MOVE MENT
ISSUE
N°01
FRENETIC LIFESTYLE page 04.
THRILLED BY SPEED page 12.
RUNNING LIKE CRAZY page 16.
BLURRED PHOTOGRAPHY page 24.
Printed in Bozen-Bolzano (Italy)
December 2018
NO TIME TO WASTE
CHAOS & SIMPLICITY Leo Babauta, best known for authoring Zen Habits, one of the most visited altruistic blogs of the Internet, now offers us “miraculous tricks” for finding simplicity in the daily chaos of our lives. The remedy rests on a simple and yet elusive Zen premise: let go.
No matter how many times we are told, or how many times we read it somewhere or remember it, the task of letting go and living in the present often slips from our hands. The following advice is offered to refresh this wealth of knowledge and, with a little luck, encourage us to change certain daily habits that will make room for simplicity (where beauty lives).Batuta’s premise for reaching simplicity is consistently simple: First of all we need to consider what we’re doing when we plan our day, our week, our year: we are trying to exercise control over our lives and predict the path of today, this week, this year.
While life is unpredictable, that unpredictability can offer marvelous things. Be open to new possibilities: throughout life there are doors that open, close and reopen. Enter. Be open to meeting strangers: from strangers, we can learn things we could never have imagined. Every person has something you may not yet know, and many are open to sharing it. Chaos is creativity and creativity is chaos: creativity comes from a space of chaos. Only when you open yourself to a lack of control can you reach your greatest creative potential. When we let go of our expectation that someone will make us happy, we will enjoy them more: expectations are very frustrating, but when we let go of them, we accept people for who they are and we learn to accept their singularity. You are not trapped in anything. If you don’t count on things going as you had planned, you will accept spontaneity: always expect plans to change, or better yet don’t plan anything.
“The things is,” Batuta explains, “that we have absolutely no idea if any of this [will come] true”. We can’t predict the future with any certainty. And if we could, we’d have no freedom and would wallow in boredom. Absolute foreknowledge would mean that nothing new could come into our lives. In conclusion, the author offers a series of thoughts on the exercise of letting go: work is better with chaos: while the idea of having peac and order in our workday sounds nice; it’s an illusion. And anyway it’s a boring one. Work is more interesting with spontaneity and play. And the results are much better. A year that isn’t planned: no matter how much you plan, circumstances will arise that change everything.
MOVEMENT - magazine
Accept not knowing what is going to happen: this is true freedom. You are not trapped in anything. Let things comes as they will and go with it. When you’re not focused on a certain outcome, you open the way for many outcomes: What would happen if you decide that no matter what place you reach is good?
2
“For today’s frenetic lifestyle, the best remedy is to steep ourselves in a new philosophy of simplicity.”
PICTURE 1. Photographer Karen Lau
PICTURE 2. Photographer Danielle MacInnes
MOVEMENT - magazine
3
FRENETIC LIFESTYLE
MOVEMENT - magazine
4
PICTURE 4. Photographer Joe Yates
S S E ST R
SEX AND THE CITY
“City life is stressful. Everybody is running around like crazy, stuck in traffic jams trying to make meetings, trying to make ends meet, trying to meet deadlines, trying to get kids to and from activities. There aren’t enough hours in the day for all this business.”
More than half of the people of the world live in cities, and all signs suggest that the urbanization of human populations will continue to accelerate in coming decades. In some ways, this is a good thing. One can make the argument that increasing population densities in urban cores is easier on resources than the kind of sprawling car-centric city planning that we’ve seen in so many places, especially in North America. It’s this kind of argument that is behind legislated city planning bylaws that place financial penalties or outright bans on development in the suburban hinterland of a city, while providing incentives for development in the downtown core. For some of us, the push for higher density is welcomed. We yearn to see central business districts teeming with pedestrian traffic both day and night. We relish the idea of having a greater variety of destinations for shopping, eating, and playing, and we like the idea of being freed from our cars and able to lead more of our lives on foot. Others are more attached to the low-density lifestyle with room to spare, a double car garage, wide boulevards and plenty of parking at the mall.
MOVEMENT - magazine
7
One recent study that received an enormous amount of media attention showed that, compared to rural dwellers, city dwellers were much more reactive to social criticism and that these reactions were actually visible in brain activity revealed by functional imaging methods. In a way, this finding is counterintuitive because one would expect those people subjected to the daily travails of living in a high-density environment to be more immune to assaults on the brain systems responsible for coordinating their emotional lives. So what’s a city dweller to do? There’s now good evidence that exposure to nature, even if brief, can help to immunize our brains against the effects of urban stress and can also improve cognitive function. So one kind of answer would be for city dwellers to be vigilant in the protection of urban oases of green-space whenever they see them under threat. In some ways, this is a good thing.
ARE YOU LIVING TOO FAST?
PICTURE 5. Photographer Christopher Johnson
MOVEMENT - magazine
8
‘You always move forward and there are no limits to how far you can go or how fast you can get there.’ The hectic pace of today’s 24-hour lifestyle may be wreaking even more havoc on our health than we realise. Modern living is creating an epidemic of binge drinking, irritability, loss of sex drive and indigestion, it is claimed. The findings of a survey of nearly 550 adults aged 25 and over highlights the extent to which people are struggling to juggle work commitments with the demands of family and keeping up with friends. The report, called Life in the Fast Lane, found 85 per cent of adults are suffering indigestion, while 62 per cent have a reduced interest in sex. Although six out of ten would secretly like to do nothing at the weekend, their spare time is actually filled with shopping, family, household chores or catching up with their friends. He said: ‘Our lives move at such a fast pace - being stuck in a traffic jam is a chance to make a quick phone call, travelling home on the train is a chance to compile the shopping list and the lunch break is a chance to pop to the bank or return an item to the shops. One in five admits taking work home to finish over the weekend, while half of all respondents reported feeling stressed at the weekend at least once a month. The ‘fast-lane’ approach to living means 61 per cent of adults spend only between 15 and 30 minutes eating their evening meal. And almost 80 per cent admit to excessive alcohol consumption.Impatience and anxiety or a wish to avoid even the slightest delay appeared to be symptomatic of fast-
PICTURE 6. Photographer Boris Stefanik
‘The key to stress and time management is the ability to stop “doing” all the time and start “being” some of the time.’
PICTURE 7. Photographer Boris Stefanik
MOVEMENT - magazine
9
FAST AT ANY COST Is the mantra of today’s society
You always move forward and there are no limits to how far you can go or how fast you can get there. Don’t pause, don’t reflect. You win or lose. You’ll fall behind and fail if you stop moving.
Over-scheduling and double-booking have been signs of progress and belonging for two decades. Practices that used to cause embarrassment became proudly rationalized as multi-tasking, a new skill to master. You juggle 10 plates while you brag about your 90-hour week and pop your Ambien to get to sleep. Progress equals fast, which equals success, a recipe for addiction. Society is now dominated by beliefs, attitudes and ways of thinking that elevate the values of impulse, instant gratification and loss of control to first line actions and reactions. “I want it now!” or “Do it now!” are valued mantras for today’s with-it person, young or old. Add to instant action the belief that there are no limits to human power, no limits to action, no limits to success. Fueled by the grandiosity and omnipotence of these beliefs, people get high on the emotions of endless possibility with no need to ever stop or slow down.
MOVEMENT - magazine
10
PICTURE 8. Photographer Markus Spiske
THRILLED BY SPEED Speed is not just how fast someone can run (or cycle, swim etc.), but is dependent on their acceleration (how quickly they can accelerate from a stationary position), maximal speed of movement, and also speed maintenance (minimizing deceleration). Movement speed requires good strength and power, but also too much body weight and air resistance can act to slow the person down.
Distance travelled has grown dramatically over the recent past, and all activities depend on travel and movement to get people and goods to where they are needed. Present lifestyles depend on travel and there are huge benefits from this increased mobility. Transport geography is concerned about the volumes and patterns of movement of people, the price of transport, and the role of transport in economic and social development. But this is a rather narrow view of the role that it could play, as there is a newer more modern literature about distance, speed and time.
But the insularity within the discipline needs to be addressed, and the strengths of transport as an interdisciplinary subject reinforced through substantially raising its profile. Similarly, the understanding of time has been commodified through the argument that regulation and exploitation of labour results in higher profit through saving time, so that “when time is money, then faster is better�. Time compression has become a key concern in capitalist economies in the search for greater productivity. That mobility should be seen as a central integrating construct for sociology.
It is ironic that geography must be central to transport and transport to geography, yet the two have not been closely linked in transport studies, and the dominant economic paradigm in transport has been the neo-liberal thinking about market-based approaches, embedded in notions of rational behaviour. Recent debates within the geographical literature have been initiated by interests in the geography of networks and in the notion of travel spaces. Goetz have proposed a more innovative approach that embraces alternative research methods.
In this paper, the changing patterns of movement are outlined, together with explanations of the reasons behind the enormous growth in mobility over the last 150 years. This provides the context within which to question the current consumption led growth in distance and speed travelled, as constrained by a fixed travel time budget. The argument presented here makes a case for lower levels of consumption within transport, through travelling shorter distances at slower speeds, within a more flexible interpretation of time constraints.
MOVEMENT - magazine
12
PICTURE 9. Photographer Wayne Lee-Sing
PICTURE 10. Photographer Markus Spiske
PICTURE 11. Photographer Alex Wong
PICTURE 12. Photographer Adam Porter
We like speed cause it makes us feel alive, gives a sense of purpose, direction and accomplishment by moving towards that purpose. MOVEMENT - magazine
13
We live in is expecte we praise the fastes swimmer,
PICTURE 13. Photographer Dave Poore
MOVEMENT - magazine
14
a time where everything d to be done quickly; the fastest race cars, t airplanes, the fastest fastest sprinter‌
MOVEMENT - magazine
15
PICTURE 14. Photographer Christian Chen
RUNNING like crazy
Late last week our own Richard Florida wondered on Twitter whether pedestrian walking speeds might indicate a city’s economic activity — reflecting some sort of “urban metabolism,” as he put it. Turns out there’s a rather long history of research into the speed of walking in cities, and that the evidence reveals, among other things, a strong connection between fleetness of foot and fatness of wallet. Call it a sign of the Cantering Class.
covered about 50 feet of space. The resulting correlation between walking speed and population was strikingly linear. With only a couple exceptions, people in places like Brooklyn, New York (pop: 2.6 million), walked faster than those in places like Psychro, Greece (pop: 365). The analysis indicated not only that life moves faster in the city than in the countryside, but that “pace of life varies in a regular fashion with the size of the local population, regardless of the cultural setting,” the Bornsteins reported:
Most work on urban walking speed dates back to 1976, when psychologists Marc and Helen Bornstein published a provocative paper on the topic in the top-tier journal Nature.
The Bornsteins suggested that the intense interpersonal crowding of cities might trigger behaviors that reduced “social interference,” such as walking quickly. Jim Walmsley and Gareth Lewis pointed out some flaws in the “cognitive overload” theory. For starters, some people obviously thrive on an active, stimulating environment. Besides that, a very slow pace of life no doubt creates cognitive and behavioral changes of its own.
The Bornsteins wanted to understand the relationship between a growing human population and an individual person’s behavior. So they planted themselves in major activity centers of 15 different cities and towns in six different countries on warm sunny days, and timed how fast a couple dozen solitary, unsuspecting pedestrians
As a result, economizing on time becomes more urgent and our life becomes more hurried and harried So Walmsley and Lewis set out first to validate the Bornsteins’s results, and, if they held true, to propose some reasons for urban walk speed of their own.
When a city grows larger, they wrote, wage rate and cost of living increase, and with that the value of a resident’s time. As a result, “economizing on time becomes more urgent and life becomes more hurried and harried,” Walmsley and Lewis suggest.
The first goal was easy enough. Walmsley and Lewis timed 1,300 pedestrians in 10 places in England and Australia, from London (pop: 6.7 million) to Glen Innes (pop: 6,000). In line with the previous work, the researchers found that the bigger the city, the faster the walkers — though the effect was not quite as profound as it had been in the Bornstein study. Still Londoners in the morning had a study-high walking speed of 1.68 meters per second, Walmsley and Lewis reported in the journal Environment and Behavior.
The link between time, money, and walking earned even more validity in a seminal 1999 study led by psychologist Robert Levine of California State University at Fresno. Levine studied what he broadly called “pace of life” in various cities — typically the largest ones — from 31 countries around the world. Writing in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Levine explained that he simply wanted to know what other cultural factors, beyond simple population size, influenced the speed of urban pedestrians.
As one possible explanation for the relationship between city size and foot speed, the researchers suggested that economic factors might play a key role. When a city grows larger, they wrote, wage rate and cost of living increase, and with that the value of a resident’s time. MOVEMENT - magazine
Levine measured three “pace of life” variables — walking speed, work speed, and clock accuracy — though for the purposes of this post, in keeping with the previous literature, we’ll focus on the first.
18
PICTURE 15. Photographer Olesya Yemets
PICTURE 16. Photographer Dave Poore
PICTURE 17. Photographer Anna Dziubinska
MOVEMENT- magazine
19
BLURRED BLUR BLURRED LIFESTYLE L LIFESTYLE URBAN U RACE R BLURRED adjective
\‘blrd \ Definition of blurred : characterized by dimness, indistinctness, or obscurity the blurred names on the gravestones : lacking clarity or sharpness : BLURRY a blurred photograph blurred vision
PICTURE 18. Photographer Andrew Haimerl
MOTION BLUR
PICTURE 19. Photographer Andrei Lazarev
Open up any photography magazine or website, and I promise there will be at least one article, and a half dozen ads, discussing image sharpness and how to get it through technique or gear. Don’t get me wrong, sharpness is great. When I’m shooting a classic landscape or portrait, if the image is a hair out of focus, it goes in the trash. But, at times, blur is exactly what you want, and occasionally, it’s exactly what your sharpness-obsessed brain needs. All you need, is a camera that allows you to manually control shutter speed. Creating abstract blurs is a chance to explore color, and pattern, and forget about the nit-picky details of composition. Frankly, it’s a fun way to screw around with your camera, and the results can be very cool. I made the above image in the small wetland below my home in Alaska. In the autumn, the fireweed fades from green, to orange and red, and these plants erupted from the background. Photographically, I didn’t care about the fireweed itself, I wanted to create an image with the feeling of an explosion.
24
Linear patterns, like the fireweed stems I noted above, or trunks of trees, make great subjects for this kind of image. Below are two interpretations of a forest. The first of these images was made during the blue hour of a snowy winter morning, the second is a very fast vertical pan of cottonwoods, on a bright spring day. You can also experiment with jiggling the camera as I did in the image below. The results can be very painting-like, and are quite unlike any other type of image I know how to create. A zoom blur, as is obvious from the name, requires a zoom lens to execute. The result is an image that appears to blur outward, from a comparatively sharp center point. Often, it gives the impression of forward motion, or viewing the subject down a long tunnel of color and pattern. Bright subjects often work well. When done properly, this technique yields an image that is a celebration of color. Just as you need the camera in constant motion to create an effective panning blur, you’ll need to make sure the zoom is activated throughout the exposure.
E X P E R I M E N TA L PHOTOGRAPHY All you need, is a camera that allows you to manually control shutter speed.
PICTURE 20. Photographer Jesùs Rocha
MOVEMENT - magazine
PICTURE 21. Photographer Dom Hill
When I’m shooting a classic landscape or portrait, if the image is a hair out of focus, it goes in the trash. But, at times, blur is exactly what you want, and occasionally, it’s exactly what your sharpness-obsessed brain needs. MOVEMENT - magazine
PICTURE 22. Photographer Brendan Church
STOP AND STARE MOVEMENT - magazine
26
MOVEMENT - magazine
27
“Either you run the day or the day runs you.” PICTURE 23. Photographer Bank Phrom
Time is our most valuable finite resource. Yet many of us get so caught up in the whirlwind of life that we schedule our days haphazardly, if at all. As a result, we take on tasks inefficiently and let the rest of our life fall in between the gaps. Ultra-successful people, on the other hand, realize the sheer importance that every minute plays in their day. They’re able to schedule their days strategically, maximize their productivity and enhance their well-being outside of work. Start by establishing the time you want to make available for your work. How much time you spend at work should reflect the design of your job and your personal goals in life. For example, if you’re pushing for promotion, it might be prudent to work beyond normal hours each day to show your dedication. If, on the other hand, you want to have plenty of time for out-of-work activities, you might decide to do your allocated hours and no more. Next, block in the actions you absolutely must take to do a good job. These will often be the things you are assessed against.
PICTURE 24. Photographer Djim Loic
MOVEMENT - magazine
28
MAKE IT
( more )
B B LL U U R R PICTURE 25. Photographer Casey Horner
CREDITS Free University of Bolzano - Bozen Faculty of Design and Art Bachelor in Design and Art - Major in Design WUP 18/19 | 1st semester foundation course Project Modul: Editorial Design Design by: Rebecca Morando Magazine | Movement Supervision: Project leader Prof. Antonino Benincasa Project assistants Maximilian Boiger, Gian Marco Favretto Photography:
Adam Porter, Alex Wong, Andrei Lazarev, Andrew Haimerl, Anna Dziubinska, Bank Phrom, Boris Stefanik, Brendan Church, Casey Horner, Christian Chen, Christopher Johnson, Danielle MacInnes, Dave Poore, Djim Loic, Dom Hill, JesĂšs Rocha, Joe Yates, Karen Lau, Markus Spiske, Olesya Yemets, Wayne LeeSing, Yifei Chen
Paper: Munken Lynx 120 gr. Cromatico 70gr. Curious Skin Black 270 gr. Fonts: PT Sans Narrow Futura Printed: Bozen-Bolzano, January 2019 Inside pages – Digital Print | Canon
MOVEMENT - magazine
30
IN MOTION