WALKING A workshop were each participant lives an experience of a lifetime Walking is a workshop that is composed in by two activities: In the first activity, Walking, the participants map the path of their lives; in the second activity, Counter-maps of Walking, this experience is transferred to the mapping of its urban surroundings
1. WALKING Walking is a workshop where I propose to reread the proposition walking created by Lygia Clark in 1964, at the close of the Worms’s series. It continues its trajectory towards the constructivist dematerialisation of work; Lygia began to assign absolute importance to the imminent act performed by the participant. In walking, the spectator-participant understands the meaning of his action at the moment when the act is practiced, forming a direct communication with the work that connects the action in itself: walking allows you to choose from the unpredictable, the process and the virtuality to a concrete and individual venture. In Walking the finished work of art, one that reveals a lived experience by an artist, was replaced by the action, which never finished. As the work loses its totality, the freedom of the spectator-author increases, through its action, always temporary and ephemeral. It is at the moment of the act that the spectator perceives a sense of his own action. The work is his act. Walking begins when you build a Moebius curve with a paper. The participant perforates the tape with a scissors and cut lengthwise, retracing the whole extension of the paper until the exhaustion of the possible trajectories. We must be careful not to cut what has been already done - what would separate the range in two pieces. The end of the lap, the choice between going to the right or to the left of the cut is fundamental. As the range is deconstructed, it refines and unfolds into loops, which in the end turns into a narrow path. This is the order. Nascimento thus describes Walking in his thesis about Lygia Clark: "( ... ) the participant (man: this inscription perforator) sentenced to be free (because there are no values a priori or graphical indications to be followed) in a situation organized (a range of certain measures), choose through actions free (acting in good faith by accepting the responsibility of inventing a Trail) his own destiny (the final map that is 1 the sum of their acts sharp) ."
Therefore, we can say that Walking is a mirror the way that each spectatorparticipant follows the path of his life, having the opportunity to design the consequence of their acts shaping for the future. The cartography of life itself is here and represented on paper, by the act of cut with the scissors. From the original proposition, involved the experience of coexistence and interaction between the spectator-participants: 1
“(...) o participante (o homem: esta inscrição perfurante) condenado a ser livre (pois não há valores a priori ou indicações gráficas a serem seguidas) numa situação organizada (numa faixa de certas medidas), escolhe mediante ações livres (age de boa fé aceitando a responsabilidade de inventar uma trilha) o seu próprio destino (o mapa final que é a soma de seus atos cortantes).” FABBRINI, Ricardo Nascimento. O espaço de Lygia Clark. São Paulo: Atlas, 1994, p. 95
The workshop begins with the individual experience of Moebius strip: the group meets sitting in a circle, each one with its tape and a pair of scissors (picture 1).
After cutting the Moebius tape each spectator-participant describes and exchanges their experience with the group. At this moment is created the integration of experiences, allowing the implementation of a second act between the present lives: the act of exchange and interactivity between the tapes (or lives). This second act creates the cartography of present lives, tangled in a large playful set. The materials such as paper, pictures, paintings and objects, which are aggregated on the individual maps, assume the role of cartographic symbols (Picture 2 and 3).
Walking is a proposition that incites to relive playful experiences, where the spectator-participants create the opportunity to rethink them, at the same time that re-imagine and re-project their own future.
By reinterpreting Clark’s technique, another meaning is added to her work: from the acting proposed by Lygia, the workshop will be built through joyful and playful activities; one can reassure their self-esteem and question the future. When people participate in a workshop of Walking they always look to their future with energetic optimism and happiness. INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE WORKSHOP WALKING: Length of workshop: 1 period of 3 to 4 hours, depending on the evolution of the group and number of participants. Number of participants: minimum 5 persons. There is no maximum number of participants, it depends if there is space and material. My suggestion is a maximum of 30 for a workshop from 3 to 4 hours. Pre-requisite: creative people who enjoy new experiences. Age of participants: from 18 years old Material for walking: Individual: 1 pair of scissors, copies of photocopies of the family, friends, places, and the city where people live. 1 sheet of A1 white paper For the group (for 5 to 20 people) 2 scotch invisible tapes, 2 double-sided tapes, 2 white glues, 2 glue sticks, 2 staplers. Paper crape and silk paper in many colours; old magazines to cut, colours pencils, lines, paints, crayons, hydrographical pens, pieces of tissues (as for patchwork). 2. THE COUNTER-MAPS2 (CONTRAMAPAS3) OF WALKING “I am in Porto Alegre and in every place. Split me in spaces of possibilities and experiences” Celma Paese
The Counter-maps of Walking are maps that represent a different spatial vision of a city, which complements and enriches that today, are sold by official maps. They are maps that propose to assist in the process of social inclusion, the point of 2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-mapping There’s no exact translation for the word “Contramapas” to English. The expression countermaps is the closest one. 3
transforming urban spaces not inserted in traditional tourist circuits in vectors for the recognition and development of economies and sustainable solidarity that exist in these communities. The objective of the Counter-maps is to create permeability, to call attention to other communities and social class events and initiatives that have become important for its identity with the community where it is developed, by its affective, social, cultural, economic and historical influence. For the purpose of facilitating the Counter-maps of Walking, it is necessary to open you to the unknown, feel the space, which at the beginning causes reactions that are a mixture of fright and amazement or, as said Duformantelle, a thrill of indefinable unrest. As soon as the brain begins the work of familiarisation and the malaise gradually stops showing that the brain reacted to what he does not recognize the real, appropriating of that, until then, it was a mystery. The brain never ceases to forward the unknown to the known, to nominate him. It is when you start the process to become close, familiar, and the formerly unknown place become a nameable place. The process of knowledge is long and, for this reason, it is necessary to know and learn how to deal with the language of a means, so that this becomes familiar, known4. The Counter-maps of Walking propose to revise the frontiers between the utopia and the change. Study that involves a translation of the concrete to the abstract and again to concrete, to seek points of encounter or common grazing land between different languages and spatial, cultural and social realities, placing ourselves in the face of issues such as thinking the universal right to expansion of the subject, the expansion of community life, the expansion of hope. For the creation of the Counter-maps of Walking I adapted to the nowadays urban and social context according to the Debord's theory of the derive (drifting) which was first published in 1959, in the magazine Les Levres Nues. The theory of the dérive not intended to be art in itself, but rather to create situations of art. In its turn, the Psicogeography is the study of the specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotion and behaviour of individuals. For each gaze there is a different cartography. For each glance there is a space to be discovered. Debord said the character of urban drifting in contact with the possibilities and meanings in the various ambiences of a big city promotes different special perceptions in each person, like in the sentence of Marx: "Man can see nothing around them that is not their own image: everything speaks to them of themselves. Their very landscape is alivei5”. In drifting, the points of departure and arrival are less important than the space of the path. It is on the path that life in community happens. The chance of changes happens in the path, during the events and encounters with the unknown. That last is placed as a factor as important as the psicogeographical observation. The progress of the action is measured how the group manages to move through these facts, creating favourable circumstances for the continuity of the course. With this control is possible to convert all the productive activities in game. Thus, all the action would be an adventure. 4
DUFOMANTELLE, Anne. Anne Duformantelle convida Jacques Derrida a falar da Hospitalidade. Ed. Escuta, São Paulo: 2003, p.28 e 30. 5
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/2.derive.htm JAPPE, Anselm. Guy Debord. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1999, p. 88
The field of spatial drifting is determined by the relationship between the activities to be carried out and the affective disorienting results. By presenting different personal interference in the environments, these things never occur in a pure state. The drifting begins establishing the starting point of the space to be explored in the city, such as a neighbourhood or blocks. In this workshop space is established from the surroundings of the building where it is being developed. In extreme cases, the minimum would be a static drift that could occur in a terminal of buses or trains, for example. Once established the spatial field, the lines of penetration are determined by the study of conventional maps. Those can be modified or upgraded during the practice. In the case of unknown neighborhoods or never travelled, each one intervenes in his way. The creation of Counter-Maps from the practice of drifting and having as basis conventional maps can map the different environments and events, milestones and events space of paths chosen in the different glances of the participant. The contemporary city is a culture’s hybrid product, which is derived from a continuous movement that reflects the social practices, inseparable from daily life dimension. Drifting enables the practitioner to read and write their own city from their individual perception and share the experience to the collective using the counter mapping resource. In this day and age, read and write the city goes far beyond the eye through the paths followed by bodies in motion. Among these readings that is practiced by possibilities arising through the interface between the physical space and cyberspace, which today is part of the ways of the quotidian. The cyberspace maps territories through its abstract cartography designed by behaviors and events that expand and interact through the permeabilities between the virtual and physical dimensions, where we are constantly unfolding In dimensions where time and space become confused in generalized attendance. Questions and changes in the relationship between the people and the space, now perceived as threats to the interiority of the territory itself, now felt as a possibility of expansion of this same territory and presence, and the reflection of the constant search by events that amaze us. The answer is the unpredictable future, that future that happens with the arrival of another who never expected to reach. 6.
THE WORKSHOP OF THE COUNTER-MAPS OF WALKING Defined the urban space to be explored, the group is divided according to the number of participants. In the following example the workshop was applied to the discipline of project 2, in 2004, where was explored an area at Cidade Baixa District, in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, was explored. Known to be a bohemian quarter with a great cultural 6
“Existe um futuro que é previsível, programado, agendado, e existe outro futuro, aquele que está por vir, que se refere à aquele que está chegando e sua chegada é totalmente inesperada. Este para mim é o futuro real. Portanto, se existe um futuro além desse futuro previsível, é o que vem com a chegada do Outro, que eu jamais poderia prever que chegaria.” DICK, Kirby. Derrida (Documentary 1/9) França- USA: 2002. Ver em: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkDOyui0jSI&feature=share
effervescency scene, Cidade Baixa is located in a central area of the city next to the UFRGS School of Architecture. The goal was to deepen the students' perception of the space of the space, before an intervention to be proposed at the discipline (map 1):
The chosen area was around the Shopping Mall Nova Olaria, where you can find bars, bookstores and movie theatres (map2):
The group practiced the drifting in the area at different times during the day and at night. Later, the group met for the confection of Counter Maps of feelings. Various techniques were used by the students in order to create the maps. At the end there was the presentation of the maps for the group. Here are some examples:
Bibliography: DEBORD, Guy-Ernest, Teoria da Deriva. Em: JACQUES, Paola Berenstein. Apologia da deriva:escritos situacionistas sobre a cidade. Ed.Casa da Palavra, Rio de Janeiro:2003 DUFOMANTELLE, Anne. Anne Duformantelle convida Jacques Derrida a falar da Hospitalidade. Ed. Escuta, São Paulo : 2003 ECARTE. Munster:Lit Verlang Arts Therapy: recognized discipline or soul-grafitti? – Approaches, Applications, Evaluations. Abstract Book of the 7th bi-annual European Arts Therapies Conference. Madrid, 2003 FABBRINI, Ricardo Nascimento. O espaço de Lygia Clark. São Paulo: Atlas, 1994 JAPPE, Anselm. Guy Debord. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1999 PAESE, Celma. Caminhando: o caminhar e a cidade - Dissertação de mestrado. PROPAR – UFRGS, 2006
Links: Theory of the Dérive in english: http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/2.derive.htm DICK, Kirby. Derrida (Documentary 1/9) França- USA: 2002. Ver em: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkDOyui0jSI&feature=share
Me. Arq.Celma Paese http://buscatextual.cnpq.br/buscatextual/visualizacv.do?id=K4787166E3 WWW.celmapaeseweb.blogspot.com
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