User:Mania/scores/tools
Documentation
I was in Warsaw - Szukalski market I found some notebooks and magazines. I was so excited because I discovered beautiful materials that I want to work with. These were magazines about track and field filled with graphic records of athletes’ movements, instructions on how to move, and frame-by-frame photos. These visuals reminded me so much of what I mentioned during my assessment: scores ---> language of movement… Language of subway maps. Scores as graphical representation, like I mentioned at the assessment, and then I noticed connections with what I had been working on in recent months… However, further attempts led me to start thinking about scores more as 3D tools. I documented further walks in those found notebooks.
Warsaw walk A note in a notebook led me to visit Pole Mokotowskie, a park where we always spent time after school or when we skipped classes. I started the walk at Plac Trzech Krzyży and along the way described my memories and observations. I came across a photo hanging in my favorite bookstore… I went to check what happened to the display where there used to be small exhibitions. (This is not a highly critical approach… city as a spatial poem refers to reading the city as a text and critiquing it as a text… Smooth city returns… George Perec --- list making… The situationist city perhaps…?) Graphic notation I experimented with notes from the found magazines. Simply walking and observing generates such different experiences and perspectives.
I decided to situate my project in my neighborhood in the North Previous attempts and what I worked on in the previous semester were based there, so I’m sticking to it. I continue my research about neighborhoods. I am not trying to study the neighborhood and tell its story but rather give my publishing practice context, so it becomes intentionally situated publishing. What interests me is more about what kind of audience the magazine gathers around itself and how it can be published outdoors. How does this make me perceive the area differently? How can the magazine become an instrument passed hand-to-hand, playing a role in exploring the surroundings? But perhaps I would prefer to answer a different question when publishing outdoors… At first, scores appeared as something that could reside in the magazine… But now that I know more, I am treating scores as three-dimensional tools.
Examples of Scores
Documentation in notebooks: photos of trash, abandoned clothes, road signs. These road signs — how many instructions and messages already exist in the city? Prompts from my notes during last year’s Neighbourhood Lab lecture: I tried different tactics to navigate and see what kind of experience it would generate. Key Points
Stop making sense The wonderful feeling of being outside, moving through space guided by intuition, and walking the way I want without trying too hard to prove something or achieve anything specific. Just being outdoors — left foot, right foot — and seeing where it takes me. Walking allows my thoughts to flow differently; ideas come more easily. I enjoy moving forward, participating in what unfolds in space. Many of the following scores resulted from simply being outside. Score: Image ---> format for the tool Just an image as the score's opening.
Be present at the local market Someone recommends a bookstore that recently opened. The script is meant to encourage being among local people, listening, and observing the place. Local residents are the best witnesses of what happens in the area; they shape its character. A seller recommends a newly opened bookstore in the area, which I then visit. Draw a map from the market to the bookstore. I talked to vendors. It’s worth being there. That’s where the locals are.
Ask local people; they know best. ---> format: envelope with a list for your neighbor.
Rhythms of Perception
What rhythms can you perceive now? This score felt incomplete. I see it as an attentiveness exercise. It would make sense if it were developed further, but as a standalone prompt, it didn’t meet my expectations. What is your normal rhythm of walking? Now walk at 80% of that speed. Then change to 20%. What changed? This score is intended to experiment with different paces in familiar spaces to observe how perceptions shift and feelings change when consciously slowing down. I tried this score on my street, which I know by heart. Walking at my normal pace, I’m so used to the surroundings that I may no longer pay close attention. I sped up, almost running — it’s interesting how everything looks different. Slowing down to 20% of my normal pace, I noticed a photograph on a building wall. What used to be there? Who lived there?