Traveling as a space-time right

MISSION- OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

The aim of the project is re-exploring the notion of traveling by questioning contemporary ways of mobility and free time consumption. Traveling would be used as a tool in order to understand society and to make citizens aware of their rights upon the space-time structures they live in. Transliterating the role of a citizen from the one of spectator to the one of actor by experiences of co-learning, wandering and hands-on. Travelling conceived as a possible mental and physical-free-space that means to look at your everyday life and paths differently: triggering estrangement thus consciousness (borrowing a term from theater). The project long-term objective is to foster and create a common-open-source platform that collects different practices dealing with the idea of redefining the concept of traveling as physical and mental place where to meet, create, understand and reinvent contemporary rituals and memories therefore communities. In conclusion looking at the idea of traveling thus mobility as a historically rooted phenomenon in human society, ergo a right of all.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT
1. Introduction/ Vision

Since their dawn human beings have traveled over all lands at first walking, then riding and then simply sitting on the comfy seats of whatsoever vehicle. Each shift in the human-kind mobility history was a result of major technological innovation thus societal changes. When we think of how in the origins humans were nomads and wanderers, following the seasonal transhumance and harvest, we should be surprised of how greatly our need of moving changed and so transformed the landscape we know today (to be continued...)
The possibility of moving in our modern western capitalistic society became a privilege and not a right, mobility from a natural necessity turned into a commodity therefore an object of desire. It became a way of asserting our position in the social ladder. If on one hand a fortunate part of the world population can afford this marketing-oriented conception of traveling on the other hand the biggest part is excluded or literally ostracized by massive barriers(The Fortress Continent by Naomi Klein). Therefore Re-exploring the notion of traveling today means to try to understand and bridge this social and economic gap in an always more uneven world distribution of wealth.

Talking and thinking in terms of traveling gives to the project idea a broad possibility of expanding and contracting over different scales of analysis and practices (SMLXL by Rem Kolhaas). Understanding global trends to then act locally in a vis-à-vis relationship with the inhabitants in the context of our choice.

Offering a free travel experience within a small scale walk-able distance to whom cannot afford to go the other side of the world. Virtual and imaginary travel in the universe and beyond the “threshold” of time are not to be excluded although the final product of the process must be the expression of a common want shared by the “expertise” and the interested actors. The final product can be anything ranging from the art installation, to a per-formative enactment, to an exhibition (in public or private owned space but no profit), to a workshop to photo-graphical marathon, or eventually all of them together prior the involvement of the local population in the area of interest throughout the design and production process of a certain space (NB It could virtual and physical or both). Therefore traveling would be a communication stratagem to involve persons of all ages, religion or belief and sexual orientation in the rediscovery of their spaces and time in the city as a unique organism.

The process and its product, whatever would be, must not be ended in themselves. The idea is rooted in a process-oriented design therefore in a design that thinks in term of different options, spontaneous developments, hypothesis adapting and evolving due to the process. Its form is rhizomatic therefore characterized by a planar movement that resists chronology and organization, 'instead favoring a nomadic system of growth and propagation'. There must be neither a beginning nor an end are but rather an open system that 'ceaselessly established connections between semiotic chains, organizations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts, sciences, and social struggles.' ( Capitalism and Schizophrenia by Deleuze and Guattari). In conclusion strategically resilient.

To sum up, where are we heading? Is it a project? Is it a platform? What it is sure it is that the final objective is to create a platform and a repeatable format shaping itself within a context and in relation to different social actors, therefore several projects coming from different proponents that are shared under one very same umbrella (but let's proceed step by step). The idea is to create common knowledge and trigger social vicinity between different individuals, people and entities. To conclude the idea is to trigger those sort of relationships that we experience when we are freely moving in space and time, when we travel physically and with our minds.

2. Methodology

Steps to be done
A series of various step starting by:
• Theoretical frame
• the exploration and definition of the context;
• a proper and catching advertising campaign tailored on the selected targets
• starting of the process with the people and not for them
• different phases of the process
• implementation
• All the process would be adequately documented in all it phases(to decide how).
What limitations to be imposed?


Target groups

Analyzing the  possible target groups on the scales to then identify into the local cotext chosen. Different social and ethnic groups have different reasons and ways to move:
-          1st world well-off population
-          1st world middle class
-          1st world weakest societal brackets
-          3rd world Migrants fleeing war zones and poor areas
-          3rd world population financially unable to pay costly movements
Understand why we move and how we move to question it as privilege for a part and not for all.
Where to look for them? Mapping of different realities, activities in a certain context...

The process as model for analyzing the societal and urban fabric

Use the process

Different scale of understanding global mobility “S, M, L, XL”. Think globally, act locally.
What does travelling mean today? Who can travel? Who is a traveler? Common readings?
Theoretical frame of the research
From different disciplines and travel literature?

Strategy of involvement-  external communication

Faking a travel agency? Other ideas? How to involve different actors?

Funding

As a first experience the idea would be to promote cheap and not invasive practices capable to tackle with different urban context...
Possible practices

What sort of practices can we think of? As it is said in the introduction they should be of different sort although what in my opinion should remain are the common principles and view. The practises must be thought in terms of hypothesis then tailor on the context.

Travel Practices, what do you do when you travel? How do you collect your memories? Can those memories be interpreted in a physical manner? What are the forms of traveling we know? How do we travel in space and time?

MICHEL'S REPLY

I like the idea but I think I would like to give it some more days thought. We have been chatting and working together so I can somehow see where you want to go. First I was sceptical as I understood it that you are trying to produce a critique of the unequal availibility of travelling. But I think you are going more in a affirmative, maybe therapeutic direction? To use the experience of traveling as empowerment in space and time.
There's certainly a lot of potential in this way of thinking.

I will give some thought on possible forms. Not only forms of output- but also forms of research, more even interest. As I think that your description lays out a broad thematic, and some research principles, but not yet, wait for it, an objective

Maybe the ways I will be thinking about this is:
- How is my experience of travelling enriching, what gives me this feeling of having a right to space. (as you also mentioned)

- What are we doing? Trying to convey a romantic idea of travelling to people to share positive conceptions of space?
What is the aim of this?

For getting closer to the target, I could imagine to draw upon a piece of literature about travelling. I have a book called "the philosophy of walking". Walking does not equal travelling. But I can imagine that a lot of our phantasy of traveling (I assume they are similar in some ways) covers with the writer's explanation why walking is such a beneficiary exercise for the mind. Use literature to have someone's personalized view on the issue of travelling so that we speak of the same.

Question: If this is a co-working process with the participants, how would we start?
If the output is a neighbourhood excursion- I would not be so satisfied if it were so therapeutic. This is because this therapeutic dimension is something that suits me and that I fall into too easily.

Relation to other topics: For me, this also has an architectural dimension, or let's say I could imagine it to gain one. As it concerns public space. It stands in contrast with the functional city, as travalling clearly means moving through space and not being constrained to one location for a specific activity.

But then: what are we talking about when we speak of travelling?

To sum up my concerns: It being deconstructive (analyzing unequal distribution of wealth- but we are not economists) or therapeutic (a positive experience for inhabitants) is not satisfying enough. It needs to be explorative (which is not contradictory to therapeutic) and visionary. Maybe it could be a narrative of travelling in your own city.

Please don't be put off by these many questions. As you see, I feel a bit uneasy with the project yet. But we should continue to discuss it definitely!!

I think there are some very strong points here, but for me there is still a lot left to interpretation. Naturally I can understand why you (Enrico) don't want to make strict decisions at this very early stage, yet I think it's important to find a root of this rhizomatic creature so at least we have something to grasp and hold on to while we potentially grow and develop this baby.

For this reason I have read and re-read your text and feel I can now suggest some extracted and condensed points that I find particularly interesting. Please forgive if I have got the wrong idea about something and please please suggest further interpretations / ideas / ponders and wonders.. these are just what I understand and am interested in working on further.

{project aims}
- Focusing on nomadic culture as a historically rooted phenomenon in human society ; returning to the principle of 'a right to travel for all'

- Exploring the notion of travelling today as a means to try to understand and bridge the social / economic gap that we find today in a world of uneven wealth distribution

(note: in response to "Offering a free travel experience within a small scale walk-able distance to whom cannot afford to go the other side of the world." I would re-phrase this as...)
- Offering a travel experience that brings the idea or feeling of the 'other side of the world' [in other words, the unknown, the undiscovered, the enticing, the intrigue..] to whom cannot 'afford' it [affordability in terms of cost / time / distance budgets]. Essentially making 'an experience' (whether on macro or micro scale) accessible that would have previously been exclusive to a certain group.

- Travelling as a communication tool held by persons of all age, race, belief, orientation etc. for the discovery of the 'unknown' / re-discovery of their space i.e. their city or even neighbourhood

- The essential idea is rooted in a process-orientated design that is open to different options, spontaneous developments, adapting hypotheses, and general evolutions : its nature is itself nomadic, favouring growth and propagation rather than beginnings and endings.

{project objectives }
- to create a platform for social vicinity between different individuals, peoples, groups and entities
- to trigger and foster those relationships that we experience when we are moving freely in space and time : when we travel physically and in our minds

So, having said that, I have some open questions addressed to no-one in particular and perhaps just the project itself..
When in a state of travel, or the stateless being of motion, how far do we go when we already have in mind our destination ?
Can we travel further (in other words, experience more) when we don't see the distance or at least don't judge it by determined ends ?
If you consider the sharing culture of social media (Facebook, instagram etc.), and how it does, to some degree, encourage us to capture and post our memories based on how many popularity hits we receive in return.. does this prescribe how one experiences a moment ? I know I'm generalising here, but I wonder if we are actually still open to seek new experiences or gain new understandings when we are focused on achieving that known end; for example, going to that place and seeing that statue. I suppose it is more a question of tourism, but I'd like to address this issue if we are going to investigate the roots of travel, exploration and discovery.
When Enrico suggests faking a travel agency, I think of a platform that links those who cannot afford to reach far-distant places. To connect those who simply wish to discover and broaden their horizons without trekking to the edge of the world. This could mean bringing opportunities of discovery through traveling down to the scale of the city; unlocking hidden corners, exchanging a key from one traveller to another, a community of nomads who don't have to pack-up their home but are constantly hungry to move and find new settlements in real and head space. Just throwing ideas out there

Hi everybody,

I tried to give to the text a more refined structure, nonetheless we are still far away. I tried to answer your observations and questions within the text or directly at the bottom of this document in order to start a common exchange on each individual or collective question.

1- The objectives I laid down are more concrete but please criticize them.

2- the introduction wants to give a more structured theoretical framework

3- there is a list of references where you can add yours.

Thanks a lot for the feedback I found it very fruitful and I hope you nourish the same to mine. I see a lot of potential in the shades of our different approaches and ideas, It's stimulating me and my fantasy. Thanks!

Btw I beg you to drag me down to the earth if the spinning movement takes me away to the sky.

Till the first i'll be off. Enjoy your last days of the year, love, kisses and hugs.  

WORKING TITLE

Traveling as a space-time right

AUTHORS
Boh... which means I don't know

EXPERTISE

Anthropology, Art & Architecture
TEAMROLES AND TASKS
Not defined yet if not within the process….
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MISSION- OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

The aim of the project is re-exploring the notion of traveling by questioning contemporary ways of mobility and free time consumption. The concept of traveling would be used as a tool in order to understand society and to make citizens aware of their rights upon the space-time structures they live in. Transliterating the role of a citizen from the one of spectator to the one of actor by experiences of co-learning, wandering and hands-on. Travelling conceived as a possible mental and physical-free-space that means to look at your everyday life and paths differently: triggering estrangement thus consciousness (borrowing a term from theater).

The project objectives are:

1. Interpret the present city “from the point of view of roaming”. Individuate those sort of spaces that “Dada defined as banal and those places the Surrealists defined as the unconscious of the city”.  

2. Thinking of a new narrative of the city through the eyes of the citizens: a way for interpreting the city

3. Defining an urban context and through the narrations/memories collected re-conceptualizing its map and its possible future

4. Intervene in those Dada’s “banal spaces” through various practices involving local actors. “Repressed memory, rejection, absence of control have produced a system of empty spaces (the sea of the archipelago) through which it is possible to drift”, and I would add to reconstitute local communities. “These are the places where today it is possible go beyond the age-old division between nomadic space and settled space.”

5. The long-term objective is to foster and create a common-open-source platform that collects different practices dealing with the idea of redefining the concept of traveling, thus landscape/city, as a physical and mental place where to meet, create, understand and reinvent contemporary rituals and memories therefore communities. In conclusion looking at the idea of traveling thus mobility as a historically rooted phenomenon in human society, ergo a right of all.  

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DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT

1. Introduction/ Vision

Since their dawn human beings have traveled over all lands at first walking, then riding and then simply sitting on the comfy seats of whatsoever vehicle. Each shift in the human-kind mobility history was a result of major technological innovation thus societal changes. When we think of how in the origins humans were nomads and wanderers, following the seasonal harvest and transhumance, we shouldn’t be surprised of how greatly our need of moving changed and so transformed the landscape we know today.
The possibility of moving in our modern western capitalistic society became a privilege and not a right, mobility from a natural necessity turned into a commodity therefore an object of desire. It became a way of asserting our position in the social ladder. If on one hand a fortunate part of the world population can afford this marketing-oriented conception of traveling on the other hand the biggest part is excluded or literally ostracized by massive barriers (Economic and physical borders). Therefore Re-exploring the notion of traveling today means to try to understand and bridge this social and economic gap in an always more uneven world distribution of wealth.

Nowadays the way we move in cities it’s often monitored and controlled through its infrastructures and architectures, consequently what are those places left-over by this over-planned structure? Can we, by exploring the notion of traveling in cities and literally roaming, reinterpret these leftovers or “banal” spaces, in all their unexpressed and unplanned potentiality? Moreover what’s in the end the potentiality of these spaces? Are they physical or mental spaces? Are they both?

Firstly, a potentiality I see is the possibility of finding both physical and mental spaces of this type. These two sorts of spaces are not excluding one another but rather mutually explanatory. I explain myself better: on the one hand the physical space would be the place and its landscape/architectural features that have been found and mapped during the roaming/exploration phase; On the other hand the mental space would be constituted by the “rituals” observed and the memories/narrations collected on the way. Practically they would be signifier and signified of the same “word” or better say space.

Secondly, another potentiality I see in these “banal”/interstitial spaces is the possibility of demolishing the classical space production chain, therefore the possibility of experimenting new forms of space production. The need to rethink the production of space lies on the idea that, generally speaking, the space must be the direct formalization of the citizens’ desires and needs. The redundancy of urban planning often doesn’t leave to citizens enough room to voice and express their own view thus producing their on space.

Thirdly, speaking in terms of factual intervention and phases, the project aims to redefine the common notion of space by the involvement of different actors in the process using, not as a mere pretext, a theoretical and practical redefinition of the concept of travelling. When you travel you gain the space and time to contemplate and share moments of intimacy with yourself and the others; when you travel you gain the space and the time to mingle in an always anew environment; when you travel your prejudices  and preconceptions take a new shape if not collapse. This is surely a romantic view of travelling, but what do we need if not poetry to go beyond the surface of things? Can we bring the “space” of travelling in our daily life to regain our right over the use of space and time in cities? Is travelling a free space? Can we find this free space in the cities where we live?
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2. Project phases: the necessary time to travel

1 Finding of the context of interest, it should be in my opinion a small scale context that provokes good feelings, that presents contrasting features in its social/urban/Architectural fabric

2 Mapping of the area of interest: commercial activities, residential blocks, “banal” spaces, activities (markets, uses so on so forth), local entities and social groups. History of the area. Finding potential “characters” to tell a story of travelling within the city or in their life

3 External communication phase. The objective of this phase is to involve in the process the possibly most various sample of actors. In the first draft I pictured the possibility of faking a travel agency due to I thought that using the same (as Milly said) graphical aesthetics and communication strategies could have been catchy for a vast number of people. I said to offer a travel experience to whom cannot afford it but I wouldn’t foster processes of exclusion if not necessary thus keeping it open as long as we can.

4 Once gathered around the project idea a various sample of people, thinking of different activities to make them active part of the process, using the idea of travelling. Asking them to write a journal to then share their contents. A journal about what? The roaming experiences we organize? Their daily life and paths? Could we just organize interviews following a certain outline to have then an audio or video content to be used? I would think of the video/audio content a lot as I think it can be used for different levels of the project pre/post-communication. NB this is just an example but we could explore different and several tactics

5 To a beforehand phase of mapping ( point 2) I would love to follow a phase of mapping led with and for the actors involved. To then individuate the area where to intervene. The intervention must not be a gigantic thing but rather the expression of the different actors desires/memories thus potentially the materialization of a future memory, a place of identity.

6 Intervention in the area that has been localized in the process. It should a moment where the experience it’s shared and communicate to a broader public.

7 Construction of the platform, the “fake travel agency” that is transformed in an internet channel thus a web community (virtual space) that is the result of the creation of a real community (physical and mental space place in the “real world”?)

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3. Methodology

Talking and thinking in terms of traveling gives to the project idea a broad possibility of expanding and contracting over different scales of analysis and practices (SMLXL by Rem Kolhaas). Understanding global trends to then act locally in a vis-à-vis relationship with the inhabitants in the context of our choice.
Offering a free travel experience within a small scale walk-able distance to whom cannot afford to go the other side of the world. Virtual and imaginary travel in the universe and beyond the “threshold” of time are not to be excluded although the final product of the process must be the expression of a common want shared by the “expertise” and the interested actors. The final product can be anything ranging from the art installation, to a per-formative enactment, to an exhibition (in public or private owned space but no profit), to a workshop to photo-graphical marathon, or eventually all of them together prior the involvement of the local population in the area of interest throughout the design and production process of a certain space (NB It could virtual and physical or both). Therefore traveling would be a communication stratagem to involve persons of all ages, religion or belief and sexual orientation in the rediscovery of their spaces and time in the city as a unique organism.
The process and its product, whatever would be, must not be ended in themselves. The idea is rooted in a process-oriented design therefore in a design that thinks in term of different options, spontaneous developments, hypothesis adapting and evolving due to the process. Its form is rhizomatic  therefore characterized by a planar movement that resists chronology and organization, 'instead favoring a nomadic system of growth and propagation'. There must be neither a beginning nor an end are but rather  an open system that 'ceaselessly established connections between semiotic chains, organizations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts, sciences, and social struggles.' ( Capitalism and Schizophrenia by Deleuze and Guattari). In conclusion strategically resilient.
To sum up, where are we heading? Is it a project? Is it a platform? What it is sure it is that the final objective is to create a platform and a repeatable format shaping itself within a context and in relation to different social actors, therefore several projects coming from different proponents that are shared under one very same umbrella (but let's proceed step by step). The idea is to create common knowledge and trigger social vicinity between different individuals, people and entities. To conclude the idea is to trigger those sort of relationships that we experience when we are freely moving in space and time, when we travel physically and in our minds.
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4.Target groups

Therefore traveling would be a communication stratagem to involve persons of all ages, religion or belief and sexual orientation in the rediscovery of their spaces and time in the city as a unique organism.

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5. Communication strategy

Faking a travel agency thus using even the same aesthetics to involve in this new form of travelling the maximum number of people.
In my opinion it should be both a vis-à-vis communication with the actors, a paper communication (flyer etc…), a social web communication and eventually a post project communication to spread the idea and the platform.
How can internet community and real community be the reflection one another?

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6. Theoretical frame of the research

Add books, articles, web pages you think suit with the project:

Enrico

Walkscapes by Francesco Careri

The tragedy of the commons (copyright) vs The comedy of the commons (copyleft)

"Stalker" Really important reference, a worldwide recognized Art Collective working between Rome and Paris mainly:

“Space Metropoliz” documentary that creates community through an imaginary travel to the moon:

Michel

The philosophy of walking by Frederic Gros

Milly

A Thousand Plateaus by Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari
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7. Funding

As a first experience the idea would be to promote cheap and not invasive practices capable to tackle with different urban context... Some money would be needed though…
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8. Random questions as much as thought ones

Please add yours
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Enrico’s question  

Travel Practices, what do you do when you travel? How do you collect your memories? Can those memories be interpreted in a physical manner? What are the forms of traveling we know? How do we travel in space and time?

How do we contemplate?
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Michel’s question

 
- What are we doing? Trying to convey a romantic idea of travelling to people to share positive conceptions of space?
What is the aim of this?

Enrico’s Answer

I wouldn’t think the aim is to convey a romantic idea of travelling to people but questioning the consumeristic connotation of the idea of travelling that was gained over the last century since the thriving of Mass/Spectacle Society/ Mass Tourism. In my opinion, rethinking the idea of travelling is a way, not only to make people aware of their space and time, but also to transform physically and mentally the space we live in thus the architectural forms of urban settlements. In the field of theory there are examples in different fields (literature, art, architecture or anti-architecture) going from the Dada Movement, to the Surrealist, to the Land-Artist and up to the interpretative approach to the “present city from the point of view of roaming that is based on the "transurbances" conducted by Stalker since 1995 in a number of European cities. Losing itself amidst urban amnesias Stalker has encountered those spaces Dada defined as banal and those places the Surrealists defined as the unconscious of the city. Repressed memory, rejection, absence of control have produced a system of empty spaces (the sea of the archipelago) through which it is possible to drift, as in the labyrinthine sectors of Constant's New Babylon: a nomadic space ramified as a system of urban sheep tracks that seems to have taken form as the result of the entropy of the city, as one of the "forgotten futures" described by Robert Smithson. Inside the wrinkles of the city, spaces in transit have grown, territories in continuous transformation in time. These are the places where today it is possible go beyond the age-old division between nomadic space and settIed space.”

Michel’s Observation

For getting closer to the target, I could imagine to draw upon a piece of literature about travelling. I have a book called "the philosophy of walking". Walking does not equal travelling. But I can imagine that a lot of our phantasy of traveling (I assume they are similar in some ways) covers with the writer's explanation why walking is such a beneficiary exercise for the mind. Use literature to have someone's personalized view on the issue of travelling so that we speak of the same.

Enrico’s Answer

Using a piece of literature is really important to construct a common trail and imaginary. I agree.

Michel’s question

Question: If this is a co-working process with the participants, how would we start?
If the output is a neighbourhood excursion- I would not be so satisfied if it were so therapeutic. This is because this therapeutic dimension is something that suits me and that I fall into too easily.

Enrico’s answer

Did I answer you in the text?

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Milly’s questions

When in a state of travel, or the stateless being of motion, how far do we go when we already have in mind our destination ?
Can we travel further (in other words, experience more) when we don't see the distance or at least don't judge it by determined ends ?

Enrico’s Answer

Uhmm… Hard to answer! I think that not having a precise destination is probably one of the most interesting features of travelling. Do we travel? Do we identify ourselves with the idea of traveling when we go to a precise destination? That’s probably the most interesting feature of travelling due to it’s, for me at least, a free dimension where we transform and change independently of where we go. When you go to work or to school you don’t travel but rather you go through a well-known path that never changes and if it does it hardly provokes those sort of transformation a travel can trigger.

Milly’s question

If you consider the sharing culture of social media (Facebook, instagram etc.), and how it does, to some degree, encourage us to capture and post our memories based on how many popularity hits we receive in return.. does this prescribe how one experiences a moment ?

Enrico’s Answer

I don’t think so. It’s merely a façade we build up to communicate ourselves to the outer world, but what remains if not a bunch of still images unable to prescribe the energy and the mental space we created in a certain moment? Although I think a photograph can describe to a certain extent a moment but it would always be an interpretation of both the viewer and the “photographer”. But it surely influences us and the community we live in. What sort of link do you see to the project? How would use this idea in the process?

Milly’s observation

I know I'm generalising here, but I wonder if we are actually still open to seek new experiences or gain new understandings when we are focused on achieving that known end; for example, going to that place and seeing that statue. I suppose it is more a question of tourism, but I'd like to address this issue if we are going to investigate the roots of travel, exploration and discovery.

Enrico’s Observation

I guess we wouldn’t be so open to seek new understandings and experiences if we would be just tourists directed on certain pre-established routes and ends. I think it’s pivotal to address this issue in the understanding of travel, exploration and discovery.

Ciaooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Re-imagining your neighbourhood. This looks kind of fun:

http://cascoprojects.org/re-projecting-utrecht-event-3-overvecht-zombiewalk

Michel schrieb:therapeutic

enrico schrieb:Did I answer you question?

Yes, it's more clear now.

Hi people,

sorry for later response. I find the topic very interesting, let me share some notes which came to my mind while reading the discussion. Some of them might be out of the topic, but anyway...

I am still not sure, if I understand the same under the term "travelling" as you, Enrico (and the others as well). Because what you could talk about, concerning what you said - generally - is for me "moving" and "travelling" would be then connected with a joy. Your suggested target groups (which you then dismissed) evoke for me different kinds of "travelling" (or "moving"):
- 1st world well-off population _ tourism
- 1st world middle class _ tourism/travelling
- 1st world weakest societal brackets
- 3rd world Migrants fleeing war zones and poor areas _ migration/fleeing
- 3rd world population financially unable to pay costly movements (ha! here is the word "move...")
Especially migration/fleeing is completely something else than "travelling" - in my point of view.

How would be then "tourism" considered? You talk a lot about the city - what about the walking/wandering to landscape? I mean the mainstream understanding of tourist and traveller (e.g. http://www.boredpanda.com/traveller-vs-tourist-differences-holidify/). Because if you suggest travel agency, it evokes me rather tourism...

Next, you use the word "citizen" which is for me already connected to same place (neighborhood/city/country etc.) - some identification. Is it important in this case? That you have the feeling of belonging to somewhere/someone etc.? I mean the place to return? Concerning this I remember one quote (which is perhaps already totally out of the topic, but nice ): https://i0.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/angelou_free.jpg?w=500

What I would be super-interested in, is the perception of the world/distances - and possibilities of travelling/moving - in different target groups. Why there are people who has never left their home-village (and how they perceive the world) and on the other side people, for whom is not a problem to be every week on the other side of the Earth... And also concerning the history (technology innovation, trends etc.).

Finally, I have an tip for you - before Christmas there was a lecture at the Angewandte, where an artist Tomas Saraceno presented his (last?) project: Aerocene - with a (kind of) invention, independent of any "human-produced" energy, he wants to promote a free "travelling" (I am not sure if he uses this word) around the world.
http://www.aerocene.com/

And last, but not least (question not specially for me, but sorry, you should answer it) - what is SOCIAL about it?

I know it may looks as quibble, but it is what made me thinking... Ignore the irrelevant notes .

Thanks and have a nice time,
K.

Dear Friends,
I wll reflect a bit on what has been written. Hope my repetition does not appear arrogant.

- "Travelling" is a verb. What we exactly mean by it is a question of personal perspective.
  Enrico, you have brought foreward an attempt to define travelling in its meaning by
describing a process of commercialization.
This is very simple, the point is made, maybe would need to be a bit more extensive and exact to be explain a "societal relevance" of our project. For example when assume that in the past, more people were able to travel. Intentionally, I would not agree. But I don't know. There's a phrase: 'in general, nothing happens'. Maybe it's my theoretical pettiness speaking.

Karolina, I would question that there people of the same social class share a common understanding of travelling. How would we know. Let's not reinforce a "culture of poverty" argument. (simply put-> poverty has its roots in  lifestyle and not economic deprivation of people concerned.) But I also think this perception of distance is very interesting. I met some high school students from the 10th district who made a class excursion to the Stephansplatz. It not obvious that Viennese people go there once a month even.


Maybe we don't need to try to define travelling. We need to be clear we are talking about the same. But let's do this bottom up, inductive (idea...word), and not top bottom, deductive (word... idea).

"Redefining the concept of travelling" I think can be one output of the question. When we know what we are talking about. In how I understand it, it's a lot about understanding space in the light of an experience. An experience, that we are somehow trying to foster, to encourage, to create.

I have once in thailand made a project with kids. The aim was to experience their home village differently, in a playful way. We made a scavenger hunt, went to the fields to plant rice, and had the children showing us their favourite games. Planting rice, most of their parent's jobs, was not a usual free-time activity. Some had never done it. But framed as an activity among games, it became fun, I think they had fun.
Similar to our project idea, we somehow tried to produce another mental space, representations of that space that they had in mind. The larger aim was to encourage kids to build up an existence in the rural areas, as an alternative to moving to the city as many grown-ups would some point.
It creates a social imbalance in the rural areas if there are no more young people around.
At least some would say. Others would call this workcamp "anti-modern".
It was in a way ideologically charged. In my opinion, this is fine as long as it is admitted.

Is our mission the following?
We are trying to foster an alternative perception and experience of space, because we think that spaces are too functionally divided? (There's more behind this, like the anti-architecture, dadaist's 'banal spaces' and surrealist's idea of the unconcious of the city. I have a sketchy idea of some aspects but would still need to read s.th.)

-- We assume, that people have desires that can be set free better if architecture is changed.

How do we bring together /romantic idea of travelling/ /vacent or banal spaces/ and /what people desire/ ?

-> To start this process, we are going on a perceptive tour through the neighbourhood.
-- How do we infiltrate the travelling mode we have in mind into our participants

What I find interesting:

Using the idea of travelling to associate the surrounding of the urban context with familiarities that come up. (Like Milly said) Through future projections of present familiarities.
The benefit of seeing space from this perspective is that we can also make graspable "unframed places" (these places, that are "not considered" in the functionalist division of city)

Whaddya think?
Meeting on the eleventh? I'll be back. So will Enrico be. Who would like to come on the 11th?

Till soon,
Michel

Hey guys,
I like the way this discussion is going- feels like we might be edging closer to some.. thing. I came across this short text the other day and now after reading these latest posts (especially Michel's comment on fostering experience and "unframed places") it appears quite relevant to the topic.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6D-JNbezoWYUk5WMUZyM3Vta28/view?usp=sharing
^hope that link works if not tell me and I can email it out
For now maybe it's best to continue discussion in person if we're meeting tomorrow (11th)? I will be in the studio anyway, hope to see you there ! Hugs and kusschens

Inspiring...