User:Mania/Special Issue 24

Loitering

A proposal to observe and engage with the city in its shifting technological and social contexts, by spending time in public and semi-private spaces, finding ways to execute digital and performative scripts, encountering inhabitants and other forms of life, interacting with ubiquitous computing in the wild.

The proposal then is to find appropriate spots to loiter in and around Rotterdam, spend some time in company of its networks and its inhabitants, and find suitable ways to develop, execute and alter scripts for the public space.

This coming three months will then be dedicated to explore together the possibilities to compute and publish while being outdoors.

Scripted city

Scripts for perfection and efficiency

• Contemporary urban scenarios - predictable what can happen
• Dictating what kind of activities are allowed
• Controlled terrain
• Social norms
• Certain expectations

Script open for interpretations

" In the ‘Smooth City’, complexities are deliberately erased. Spaces and narratives are simplified to form a streamlined version of urban life. The city, with its highly scripted and predictable spaces, becomes easy to use and thus remains unquestioned. The opposite of smoothness, unsmoothness, does not necessarily equate to unscriptedness. Like a theatre script that results in a different play according to a different director and actors, the ‘Unsmooth City’ enables a variety of narratives and interpretations. As such, smoothness and unsmoothness can coexist and even enhance each other." 

Different narratives, open for interpretations, role playing / scripts for walking in public space / encountering chance /

There are countless types of walks and routes:

• The daily route
• The adventurous route
• The route you never walked before
• The route to clear your mind
• The evening slow walk
• The Sunday stroll
• The routine route
• The route to the nerest supermarket
• The safer route
• The visitor route
• The local route
• The I’m not in a hurry route
• The date walk

Choose a route, let your preference guide you, or choose something more adventurous, something that you normally wouldn't try.

Seeing what is directly in front of me

Public / private

How to observe my street and respond to it?

- sign no parking - Sign no smoking - Playground - Graffiti - Ceramic atudio - Fancy car - Loud car - Sculpture studio - Architecture studio - Flower pots - Electric car - Bike - barber - Thrown away chair - Swing - Broken umbrella - Cafe - Olive tree - Karaoke bar - Trash - Car repair - Another bar - Wild park - Public furniture - Wooden bench - Zoho rainwater buffer - Yellow bridge - collective effort - Park - Not gated community - Piece of grass where people sit - Exit from the park - Railway - “Sloop ons niet” - sign repeating on two balconies - I see stairs but from here you cant see where they lead to - I hear a woman dissolving into laughter - A girl on a bike that from far looks like my dear friend from Warsaw - the narrowing part on the bridge causes anxiety but also excitement - I found a shortcut - colorfull graffiti - conrete cube without a clear purpose or function - I see a lot of diffrent people with a lot of different walking styles - a palm tree in a pot

- a big colorful mural that sais ROTTERDAM: STAD VAN DOEN, STAD VAN VANTOEN, STAD VAN DADEN, STAD VAN LATER, STAD VAN GAAN STAD VAN KOMEN, STAD VAN SLAAP, STAD VAN DROMEN, STAD VAN WAKKER, STAD VAN WADER, STAD VAN WAFER, STAD VAN WATER, STAD VAN DAPPER, STAD VAN MAKERS, STAD VAN PRACHT, STAD VAN PRAAL, STAD VAN KRACHT, STAD VAN TAAL, STAD VAN IDEEN, STAD VAN IDEALEN, STAD VAN IEDEREEN, STAD VAN IEDEREEN SAMEN.

My phone died and I want to translate those words, so I stopped to write them down. I feel people’s looks while standing here and writing down what I see on the mural. It makes me feel more visible and seen, but also it makes me feel that I’m doing something that I was not expected to. Stopping here at the street where you are expected to buy something to do something different than walking, makes me look suspicious, even though I’m only writing down what I see.

How subjective our experience of the space can be…

Words that could transmit a unique perspective of a given person on a particular space. —-> They act as a guide through the space.

Lens you put on and your perspective of the space changes, to step outside of ourselves and experience the city from a different perspective

• Wandering
• Direction
• Aim
• Intimacy
• Locality
• Legs
• Openess

• Spontaneous
• Road
• Running
• Expectations
• Freedom
• Invisible
• Hidden
• Me
• Street
• Character
• Outside
• Together

• Going from A to B
• Noticing
• Safety
• Sameness
• Brick
• Dont have to prove anything
• Convenient
• Rest
• Hope
• Judgment
• Comfort
• Safe space

• Subway
• Memory
• Not alone
• Alone
• Alienation
• Loneliness
• Shaped
• Temporarily
• Be present
• Witnessing
• Productive
• Protest
• Everyday

• Welcome
• Public
• Passing by
• Stranger
• Expectations
• Body
• Distant
• In between
• Authenticity
• Empty space
• Fence
• Barrier
• Territory
• Decisions
• Landscape
• Closeness
• Acceptance
• Unsafe
• Uncomfortable
• Invisible
• Acknowledged
• Taken over
• No judgement
• Identity
• Expressiveness
• Laughter
• Needs
• Pleasant

• Togetherness
• Connection
• Intimacy
• Sound stories
• Remains
• Perception
• Everyday
• Route
• Routine
• Crossroad
• Touch
• Safety
• Play
• Unexpected
• Navigate
• Injustice
• Subjective
• Habits