Notes on Professional Tourists and Others

Notes on Professional Tourists and others

Laura Pardo MaHKU 2010

*** Acknowledgments ***

I would like to thank my tutors Henk, Klaas, Tiong and Liza and Mika for the time, knowledge and information shared, after a year of conversations, lectures and reading my spectrum has broadened and my curiosity is wider.

My classmates and friends take also a big part in the development of this project and period of my life, thank you for all your time and help.

No matter how far away is my family from me, their love and support was always present, their affection gave me energy to keep going in difficult moments.

The most special thanks are for Toya, Martin, Juan and Anna, it’s a blessing having you close, watching and caring for me, I’m very grateful for all your love and help.

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Archive

The creation of an archive is a valuable and crucial tool in the process of collecting, providing and producing information in relation to certain subject. It allows you to enclose and orchestrate all the ideas, all the forms and all the views that come across and grow relevant in a research process. In addition, it becomes a useful record for forthcoming consultation that leads to multiple journeys and nexus through its entities (following its index order, just picking one item randomly, etc).

The archive enables us to recall and revisit ideas and memories that have been accumulated and stored but it does it in its own particular way: an archive has not a

prior determined culmination point; it has not one unique way of procedure or resolution; it has the potentiality of fragmenting and distorting; and its characterized by an ongoing nature – it’s possible to see it as an eternal work in progress that could always be under construction. These characteristics don’t make archives suitable for all kinds of ventures, but in the in the task of shaping and understanding the nature of Professional Tourists and their situation it seems to be pertinent.

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C

City

The city is a social space, but also a living organism with its own rhythm, characteristics and peculiarities that grows, shrinks and goes though changes. It can be seen as a container of its own exclusive or distinctive particularities together with foreign singularities that have traveled and established in that place. Making an exhaustive inventory or detailed description of the buildings, streets, objects and inhabitants of a certain city wouldn’t be enough to get an accurate idea of what that specific city might be: the spirit or character of a city is in great part due to the immaterial, unofficial and symbolic. Urban legends, idle vendors, citizen’s wastes, shop cats and in

formal circuits are examples of what might be representative or particular for a city. The working field for the Professional Tourists is the city, there they can carry tasks such as sightseeing and walking, it’s their source of material to work with.

See LOCALITY, DETAIL, SIGHTSEEING, WALK

Collection

“If you think about the narrative that collectors or assemblages of things make, the interesting thing is that there are always at least two possible stories: one is the story that the narrator, in this case the artist, thinks she is telling the story-teller story- and the other is the story that the listener is understanding or hearing or imagining on the basis of the same objects” Susan Hiller ‘Working Through Objects’. Thinking About Art: Conversations with Susan Hiller, ed Barbara Einzig (Manchester University Press, 1996) 226-34

“Any trace left by the past becomes a document for historians as soon as they know how to interrogate

its remains, how to question them. In this respect, the most valuable traces are the ones that were not intended for our information” Paul Ricoeur, ‘Time and Narrative’, vol. III (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988) 116-19.

“I owe my work to the preponderance given to systematic arrangements, subdivisions, didactic illustrations, collections, lists, rolls of honour, paradigms all”. Eugenio Dittborn, ‘The Running Omelet’. Final de Pista (Santiago de Chile: Galería Época, 1977), solo exhibition catalogue.

“Should everything, without exception, before his eyes in the form of an enormous paper sea, be considered to be valuable or to be garbage, and then should it all be

saved or thrown away? Given such a relationship, the vacillations in making such choice become agonizing. A simple feeling speaks about the value, the importance of everything” Ilya Kavakov ‘The Man Who Never Threw Anything Away’. Ilya Kavakov (London: Phaidon Press, 1998) 99-103.

“The conglomeration of objects helps arouse the sense of difference, producing its value: the gathering of the nearly alike in the context of a series has the effect of establishing rarity or singularity”. Victor Segalen ‘Expertise and the collection’

“Might archival art emerge out of a similar sense of a failure in cultural memory, of a default in productive

traditions? For why else connect so feverishly if things did not appear so frightfully disconnected in the first place?” Hal Foster ‘An Archival Impulse’ October 110.

3-6; 21-2 See ARCHIVE, COLLECTOR

Collector

The Professional Tourists gaze is constructed through signs: aspects of the place, landscape, townscape or surrounding that offer a shift in experience.

However they allow themselves to meet by chance and to come across things and events engaging in a new kind of awareness where a shift in experience doesn’t necessarily come from the heroic or spectacular but from ordinary objects. Being so, an important role of Professional Tourism involves the collection of such signs. Nevertheless they are not looking for ‘latiness’ when they see a group of tanned people listening to salsa and they know that they are not gazing upon the “real Netherlands” when they see

a tulips market but they might be interested in collecting one of these signs just because they might delighted. The Professional Tourists are collectors of signs and these collection items might take shape of industrial olive oil cans, fruit boxes, bread wrapping papers, panorama photographs, etc.

See ARCHIVE, AUTHENTICITY, CONSUME

Consume

As it is known, not only food or drinks are consumed.

Goods, services and resources can also go through a process of use and ingestion. In the case of Professional Tourists they are the ultimate consumers of places.

However it’s not because they literally devour locations or make use of sites until becoming exhausted by use, but because Professional Tourists ingest places visually.

They do it, and on account of this they can bring the past back, recreate fantasies, stimulate wish processes and dream. The city through its buildings, objects and people is the receptacle of cultural symbols, of people’s memories. By consuming the city, the Professional

Tourists reveal traces and hopes of previous periods, as well as they understand myths, foresee future dreams and anticipate events. Sometimes this visual consumption is manifested through the act of collecting.

See CITY, COLLECTOR, SIGHTSEEING

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Detail ¹

A detail, being a minor or a small item or feature, is not to be estimated less significant. It is also a particularity, an individual distinctive attribute to be considered because are in the small subtle details -and in the slight gradations among them- where we can start establishing singularity, particularity and also variety and diversity. Paul Virilio, Georges Perec and their friends were interested in what they called the ‘infra-ordinary’, “those things which are the opposite of the extraordinary yet which are not the ordinary either – things which are the ‘infra’”* because this offered a new way to approach the city, away from traditional methods of urban studies. Studying de

tails imply observing instead of looking. By getting lost in nuances and fine distinctions you can penetrate the ‘infra’: things are hidden in the obvious. *Paul Virilio extract from ‘On Georges Perec’ AA Files, no. 45/46 (London: Architectural Association School of Architecture, 2001) 15-18.

See HETEROGENOUS, SIGHTSEEING

DIFFERENCE,

COLLECTION,

Detail ² Detail is also a verb: detail |di’tāl; ‘dētāl| verb [ trans. ] 1 describe item by item; give the full particulars of. * *Taken from New Oxford American Dictionary See SIGHTSEEING, STREET²

Difference Difference shows two sides of a same coin:

In one side individuality and singularity are a consequence of difference, those points that distinguish one thing from another and make things dissimilar, not the same. Difference is great as it can give a powerful sense of uniqueness.

On the other side, as the ‘New Oxford American Dictionary’ states, difference is disagreement, quarrel or dispute as a consequence of the lack of consensus or approval.

See DETAIL

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Everyday

How can one grab or define the everyday when one can find it anywhere and yet nowhere?

As Maurice Blanchot says, a first approximation of what the everyday is can be found when we consider what we are most often at work, at home, at school, at the street, etc. Then again he locates it everywhere but not specifically somewhere.

It’s possible to say about the everyday that it is related to routines, to ordinary events, to the quotidian.

It’s not defined by the extraordinary or the unusual, but yet it can contain them within its domains. Despite the fact that the everyday surrounds us, contains us and

makes part of us we miss it all the time, it’s so intrinsic to us and that it is unrealized.

The everyday happens all the time without stopping, it actualizes and changes; however it newer produces anything entirely new. The everyday holds our existence and defines us.

The Professional Tourists work against the difficulty that entails the grasping of the everyday, they pay attention to details and to everything that happens, no matter how insignificant it might seem, because they think that thought everyday small things they gain greater knowledge about themselves, society and everything that surrounds

us.

See WHAT HAPPENS WHEN NOTHING HAPPENS?, DETAIL

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Heterogeneous

A Professional Tourist is as heterogeneous as the places it visits.

It is diverse in character and content, its multiplicity is not defined by binary oppositions, instead it locates itself somewhere or everywhere between the two extremes of antagonistic pairings.

By being a plural figure it can simultaneously have multiple ways of concerns in regard to certain subject, this allows it to generate questions, establish contrasts and particularize antagonistic forces within certain places, objects and subjects. This heterogeneity enables it to not be defined by a particular nationality and to be unattached

from any particular medium.

See DIFFERENCE, HETEROTROPIA

Heterotopia š

There are real spaces in this world that act as utopias: They present a general relation of perfect ideal representation or inverted analogy in relation to the space of society. These counter-sites are called by Michelle Foucault heterotopias.

Following his descriptions of these spaces of otherness it is possible to acknowledge places such as Kanaalstraat as heterotopias in the sense that this street is “capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible�*.

*Michel Foucault. Of Other Spaces (1967) See LOCALITY, KANAALSTRAAT

Heterotopia ²

The possibility of having spaces of otherness, heterogeneous and multiple, also opens the possibility of living in a world where there is more than dualities, where pairings that are commonly recognized as incompatible adversaries or for being opposed in position, direction or character (black or white, public or private, etc) could coexist without excluding or denying each other.

A space where leisure and work are not opposed irreconcilable activities is the heterotopic site of action of the Professional Tourists.

See LEISSURE, WORK, DIFFERENCE

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Journey

Lets say one decides to displace from one place to another. Being so, one has two possibilities: one is knowing the final destination and the other would be just traveling without certainty in regard to the place one will end up. In both cases there is a phenomenon of great importance that has no relation to the final destination: the journey itself.

Place A <-----------> Place B

We all know that if there is a line connecting A and B this line is constituted by an infinite number of points.

In this case the journey between place A and place B offers infinite possibilities in-between. So if one starts walking from A to B one would have to pass by an infinite number of places and passing a infinite number of places means traveling infinitely and never arriving to a final destination. The journey never stops.

See EVERYDAY, LOCALITY, WALK, STROLL

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Kanaalstraat

This is a very captivating street located in Utrecht, the Netherlands. It is a place that could be anywhere and nowhere at the same time, a street where people, places, signs and images coming from all around the world come together.

This is a seductive place for Professional Tourists.

On one end of this street itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s possible to find a muslim mosque and in the other a catholic church. Chants and prayers get mixed with Suriname markets, Moroccan bancs, avocados from Spain, Turkish restaurants, Dutch popular stores, Greek feta cheese and Colombian plantains. Persepolis is not only in Iran it is also in Kanaal

straat.

But it’s not only this diversity what makes the street so appealing, it is also the particular character of each of its shops and the kind of relations that are generated around them. Here is possible to revive the ‘neighborhood’ kind of life that seems each day more distant and rare to the contemporary cities: the stores and shops do not belong to big multinational companies and are not big chain stores. Costumers are attended by the owner and most of the shops are small family businesses. The fruit shops, the bakeries, the liquor store and the butcheries do not belong to the “marketing” world neither to the

‘product branding’, they just posses a unique and spontaneous character.

See STREET, HETEROTOPIA¹

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Leisure Leisure is work

Tourist practices are considered leisure and this idea presupposes an opposite: a separated social and spatial sphere of work. That is why the places the common tourist desires or glazes upon are these that are outside the normal places of work. However the Professional Tourists are the ones who conduct during the whole of their time what we might call the main tourist practice: sightseeing. Tourism is their work. They are able to monitor and evaluate society and its place within the world, in a historic, geographic and visual way by performing an exhaustive and careful sightseeing of their surroundings.

They constantly drown attention to what is usually unnoticed, to uneventful and trivial objects and experiences such as the repetitive actions of the everyday and the quotidian. This interest in the everyday denotes a ‘loss of guilt before popular culture and its pleasures’*. Leisure is a pleasure. Tourism is leisure. For The Professional Tourists there is no distinction between work and leisure. *John Roberts, ‘Mad for It: Philistinism, the everyday and the New British art’ Third Text, No. 35 (1996) See SIGHTSEEING, WORK

Locality Localities are undertaking journeys*.

The Professional Tourists might not recognize the place they are in, they might get lost in the diversity of people, signs and images that surround them. They have realized that the city is a global world city that is no longer isolated from the rest of the world, no walls surround it so communication and migration allow cities to move, not only through time but also through space.

The Professional Tourists donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think that cities are going through a process of homogenization where differences and idiosyncrasies are disappearing, they know that each city keeps its own unique characteristics and

inherent rhythms, but they have been the witnesses of the journeys that have been undertaking any elements of all kinds of local cultures. People, objects and images belonging to any local culture have displaced from its original place and are spreading all around the world. There is a place in any city that looks just as any other place in another city. *Boris Groys. Art Power (MIT Press 2008) 104.

See CITY, JOURNEY, HETEROGENOUS, KANAALSTRAAT, MOBILITY

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Mobility

Mobility is what allows tourism. It is what characterizes contemporary societies and for that reason is responsible for altering how people experience the cities, as it changes both their forms of subjectivity and sociability and their appreciation of nature, landscapes, townscapes and other societies.

However other characteristic of the contemporary world is that mobility is also possible in non-material ways. Images, experiences and software that let you â&#x20AC;&#x153;fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings, from galaxies in outer space to the canyons of the oceanâ&#x20AC;?*, are available for our consumption. In

this way it is possible to be a tourists most of the time whether being literally mobile or only through experience simulated mobility.

Nevertheless, The Professional Tourists practice is not completely isolated from the romantic tourist gaze.

They enjoy the displacement and contemplation of the “actual” things and places and they believe that only though this they would be able to catch the “infra-ordinary” and the quotidian. For The Professional Tourists grasping the atmosphere, tone or rhythms of a place is not possible through virtuality.

Not only people move and experience mobility.

* Google Maps See LOCALITY Listen TRAVELLING WITHOUT MOVING by Jamiroquay (1996)

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Nowhere (and yet everywhere)

For the Professional Tourists the place of work is the place of the journey, is here or elsewhere and temporary in nature. Their practice is developed everywhere and nowhere. The Professional Tourists aim to engage life and the quotidian. The everyday has no exact point of entry or beginning, it is everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

See HETEROTOPIA, JOURNEY, EVERYDAY

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Portability

The possibility of being able to be easily carried or moved is not just useful in the case of the Professional Tourists, but it’s also related to the belief that ‘less is more’. Portability implies simplicity, reducing to the fundamentals -as the case of a minimalist sculpture-. The concept of simplicity has been related to truth in the field of epistemology and can be used to imply beauty, purity or clarity. It’s scarcity, going to the basics, finding what is really essential.

Portability entails the idea that simple and small is as beautiful*, useful and trustworthy than something extraordinary and huge might be. The conception of port

ability is accepting and understanding our human needs and limitations.

‘There are very few necessities in this world... which do not come in travel-size packets’ ‘In travel, as in most of life, less is invariably more’ Macon Leary in The Accidental Tourist (1988) * ‘Small is beautiful’ is an idea developed by British economist E. F. Schumacher under an economic theory that states that small, appropriate technologies are believed to empower people more.

See DETAIL, JOURNEY

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Reflection

As Professional Tourists stroll through the streets they might find themselves reflected in the shopsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; windows. The glass shine might prevent them to see what goes inside the stores and they might just prefer to let themselves be trapped by the attractiveness of the images, typographies, signs and other peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reflections that are displayed in the windows. They would let themselves go and they will start connecting and disconnecting ideas and symbols, they will speculate about origins displacements and traces.

They will always remain conscious about their position, they are outside; they know that even if they get

inside the store their work will still remain in the public space. They are Professional Tourists and they are not pretending to be something else, like sociologists or anthropologists.

There is depth in the superficial.

See STROLL, EVERYDAY, SIGHTSEEING

Result

Professionalization might or might no lead to any result.

If one thinks in life as one pure activity that does not lead to any specific result (except for dying), that life is just an activity in which persons are carried continuously from one place to another with and without deviations, from one thing to another, from one event to another without any other goal than mere living, then the Professional Tourists seem to be the perfect characters to engage life, to refer to itself and to help understand it.

The result of their work, of their labor, might be just an activity (ex. the activity of preparing a refreshing drink

with local fruits to be shared while strolling around the city) and they might present us some of the activityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s documentation. The professional tourists collect souvenirs, memories and traces. Their actions might or might not lead to any result.

See EVERYDAY, WHAT HAPPENS WHEN NOTHING HAPPENS?, WORK

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Sightseeing

For Professional Tourists sightseeing isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just as simple as visiting places of interest in a particular location. This action, as the same word implies, consists of taking as far as possible the power of seeing, of performing an exhaustive observation of the site until its consumption. Sightseeing is their tool for finding a way to enter a place and situation as they acknowledge their position of temporary inhabitants of a space that they can not claim as their own. By observing they maintain their status of transitory spectators and outsiders, they are not interested in conquering or intruding. But the role of sightseers at the same time allows them to become part

of the place: they are there, they are the observers. People look back at sightseeing Professional Tourists because they are there in the street observing. So now who is the observer? Shift. Interference. Observing interferes with the course of things.

See DETAIL¹, CONSUME, REFLECTION, STREET²

Signposting

The Professional Tourists donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t limit their attention to those marks that other people make to identify what signs and places are worthy of tourists gaze and create tourism nodes. They consider that the most trivial and uneventful aspects of a place might be considered worth of gazing. Being so, one important aspect of their practice is signposting or bringing into visibility and drowning attention to the banal, the quotidian, the common and even the obvious.

See AUTHENTICITY, EVERYDAY

Street ยน

In general terms a street is a public road in a city or town with houses and buildings on one or both sides.

Cars pass trough the road in one or both directions, while pedestrians have their own path to walk. So what makes one street distinguish from other? The same that makes each person unique: the sum of the subtle differences, the details.

Streets can experience shifts over small periods of time. Night, day, weekdays, weekends, etc. have their own characteristics.

See CITY, DIFFERENCE, DETAIL, KANAALSTRAAT

Street ²

From east to west, south side (shadow side): Ulu Cami Mosque, 2 floors building, gray/brown brick facade, 7 bikes parked in front and one motorbike, no chants coming from it, door open, 2 middle aged men enter -> 2 floors house, white bricks façade, 1st and 2nd floor: family home, ground floor: ‘NovoPlay’ Casino, polarized windows 1 young man enters, no bikes in front -> one way street, street signal, 15 people cross the road -> trash can overloaded, 2 floors house, orange brick facade, ground floor: fruits and vegetables shop, 5 costumers, blue shopping bags, green shadows, one man holds a watermelon for a long time, first floor: through the window you can see white

pants hanging inside -> 2 floors house, white bricks, fruit and vegetables shop in the ground floor, striped white and red shadows, 5 buyers, 1st floor 3 windows with white shadows, 2 bikes, one white ban -> 2 floors white bricks house, ground floor ‘Slagerij’ butcher, green serif typography, red flag almost still because no wind -> 2 floors red bricks house, ground floor ‘Helal Shoarma’ made un helal, red fat typography surrounded by yellow stripe -> ‘Beytours’ two floors house, white van parked in front, a couple enters the shop, sparkling blue car with silver flames and dark windows stops and the driver talks for 5-10 minutes to a young man ->’Lombok’ butcher many

people come and go from it, a tree has been recently placed in front of this shop and has a cord around it protecting it, four bikes are next to it -> sign indicating that the speed limit is 30km, one way street crossing -> empty store to rent with back shining tiles as façade -> music store in a two floors orange brick house, 4 colorful posters, closed red and green striped shades -> 14 persons pass by -> ‘Orkibe’ Turkish eethius, outside oven, two tables with 2 corresponding chairs each outside, open red shade, dark showcase, cozy lights coming from the inside, loud Turkish music, 3 costumers inside, trash bin in front -> “Slaerij Islami M’ butcher, kalfs – lams – en

geitenvlees in the corner, fruits and vegetables outside: tomatoes, oranges, bananas, lettuce, avocados, limes, lemons, onions, spring onions, mandarins, 3 kinds of peaches, potatoes, grapes, egg plants, red, green and yellow, peppers, courgette, carrots, 4 kinds of apples, cauliflowers, broccolis, cucumbers, plums, other unknown, 3 women doing the shopping, picking oranges and potatoes, 3 groups of green plastic bags hanging from the open stripped shadow, man unloading boxes from a truck, other man stacking boxes -> no car access -> variety store: plastic chairs, shop carts, brooms, travel bags, shopping bags, plastics trays, shop seller standing in front of the door staring

to the street door several minutes until costumer calls his attention - > ‘Nissa Fashion’ 4 mannequins dressed in colorful sequined dresses: pink, blue, silver gray, yellow, accessories: bags and shoes, no costumers –> ’Jamal & K” the other clothes store, 4 mannequins: one in a dress, other wearing a white shirt, a brown sweater and black pants, other wearing a flowers dress and jeans, last one with back leggings and flowers jumper, the light lightens the figures, prices in the window, entrance door to first and second floor -> ‘Euro Phone’, 13 posters with different phone cards announced, 3 men talking in the door, two floors cream color corner house, red car parked - > one

man parking his bike, the chain falls twice before he locks it -> street crosses with a one way street -> ‘Kanaalnet’ two floors white house, neon sign in the window, big size cardboard ice cream, ‘jen and berry’s’ flag, graffiti in the wall next to the window, entrance door to first and second floor -> ‘Perse Polis’ the most crowded shop so far, fruits and vegetables displayed in front, orange squeezer, 2 € orange juice, 3 metal karts with dozens of flattened boxes stacked, white ban parked – ‘Bakkerij Delight’ corner house, bread smell coming out, one women with a child going in , 13 bikes parked in front, one girl locking one, 2 men talking outside -> one way street cross

ing, 30km speed limit, one man reclining in the traffic sign -> ‘Sardines’ soft drinks, beans, peas, rice, cuscus and food cans staked inside the shop and visible through the window, parking machine, young woman paying, two poster of a music group in the wall -> green van -> black door to access first and second floor of the house -> ‘Credit du Maroc” doors closed -> corner grocery store, green fonts in the window, 7 bikes parked in front, one man selecting eggs, metal kart with flattened boxes stacked -> next corner grocery store, blue striped open shadows, one yellow and red ice cream umbrella, tomatoes, dark blue car parked, one ,man standing and talking by phone -> brown

door to access first and second floor of the house -> ‘Yildirim Juwelier” gold fat italic font, wood shelves inside displaying the jewelry, big ring image on the window, seller standing in the door – ‘Heren Kapsalon Alim’ with small entrance and windows in a brick and wood house -> ‘Baraka; durum doner for 3€, outside oven with roasted chicken, cat sleeping under it, red fat fun typography surrounded by yellow stripe surrounded by fading images of the food they sell -> dark green door to access first and second floor of the house, -> whole block of residential houses, two floors, plants with yellow flowers next to the doors, white curtains in every window except one in

the first floor, red and blue cars parked outside, covered motorcycle, 7 bikes parked -> one way street crossing -> ‘Car Hi-Fi Center’ blue typography and shadows -> ‘Spar’ -> “Best Buy Bazaar’, rolls of plastic with colorful patterns, crowded showcase with different kinds of objects, van parked in front with the logo of the store and the pattern of one of the plastics they sell, plastic chairs stacked -> store for rent -> ‘Kledingreparatie’ selling leggings for 10€ , thread and needle and sewing machine images in two flat colors next to the logo in the window -> brown and black doors to access first and second floor of the houses -> ‘Suriname Market’ Suriname flag

in the window, 3 persons come out of the store, bike and car parked in front – Carpet store in the corner of a two floors house, rolls of carpet inside the store and stacked plastic chairs outside -> mi dark brick house -> ‘Rabobank’ -> dark bricks church, closed in that moment.

Kanaalstraat. Spring. April 28th. Wednesday. Between 11am and 12m. * *”Note down what you can see. Anything worthy of note going on. Do you know how to see what’s worthy of note? Is there anything that strikes you? Nothing strikes you. You don’t know how to see… force yourself to write down what is of no interest, what is most obvious, most

common, most colorless” Georges Perec in the chapter ‘The street’, in ‘Species of Spaces’ (Penguin, 1997) 46-56.

See CONSUME, DETAIL, KANAALSTRAAT, SIGHTSEEING

Stroll ¹

The ‘New Oxford American Dictionary’ defines stroll as ‘walk in a leisurely way’ and presents as synonyms and related concepts the words: drift, saunter, amble, wander, meander, ramble, promenade, walk.

See WALK

Stroll ²

The work of the Professional Tourists is the result of the professionalization of the tourist, of the sightseer, of the Situationists’ drifter. Their work emerges from strolling around the city, exploring a foreign everyday life, performing a clever observation, wandering, speculating and merging with the cities’ informality and tales. By letting themselves be drawn into the encounters, activities and attractions that they might come across while wandering around a certain place they will be able to study the flows, fluxes, conventions, contradictions and operations of the location of study as well of the objects and people that make part of it. Their labor is playful, uncon

ventional and resourceful; they would have to find their own strategies (avoiding predictable courses of action) to let themselves go, to wander almost like without destination and attempting to get lost. By allowing themselves to meet by chance and come across things and events they will engage in a new kind of awareness.

See WALK, LEISURE

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Walk ยน

Professional Tourists acknowledge walking not just because of its simplicity as the basic and main form of transportation without a vehicle but because for them it is part of its practice and working method. They are interested in walking because performing this action automatically inserts them into the social context, allows the connection of places, offers the mingling with others and provides multiple sensations and experiences.

See STROLL, PORTABILITY

Walk ² … “performance” and “competence” are different: the act of walking (with all the relational and spatial strategies that implies) is not reducible to a movement. By adopting the point of view of a relational and spatial strategy we privilege the act of walking; according to that point of view: walking operates within the field of a relational and spatial system. walking effects an appropriation, or reappropriation, of the street by its walkers. walking establishes a present relative to a time and place. walking posits a contract with “the other” and the street

in a network of places and relations. *Note: these four characteristics of walking are an appropriation of the characteristics of speech stated by Michel de Certeau in ‘The Practice of Everyday Life”. As he proposed, those characteristics can be found in many other practices, like cooking, but the possible parallels require the use of some ‘bricolent’ to establish significant relations.

See STROLL²

Work Work is leisure

Tourist practices are considered leisure and this idea presupposes an opposite: a separated social and spatial sphere of work. That is why the places the common tourist desires or glazes upon are these that are outside the normal places of work. However the Professional Tourists are the ones who conduct during the whole of their time what we might call the main tourist practice: sightseeing. Tourism is their work. They are able to monitor and evaluate society and its place within the world, in a historic, geographic and visual way by performing an exhaustive and careful sightseeing of their surroundings.

They constantly drown attention to what is usually unnoticed, to uneventful and trivial objects and experiences such as the repetitive actions of the everyday and the quotidian. This interest in the everyday denotes a ‘loss of guilt before popular culture and its pleasures’*. Leisure is a pleasure. Tourism is leisure. For The Professional Tourists there is no distinction between work and leisure. *John Roberts, ‘Mad for It: Philistinism, the everyday and the New British art’ Third Text, No. 35 (1996) See LEISURE, SIGHTSEEING

What happens when nothing happens?

What happens when nothing happens?

When nothing happens there is still something happening, there is no possible complete absolute void.

The everyday happens.

See EVERYDAY

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