Urban Exploration Lite

27.6.10 - 10:39
Urban Exploration is about documenting abandonned buildings and other spaces you don't usually get to see, like drains and tunnels. It involves ropes and torches and dangerous places.

It's one of those activities (like Roller Derby) that I wish I was cut out to do.
Unfortunately I'm not good with climbing (or skating for that matter).

So this is my version - it's mainly about taking a closer look at what's around you.

Charles Baudelaire, who wrote in 1850's Paris, was fond of the term Flâneur. Technically it's a french word meaning stroller, saunterer or loafer but he uses it more as a concept to describe "a person who walks the city in order to experience it".

I think he was talking about 'gentlemen' who were out experiencing the city, perusing 'the poor' and them returning to their comfortable abodes. But modern people with busy lives can also find a few moments to look at what's around them. Even if it's just on your way to work you can start to see the different textures of the streets. Notice the dérive. Another French word, literally meaning drift.

The sudden change of ambiance in a street within the space of a few meters; the evident division of a city into zones of distinct psychic atmospheres; the path of least resistance that is automatically followed in aimless strolls (and which has no relation to the physical contour of the terrain); the appealing or repelling character of certain places...
—Guy Debord, Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography

So Urban Exploration Lite is about documenting the spaces that you may walk past everyday and not actually see. It could mean noticing the patterns in floor tiles or photographing the beauty of urban decay. It's something you can do anywhere, anytime and (as long as you use your common sense) it's a lot less dangerous than climbing inside burnt out buildings after dark.

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