10.54103/ai/19760
The article discusses the evolution of urban mapping and innovative urban design. It explores the transition from functional urban planning to more creative approaches inspired by artists such as Guy Debord, Yoko Ono and others. It suggests that the city is a stage for events, similar to Antonin Artaud’s vision. The central question is how the city can be transformed into a theatre through practical design rules. The paper presents two experiments. The first involves random map rearrangement, encouraging new exploration of familiar neighbourhoods. The second experiment introduces guidance and unpredictability, reflecting the uncertainties of architectural projects. These experiments aim to apply theatrical concepts to urban design. The article seeks to develop a manual for dramatic urban navigation, highlighting the inherent dramatic structure of the city and promoting innovative design regulations.
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2785-7433
19760
II
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Alice Volpi
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images [ISSN 2785-7433]
Performance
...Or We Will Do Without the Theatre. Challenging the Urban Space, Drafting a New City Map Through Performances.
Text.Serial.Journal
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/anicon
2
Thematic Section
2023-12-29
2023-01-27
2023-12-29
2024-02-23
AN-ICON
Alice Volpi
2023/12/29
10.54103/ai/19760
Bartlett School of Architecture
2785-7433
II
Performance
en
Read, A., Theatre and Everyday Life: An Ethics of Performance (London: Routledge 1995).
...Or We Will Do Without the Theatre. Challenging the Urban Space, Drafting a New City Map Through Performances.
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/anicon/article/download/19760/20016
2
              . .Or We Wil Do
              Without the Theatre.
Challenging the Urban Space,
Drafting a New City Map
ThroughUrbanPerformances
by Alice Volpi
                 Maps
                 Flânerie
                 Theatre
                 Performance




                       Issue №2            Year 2023
                       → Immersions and Dives:
                       From the Environment
                       to Virtual Reality
                       Edited by Roberto P. Malaspina,
                       Elisabetta Modena, and Sofia Pirandello
. .Or We Wil Do Without the
Theatre. Challenging the Urban
 Space, Drafting a New City Map
Through Performances.
ALICE VOLPI, Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3498-6379 https://doi.org/10.54103/ai/19760



Abstract                       The article discusses the evolution of urban
                 mapping and innovative urban design. It explores the
                 transition from functional urban planning to more cre-
                 ative approaches inspired by artists such as Guy Debord,
                 Yoko Ono and others. It suggests that the city is a stage
                 for events, similar to Antonin Artaud’s vision. The central
                 question is how the city can be transformed into a theatre
                 through practical design rules. The paper presents two ex-
                 periments. The first involves random map rearrangement,
                 encouraging new exploration of familiar neighbourhoods.
                 The second experiment introduces guidance and unpre-
                 dictability, reflecting the uncertainties of architectural proj-
                 ects. These experiments aim to apply theatrical concepts
                 to urban design. The article seeks to develop a manual
                 for dramatic urban navigation, highlighting the inherent
                 dramatic structure of the city and promoting innovative
                 design regulations.




Keywords         Urban          Maps           Flânerie          Theatre           Performance
To quote this essay: A. Volpi “…Or We Will Do Without the Theatre. Challenging the Urban Space, Drafting
a New City Map Through Performances,” AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images [ISSN 2785-7433] 2,
no. 2 (2023): 156-165, https://doi.org/10.54103/ai/19760.

ALICE VOLPI                                       156                                         AN-ICON
                              Since we started to be aware of the concept
               of urbanity – since humans began to organize their set-
               tlements and to design their cities – simultaneously we
               have left traces of this exercise. Over the years, the finest
               technique for representing the forms of communal living
              – the cities – has been sought. Surprisingly early on, this
               practise begun to be regulated and detailed cartographies
               have been consequently elaborated. Today, city maps
               take different forms and are composed of different layers
               each time, in accordance with the information needed by
               the specific target user.
                              Urban planning nowadays follows strict rules,
               meticulous, and unfortunately not always exhaustive terri-
               tory plans – primarily devoted to the ideas of functionality
               and services per-capita. Those guidelines should help the
               architect in the elaboration of schemes, and in the design
               of a reality, capable of satisfying the needs of those who
               live in it: the citizens. As designers, we learn early on that
               choosing to draw certain elements instead of others and
               consequently reporting selected information on a blank
               sheet of paper, is itself already a creative process – a
               selection. The act of drawing represents nothing more
               than translating a preliminary impression from reality to a
               two-dimensional surface. In most cases, this choice will
               evolve into a deliberate synthesis of our intents, while at
               times it will end up being nothing more than an unpre-
               dictable personal discovery. The information presented
               changes across different maps and over time, making
               the analysis of these visual representation a fascinating
               archive. By examining these maps, we can gain insights
               into the goals that were established during each specific
               period and era.
                              The process of designing and mapping cit-
               ies with a focus on functionality and services is just one
               approach to cartographic representation. On the other
               end of the spectrum, we encounter alternative maps that
               diverge from urban efficiency and instead employ a psy-
               cho-geographic analysis of the territory. Guy Debord, as
               well as other members of the Situationist International
ALICE VOLPI                          157                             AN-ICON
                in the late 1950s, accurately retraces the steps of the
                flâneur,1 creating new maps – new traces – and thus pro-
                viding us with an innovative, and more up-to-date, play-
                ful-constructive vision of the city of Paris. In the same
                years Constant Nieuwenhuys, drawing the New Babylon,
                suggests a different map – an anti-capitalist city – whose
                planimetric representation is reassembled by considering
                an analysis of social structure and not the functionality
                of urban grids. Hence, New Babylon becomes the city
                where Homo-Ludens wanders from one leisure environ-
                ment to another, in search of new vibrations; it becomes
                the new urban reality where the canonical, bourgeois ideas
                of work, family life and civic responsibility can and must
                be abandoned. Constant would be overwhelmed, yet not
                surprised, by knowing how relevant it still is nowadays.
                Debord and Constant are two of the major exponents
                in the field, but it is perhaps even more interesting to
                mention the many artists in the second half of the 20th
                century, who “played” with challenging the intricate urban
                grids. Those performers have allowed themselves to be
                guided by unusual stimuli or seemingly inappropriate or
                negligible details, succeeding in drawing new maps or in
                overwriting the existing ones. We are not surprised to see
                how, with the group Fluxus, Yoko Ono incites us to draw
                a map to get lost (1964);2 or how Richard Long traces
                his paths by inscribing them in predetermined geometric
                shapes on the land, Cerne Abbas Walk (1975).3 Not long
                afterwards, these maps begin to be translated into direc-
                tions, so to be given to those, other than the artists, who
                want to attempt to navigate cities differently. Therefore,



       1 The terms of flânerie date to the 16th or 17th century, denoting strolling, idling, often with
       the connotation of wasting time. With Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Man of the Crowd,”
       the flâneur entered the literary scene.
       2 Y. Ono, Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings by Yoko Ono (1964) (New York City:
       Simon & Schuster, 2000).
       3 Long uses walking as an artistic medium. This work is the result of a six-day walk around an
       ancient figure cut into a chalky hillside in Dorset. The map shows his route, retracing and re-
       crossing many roads to stay within a predetermined circle. Cerne Abbas Walk is an artwork by
       Richard Long, in the collection of the Tate Modern in London.

ALICE VOLPI                                     158                                          AN-ICON
               Janet Cardiff’s Video Walks4 guides us around Edinburgh
               through a new video-3dimesional experience of the city,
               and also through the past and present of the places we
               cross by following her instructions. These exercises are
               innumerable and they vary in form and declination, to the
               point of becoming actual algorithms that mathematically
               directs our moves inside our cities, such as the Psycho-
               geographic Walks by Wilfred Hou Je Bek.5
                            These various experiments and performances,
               offer a new understanding of cities and of the city as a
               map, whether two-dimensional, three-dimensional, video,
               etc. However, in most cases, they remain episodic. While
               they are diligently catalogued and graphically displayed,
               the primary focus is on the performance itself and what
               the artist learns through its execution.
                            The city however, regardless the way it is nav-
               igated and crossed by its users every day, and especially
               regardless its own graphic implementation, constitutes
               itself a significant stage of events. When Antonin Artaud,
               in the late 1920s, begins his invective against the conven-
               tional idea of theatre, he immediately brings the city to the
               core of his dissertation and our attention. By announcing
               that we have come to an age where we can dispense
               with the theatre, envisioned as a physical place, a stage,
               the playwright can “afford” such a bold statement only
               because he trusts in the possibility that a performance –
               a true and complete spectacle6 – is already taking place
               somewhere else, outside the theatres: in the city.
                            Starting from Artaud teasing manifesto, and re-
               flecting on different themes: urban planning, performance




       4 Wilfried Hou Je Bek uses algorithms to design psycho-geographic walks through cities and
       other areas. The geographic and psychological output is visualized with the help of simple
       software. Wilfried is a “culture hacker” who develops generative psychogeography.
       5 Wilfried Hou Je Bek uses algorithms to design psycho-geographic walks through cities and
       other areas. The geographic and psychological output is visualized with the help of simple
       software. Wilfried is a “culture hacker” who develops generative psychogeography.
       6 A. Artaud, S. Sontag, Antonin Artaud: Selected writings (Berkeley-Los Angeles CA:
       University of California Press, 1988).

ALICE VOLPI                                   159                                        AN-ICON
                in the city, and the transurbanza,7 it could be interesting
                to codify a new substructure, a new set of rules and di-
                rections that can be provided to the architect in the first
                place, but then to the universal user to answer a single
                question: how to transform the city into a theatre?
                              As an architect, I ask myself how it is possible
                to analyse the space of the city through tools other than
                those provided by urban planning studies, being – the city –
                the reality in which 54% of the world’s population (4 billion
                people) necessarily gets implicated – immersed – every
                day. Thus seeking to obtain, not a resolute nor repeatable
                episode, but setting up a handbook for navigating the city
                dramatically, where the theatrical performance becomes
                an instrument of urban design, and will dictate, obviously
                with a dash of impertinence, new rules for the drafting of
                new master plans for our cities.
                              If we are looking for a complete spectacle, the
                following question might be:




       7 Transurbanza is a term used by Francesco Careri in Walkscapes: Camminare come pratica
       estetica (Turin: Piccola Biblioteca Einaudi, 2006). With this concept the author invites us to go
       in search of empty spaces to be traversed as in a labyrinth, to identify urban natural-ground
       pathway, tracks where it is still possible to experience the difference between nomadism and
       sedentariness, basic categories for being able to understand the presence of our species on
       earth.

ALICE VOLPI                                      160                                           AN-ICON
Can we walk (in) the city “dramatically” and thus subverting the
concept of urban functionality by introducing new variables that
belong to theatre’s world?
                            Not only by cataloguing recurring daily ac-
              tions – as Artaud suggested by wondering which chore-
              ographies belonged to the places we inhabit, considering
              the inevitable show – but by understanding how can we
              turn these performances into urbanistic tools, and thus
              from being the ultimate goal to have them becoming the
              design means.
                           To answer these questions, the initial step is
              to start navigating the city; immersing oneself in the ur-
              ban fabric through some experimental tentative; trying
              to follow the advice of these artists; attempting to get
              lost in familiar places. To walk dramatically we definitely
              need a few tips, a method. How to follow the footsteps
              of strangers, how to make them taking us where I wanted
              to go but through paths we did not intentionally choose.
              How to follow random geometric shapes in the cluttered
              building grid; how to draw new ones, disregarding the ob-
              stacles. Can we do this, however, trying to avoid becoming
              performers ourselves, but persisting as designers? The
              idea is to “shift the logic” preserving the artist’s creative
              ownership of the original experiment, while simultaneously
              adapting their perspectives into a fresh framework for a
              different design approach.
                           The following two experiments are an early
              attempt to set the methodology for this urban wandering;
              with the intent to continue in the extrapolation and setting
              up of instructions taken from the performative exercises.
              The goal is to achieve a graphically translatable practice
              that can be likened to real design rules, with an attempt to
              show that urbanism can meet functionality requirements
              even if it responds to a different structure, the drama.




ALICE VOLPI                          161                           AN-ICON
                                 Experiment 01. 							
                                 The Dadaist map. 					
                                 Moving into the city through randomness.

                           Inspired from Tristan Tzara proposed recipe
               for a poem.8 Tzara suggested to cut out a piece of a
               newspaper the length of the poem we want to write. Then
               divide and cut singular word. Mix them in a bag. Then take
               it out one by one randomly and built the poem respecting
               the random order of the words. Can this be done with a
               map, with the city?

 Recipe for a new map: 									
Take a map of the city; choose a neighbourhood; cut out the blocks
with the streets around them. Find rules that make the pieces still
 readable; put the map back together like a puzzle, randomly; try to
 make the streets connect to each other; draw a route on the new
 map. Take the map with you and walk around that neighbourhood
trying to respect the directions on the newly reassembled map.
                            The purpose of this experiment is to navigate
               and immerse oneself within a familiar neighbourhood,
               while trying not to be overcome, or be affected, by what
               one recognizes as familiar. After all, how many times have
               we gone to the same theatre, to see completely different
               plays; or indeed very often even the same drama, staged
               in the same theatre, but the different sets, choreography,
               directing allowed us to transcend the venue to enjoy the
               new play. How can we apply these rules to the city?

                                 Experiment 02. 					
                                 Moving within the city, driven by others.

                           Speaking of guidance, the purpose of this
               second experiment is to introduce the element of a di-
               rection. Very early on I felt the need to be guided by the
               stage directions of someone else, precisely the director

       8 T. Tzara, “Pour faire un poème dadaiste” Littérature, no. 15 (July-August, 1920): 18.

ALICE VOLPI                                     162                                          AN-ICON
               or choreographer of the urban drama I am looking for. By
               introducing a director, thus including the other, we also
               get the chance of inevitably familiarising, with the possi-
               bility of unpredictability and mistakes. The risk that the
               performance, the dramatic act, will not come to fruition as
               planned or at all – which is an issue that even the architect
               often wonders about, the failure of the project.




Take two identical maps of a portion of a city. Ask someone to
 draw a path on one of them without paying too much attention to
 it. Do not look at the route and leave the first map with your friend.
Take a second, identical but clean, map with you. Ask your friend
 to tell you where to start based on the route he or she has drawn
- identify a place. Then, by phone, be guided by his directions that
 respect the route he has drawn.

ALICE VOLPI                              163                              AN-ICON
		           Before starting establish rules and lexicon to be used:w
       ■ The walkers must be silent.
       ■ The walkers can only pace their steps. If not wearing shoes
       that make noise, use another object against the microphone to
       pace the steps.
       ■ The director must not use street names.
       ■ The director must not use landmark references.
       ■ Do not use monuments as landmarks.
       ■ Use only simple direction verbs: turn, cross, continue, stop,
       turn back.
       ■ Use only simple direction indicators: left or right.
       ■ The driver should not suggest how long to walk in a specific
       direction.

ALICE VOLPI                       164                          AN-ICON
       ■ The driver must not use numbers to indicate the distance be-
       tween points on the map.
       ■ Prohibited phrases: take the first (or second, etc.) on the left.
       ■ The same applies to the right.
       ■ The driver: must sense the length by hearing your footsteps
       and suggest when to turn and change direction by feeling that
       you have walked far enough.

                           While walking take track on the second map
              of where you are and of the path. When your friend has
              finished directing you, mark where you are. If you are not
              where you were supposed to be, go back to your friend
              at the starting point. Confront the two maps, and the two
              paths. Do it again, switch roles.




ALICE VOLPI                        165                            AN-ICON
AN-ICON has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. Grant agreement No. 834033 AN-ICON.
The project is hosted by the Department of Philosophy “Piero Martinetti” – Department of Excellence at the State University of Milan.



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