooms without the teacher hearing it (assuming the teacher is over 30)
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Pictures from a rainy but beautiful exploration celebrating Laïa’s birthday, chasing the remaining traces of railroad tracks on the huge site of Thurn and Taxis in Brussels. The site is since a few years under construction, the main buildings of this former deposit and transition site have been converted to offices, conference and exhibition halls, the backland is still terrain vague. The ruins of service houses on the site are under water, the site has been heightened with a meter of new sand resulting in a bad drainage and huge mud pools. On our walk we found several looted bags, empty wallets, bankcards, a drivers license. There are three viaducts crossing the lot, you can enter into one of the pillars: it contains a huge vacant space, probably a former storage or workspace related to the railway activities.

Here you can find more images

Link to images produced by Gable and the mirror shoe during the workshop of January 10, Apt
Pictures

Link to movies produced by Gable and the mirror shoe during the workshop of January 10, Apt
Movies

Link to documentary movies produced by Peter during the workshop of January 10, Apt
Movies

Link to snapshots of the workshop, January 10 + January 11
Snapshots

Link to all soundfiles on archive.org
Audiofiles

How to install Free Software on your Macintosh
Manual

Een participatieve wandelingenserie die resulteert in een database-film.

Uitgangspunten
Het gebruik van ruimte volgt instructies, sporen en routines. Gebruik laat ook sporen na, het slijt routes uit, letterlijk (holle paden) en figuurlijk (gewoontes, normalisatie).
Enerzijds volgen we in ons dagelijks gebruik van de stad de manier waarop vorige generaties die ruimte hebben vormgegeven: infrastructureel, moreel, ideeel, fysiek en impliciet. Anderzijds geven we hier onze eigen invulling aan door binnen de reeds gebaande paden onze eigen routes en oriëntaties uit te zetten.

De stad kan gezien worden als een machine waarop gelijktijdig verschillende programma’s draaien. Sociale, economische, politieke programma’s die mensen aansturen, die de invulling van de ruimte kleuren. Steden zijn gelaagde en complexe ruimtes die op verschillende niveau’s wordt vormgegeven. De regelgeving voor de openbare ruimte, openbaar gedrag, wat wordt als ‘normaal’ gezien, permissies, verboden, reguleringen en bepalingen vormt hier een belangrijk onderdeel van.

Op het web, of de virtuele ruimte, is dat niet anders. Onze aanwezigheid op het web laat sporen na (denk aan profielen commerciële services, de gemiddelde Belg staat geregistreerd in 600 verschillende databases) en tegelijkertijd dienen we ons te houden aan regels die door wetgevende instanties en providers gesteld worden. De ‘virtuele ruimte’ van het web is een uitmuntende omgeving voor geautomatiseerde controle van data.
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Garnet Hertz is working on a doctoral dissertation in Media Theory & History based on the “The Dead Media Handbook” as initially proposed by Bruce Sterling in 1995 in his “Dead Media Manifesto” (http://www.deadmedia.org/modest-proposal.html).
His plan is to actually publish a book, taking into account, and using the work, notes and collections assembled on Deadmedia.org

Hertz’ curatorial vision on the project is to “dissect the topic of “new” media from an engaged historical, theoretical and technical perspective. At its basis, this project assumes that changes/revolutions in communications technologies are a liquid but consistent cycle. Although inconsistencies and true revolutions do occur, this project will not focus on these: instead, common threads and trends will be explored. “The Dead Media Handbook” is a field guide in the world of hype.”

“As a response to the hype of the internet, CD-ROMs and VR systems of the day, Sterling saw that an archaeological media-analysis was required of earlier mediaforms to gain a wider perspective on “new” media. “Plenty of wild wired promises are already being made for all the infant media. What we need is a somber, thoughtful, thorough, hype-free, even lugubrious book that honors the dead and resuscitates the spiritual ancestors of today’s mediated frenzy. A book to give its readership a deeper, paleontological perspective right in the dizzy midst of the digital revolution. We need a book about the failures of media, the collapses of media, the supercessions of media, the strangulations of media, a book detailing all the freakish and hideous media mistakes that we should know enough now not to repeat, a book about media that have died on the barbed wire of technological advance, media that didn’t make it, martyred media, dead media. THE HANDBOOK OF DEAD MEDIA.”

Read about Hertz: http://www.conceptlab.com
and his PHD proposal: http://www.conceptlab.com/uci/phd/

“Following Karl Marx’s wayward son-in-law Paul Lafargue I support the right to be lazy.” In the article “The abolition of work” Bob Black states his conviction that the world would be better off without employment. “Leftists favor full employment. (…) Trotskyists agitate for permanent revolution. I favor full unemployment. I agitate for permanent revelry.” (French version) (English version)
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Looking for an image of Richard Longs immaculate work “A line made by walking” (click on photo) I came across his website which opens with this simple statement on walking as an art.
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A revised translation by Ken Knabb of a short text by Asger Jorn who played an important role in merging theCOBRA movement with the Lettriste Internationale and the London Psychogeographical Association to form the Situationist International (SI). Written in the late fifties, before the boom of technological media, Jorn’s scetchy text on automation, leisure time and standardisation questions the seamless introduction of these phenomena wondering if we ever took time to reflect on their purpose and effects.
Experimental cultural activity delivers a field of play in which we need to imagine projects that supersede, and go beyond the realization of automation itself. “If we want standardization to open up more interesting realms than it closes”, we should reflect on processes of automation and examine varieties of possible outcomes. “Depending on the outcome, we may arrive at a total degradation of human life or at the possibility of perpetually discovering new desires.”

Published in the Situationist International Anthology (see: http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/
Source: http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/1.automation.htm
No copyrights.
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Demo description
Walk the line: 8 9

From the Ninoofse Steenweg, we turn right and enter the Dilbeekstraat. A bit hard to find since the street names are gone. A descending street with yellow brick houses with big gardens.

There is a sandy footpath on your left hand. When you go in and turn around facing the Dilbeekstraat, the borderline between Molenbeek and Anderlecht passes in front of you.
On the Falkplan map of Brussels which I use, this footpath is marked as a road without a name, and it extends on the other side of the Rue Dilbeek. The maps by De Rouck or Michelin do not mark any road on this location. In the street itself, there is no visible trace of changes to the streetplan made in the past.

The next junction is the Zaadstraat. This street might be difficult to locate, since its nameplate has disappeared from the actual site. Here the borderline crosses, and enters the house bordering a green abandoned lot, which, looking at the aged state of the sign attached to the right wall telling us that it is ‘forbidden to enter the works’ has been vacant for a while. Proceed on the Dilbeekstraat and turn left on the Rue de la Laiterie.

International train Rotterdam – Brussels
Transcripted from a daydream, 17-3-2006

Green dress, mobile phone squeezed between shoulder and cheek, staring in the distance.
“I am telling you: if we develop a sufficiently powerful theory on the micro-level, it will unlock secrets of large scale macrosociological changes as well .. Yes call me old fashioned … call me anything you like”
“Hallo mevrouw, vervoersbewijs alsjeblieft”
She tries to wave off the train conductor who is asking to see her ticket.
“I don’t know .. I just moved to Belgium, but as soon as we arrive we will find out .. ”
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“So the wrong candidate has won the elections, and you want to leave the country. Let us consider your options.”

With four more Republican years ahead, some Americans might think the time has come to give up American citizenship and move to another country. Bryan Urstadts article “A reader’s guide to expatriating” published in Harper’s Magazine explores optional destinations for self chosen exile and investigates the possibility of starting your own private country.

http://www.harpers.org/ElectingToLeave.html

Demo description
Walk the line: 7 8 9

Standing on the Ninoofse Steenweg at Metro Gare de l’Ouest facing North, turn left into Rue Verheyen. You can pick up the borderline after it has passed through the buildings of SCA Packaging, situated on the Rue Verheyen number 18-28. Having seen that here the border is safely surveilled by a company who’s packaging solutions are improving the quality of everyday life, and will not let dogs illegally trespass from Molenbeek to Anderlecht over its terrain, you can walk the borderline for 50 meters before again seeing it disappear in another fenced off terrain (11 on the map) between the building of Globe Transport, Agence en Douane et Transport and the West Office Center on number 39 which is easily recognisable by the logo of AEG on top of the building; the company with a daily concern about Service.

Turn right on the R.S. Denayerstraat, right again on Chaussee de Ninove, where on your right hand, the Molenbeek borderline emerges from the passage next to the General Yachting Center. (12 on the map)

It crosses the Ninoofse Steenweg, cuts through the Total petrol station and passes through a big building hosting numerous companies.

On many locations like these where the borderline passes through semi-public space or industrial terrains, I face a dilemma: Should I keep walking the border untill it becomes physically impossible, or should I stop where public space ends? For the moment I keep a pragmatic approach, and let the situation at hand decide what I should do. To make sure I will reach the end of my route I will not linger too much in this phase of the walk. So instead of entering the shopping mall to find out which shop has the dubious honour to host the borderline, I stay in the safe, turn around and walk the Ninoofse Steenweg in the direction of Place Henri de Smet.

Words which are composed by several single words should in Dutch be written as one word. Writing a space in a composed word is not allowed. “There is no reason to insert spaces in words such as leesplezier (reading pleasure), hogesnelheidslijn (high speed train) and keukenbenodigdheden (kitchen utensils).”

The platform Signalering Onjuist Spatiegebruik (SOS) campaigns against a growing tendency to insert spaces in composed words. Their website urges users of the dutch language to apply the rules correctly, and seeks to create a better understanding of the spelling of composed words.

Click image for their excellent “Examples” section.

Demo description
Walk the line: 6 7 8

The above image shows the Molenbeek frontier moving from Rue Birminham (back) towards the Verheydenstraat (front) Right of the borderline: Anderlecht, Left: Molenbeek.

The terrain neighbouring the ‘Echo’ office building (visible just above the red line, see previous post) is in use by the public transport company STIB/MIVB as a transit- and parkingplace. Entrance is forbidden and restricted to STIB/MIVB vehicles, everybody else is requested to ask permission. After you have visited the MIVB/STIB website it should no longer come as a surprise that they love paperwork and written requests. Before even having reached their homepage visitors are warned that hyperlinking is not allowed unless specific permission is granted to applicants who have filled out a requestform.
On the terrain just behind the parkingplace, all kinds of building activities are taking place, resulting in a gigantic building pit. Several constructors are simultaneously at work here: on Rue Nic. Doyen, Building company De Meyer warns us that it is necessary to obtain a permit before we can enter the terrain with a private vehicle. On the same fence, around the corner on the Ninoofse steenweg, the signs which are put up by constructor De Meuter make clear that entrance to the site is forbidden.

Demo description
Walk the line: 5 6 7

There is something strange with the bridge across the Kanaal van Charleroi, that connects Rue Ropsy – Chaudron with Leon Delacroix straat. (see 8 on the map) It is designed as a symmetrical bridge, with a stairway on each of its four corners. But only the two on the South West side and the North West side remain; the two stairs on the other side leading to Quai de Mariemont (North East) and Quai de l’Industrie (South East) have been integrated in business terrains. If you look over de railing you can see that the old structure of the steps on the NE side which is still there, now serves as gardenspace for A. Dewitte et Fils Ets sa at Rue Leon Delacroix 30.

The Molenbeek borderline travels northwarts along Rue Leon Delacroix. (See 9 on the map) At the junction with Rue de Birmingham where Leon Delacroix curves into Doyen straat, the borderline goes straight forward entering the grounds of a big officebuilding at Birmingham straat number 131, which houses Echo le nouveau quotidien de l’economie et de la finance. (Read l’Echo on line)

Demo description
Walk the line: 4 5 6

From the SE corner of Rue de Compas and Heyvaert straat, the Molenbeek borderline runs straight into the building on the opposite corner. (7 on the map) It goes out their backdoor and heads in the direction of the Canal de Charleroi. Walk up to the abbatoirs at the end of Heyvaert and turn right on the Rue Ropsy – Chaudron.

The borderline emerges again from the terrain of the VCV- Vlees Centrale Viande SA at Nijverheidskaai 155. (Right on the image) As can be expected from an Anderlecht meat company they deal in any type of butchered animal. (see website for company info)
From here the border cuts across the canal into the North East corner of the Delacroix Bridge. (8 on the map) Go underneath the bridge on the Quai de l’industrie, up the stairs and over the bridge.