THE JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING Pippa Hale-Lynch
ARCO13
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Front cover, interRail ticket: by Pippa Hale-Lynch
THE JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING Pippa Hale-Lynch A critically descriptive prose narrative of transient spaces within Europe This essay captures three moments within a journey across Europe. The prose, constructed from memory, is a point of departure for critical interrogation of transient spaces using Henri Lefebvre’s spatial triad, explained in Production of Space. The first of these moments is the beginning of the journey, perception in a state of anticipation, in which the imagination entrusts experiential knowledge to fulfil the expectations to come. This is where heterotopia is introduced and becomes a vehicle for imagination, consequently experiencing the space before tangibly inhabiting it. The second, a conceived space of dreamlike tricks, is like a sponge, we absorb from all our senses the memories of the spaces we appropriate. Although questionably real, a conceived heterotopic space of a non-tangible nature, the apparent surroundings still have an impact upon our experience of that space, perhaps even more so in how we experience the everyday. The third is a discussion of lived space, a continuously changing journey of arrival and departure manifesting the stages of anticipation and invention. This part of the narrative brings up a dialogue of the way we live everyday, how each action and thought has implications upon the spaces and how we inhabit, move within, and between them. This continuation of spontaneity and prolonged evolution of space is what we seek and subconsciously crave. I will interrogate my experience of transience to understand how, using the subconscious child within, we alter and adapt our perceptions of space toward a playful discovery in the everyday.
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Route of journey around Europe: by Pippa Hale-Lynch
Introduction [Prologue] “To tell a story is to invent a spatial syntax, to create a route through spaces.” 1 A journey around Europe becomes a story of which three spatial events occur, perception, anticipation and invention. These events depict aspects of the everyday in which we experience transient spaces. “The narrative text triggers a process of appropriation […] on the part of the reader. This dimension of narrative engages with the receiver’s participation.”2 It is the narrative, produced from short and long-term memory that will act as a core of which a transient ‘spatial syntax’ evolves and is simultaneously critiqued.3 Henri Lefebvre proposes a spatial triad of 1) Spatial practice (perceived space), 2) Representations of space (conceived space) and 3) Representational spaces (lived space).4 Yet, these are not to be considered as sole entities of production, “Relations with two elements boil down to oppositions, contrasts and antagonisms. They are defined by significant effects: echoes, repercussions, minor effects.”5 Chronologically, I will analyse space successively using Lefebvre’s triad as an abstract tool for criticality alongside the descriptive narrative of perception, anticipation and invention of space. The chapters will each concentrate on one notion of Lefebvre’s triad (in tandem with the two others) to gain an in-depth knowledge of each, discovering the relative fluidity of perception, anticipation and invention. It is not to prove whether the triad is ‘correct’ rather than to understand the multiple and conflicting elements of transient space.6 The combination of the prose narrative and critical framework of the spatial triad will form a continued dialogue of how our subconscious child within craves a spontaneous and creative action and reaction of space. “ ‘One need only provide the opportunity and we - the public, who are also maybe children of a kind - will know how to use it.’ ”7 The conception of space within a heterotopic realm is ultimately a depiction of what we long for in the everyday, a spontaneous joy of discovery. Michel de Certeau forms a discussion of space and the idea of perception, “The perspective is determined by a ‘phenomenology’ of existing in the world.”8 My spatial experiences and memories, described and analysed, will further discuss the idea of perception being influenced by the moments of anticipation and invention, along with transience and childlike 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Michael Sheringham, Everyday Life, (Oxford: OUP, 2006), Page 46. Ibid., Page 47. Ibid., Page 46. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), Page 38. Ibid., Page 39. Jeremy Till, Architecture Depends, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2009), Page 126. Sigfried Giedion quoted in Simon Sadler, The Situationist City, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998), Page 29. Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, (Berkeley, Cali.: UOC Press, 1984), Page 118. 5
play of imagination discussed by other theorists such as Walter Benjamin and Michael Sheringham. Collectively, these will gain a further understanding into how our relationship with space is a continuous spatial narrative that is evolving with every encounter.9
Anticipation 22nd – 23rd July 2012 Bristol-Amsterdam I said a farewell to my parents in the unusually glorious morning sunshine of England’s suburbs and waited eagerly at the station10 amid a sparse crowd. I boarded the train to go to Harriet’s house11 in preparation for our pending journey. I am a sole entity with my backpack, everything I need in one place that I can carry with me wherever I go, a newly instated nomad.12 It turns out my backpack 13 is much heavier than anticipated and lugging the backpack onto a seat I catch a reflection of myself, I see a hunched back and exhausted face, I definitely packed way too much. I perused around town hunched as I go (in denial of my over packing), killing time before Harriet picks me up. The shops started to open as the sun crept further into the sky and I sought solitude on a bench to give my shoulders a rest. Hours before our journey is to begin my friend of over 10 years had still not packed, she’s ever so predictable. I filtered things out of my bag Harriet put the finishing touches to hers and Lee’s army issued bag (I was not the only one to over-estimate in packing). Before we leave we filled our stomachs, unknowing of our next meal, on a splendid Sunday roast courtesy of Harriet’s dad. 9 M. Sheringham, ‘Archiving’ in Beaumont, M. and Dart, G., eds., Restless Cities, (London: Verso, 2012), Page 398. 10 Bridgwater train station is a small station consisting of 2 platforms; of which I always have to double check I’m on the right side. It is an old station, not dissimilar to how it would have been when built, apart from a few murals from college art students and countless layers of paint on every surface, while still seemingly clean for Bridgwater’s ill reputation. 11 Harriet’s house is located within Weston-super-Mare, a town I previously lived in for 19 years. She lives in a small village on the outskirts right by the sea. It has a great view over the countryside and the rather underwhelming Sand Bay (where the sand is mud and sea is silt water ridden with unknown horrors). We would eagerly attend beach parties at Sand Bay as young teenagers and find sanctuary at Harriet’s the morning after, ever since it has been my second home. 12 A wanderer, roaming from place to place while including the related notions of the satellite and the complete operation not necessarily tied to a locative system. Peter Cook, ed., Archigram (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999), Page 74. 13 I bought the Backpack at a boot sale (events very common in the countryside fields). The seller had obviously been a war veteran wanting to de-clutter his home of his old service uniforms and gear. The bag was a navy blue, with a Royal Air Force logo sewn meticulously to the top flap. There was damage to the inside water resistant layer but was a perfect size, with a few pockets and small price tag, (compared to trekking backpacks sold in retailers). The backpack did actually end up with a hole in the side after the trip, yet it was able to serve another purpose successfully, with my late Granddad’s “Young at Heart” badge proudly attached on the strap. THE JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING: Pippa Hale-Lynch
In a state of anticipation and expectancy, the unknown creates an interrogative and speculative relationship of space.14 The process of packing, the early stage of anticipation before a journey has commenced, builds up a tangible perception of a space, a whole territory of imagined space that is constantly being reinvented with memories. They all become one, like a Swiss army knife, to use singularly or collectively to create an idea of space, creating attachments of emotions that relate to the experience of a space. A lock15 could become a reminder of forgetting a code, when in a hostel and meeting the caretaker that helps you break the lock, learning that he also sings jazz in the bar downstairs at night and dancing to his music later that evening. A jumper16 is no longer just a tool to keep you warm, but triggers memories of where you laughed and embraced the evening sun from a mere food stain acquired while eating at a huge park cafeteria in Berlin. From objects of anticipation and perceptions of space, they become an interconnected embodiment of the perceived and lived space over a period of time.17 It is these types of memories or moments that allow us to interrogate and anticipate space, yet without these and no experience of a space, we rely on our imagination. Beginning a journey, full of anticipation and thoughts of what might be, we continuously evolve assumptions of a space, without actually experiencing it first hand. We use all the subconsciously picked information to conjure an image of what is to be seen, “the thinker does not think, but rather transforms himself into an arena of intellectual experience, without simplifying it.”18 Anticipation becomes a trigger for imagination. The bench, restricting and predetermined without enough space to perch longer than a few minutes with a backpack on, becomes a solitude for daydreaming, a sanctuary for heterotopia. Michel Foucault suggests that a heterotopia, an imagined space, is still an experience of space (this is discussed more in depth later in the essay). “The space of our primary perception, the space of our dreams and that of our passions hold within themselves qualities that seem intrinsic.”19 The bench becomes a prompt for an experience of space outside the conceived 14 Sheringham, Everyday Life, Page 74. 15 The lock was bought from the Wilkinson’s chain, the fluorescent lights and ample signage that lured me into departments of products that were not even thought about before entering. It took more than 30 minutes to buy the lock, there was not just one type of lock, there was one for every imaginable situation, and yet not knowing what situation I was to be in, it took a while to compare them all and resolve the new predicament for the most suitable. I settled with a combination lock with a complimentary wire cable for attaching to peculiar fittings other than just a locker. It now does not work after forgetting the code and the series of actions to create a new one, but I still have the wire cable. 16 The jumper is charcoal grey with a deep blue and red pattern across the chest, once owned by my Granddad in his extensive hoarders wardrobe hung next to 60 or so other jumpers. The cotton is somewhat coarse to the touch from extensive wear and washing, but the sleeves allow for full mobilization of the hands without having to roll up the sleeves every two seconds. This meant that when fumbling for a passport or ticket, I could do so with quick ease. It must have shrunk in the wash. 17 Lefebvre, The Production of Space, Page 40. 18 Sheringham, Everyday Life, Page 52. 19 Foucault, M., ‘Of Other Spaces’ in Mirzoeff, N. ed., The Visual Culture Reader, (London: Routledge, 2002), Page 231. 7
environment. It is within these thoughts and imaginations that we live and relive space, a continuously reconstituted experience that is reinventing the individual’s perception of space. We may imagine ourselves in a space, though we are limited within our imagination and discovery with the “compulsion to conform [that] underpins all human behaviour.”20 While resting on a narrow bench waiting for Harriet my thoughts were uninhibited by my surroundings, I was able to daydream. “With a whole train of thoughts having been perused, toyed with, and then laid aside before we are belatedly returned to ourselves.”21 We coordinate ourselves in an orderly manner, complying with the set allowances of a bench and its peripheries, but in a state of daydream there is no adhering to conformities of perception, a state of fluidity. Or as Winnicott suggests, “formlessness […] associated with creative playing as well as dreaming, where as daydreaming […] is what adults do when they no longer know how to play.”22 Yet, formlessness in a state of daydreaming may allow us to creatively play within the spaces we occupy without restriction, our inner child is suppressed to having an open participation within our conscious daily lives. Winnicott previously states as such, “her childhood environment seemed unable to allow her to be formless but must, as she felt, pattern her and cut her out into shapes conceived by other people.”23 Within daily life we succumb to perception, yet in moments of desire and daydream we generate progressions and time lapses of space, lived through the act of imagining, no longer smothered by rationalisation.24 If it is perception that conjures anticipation and ideas about space, this cannot be considered as a sole entity. “Space is practiced place” therefore, the perceived space of anticipation by the individuals is not yet space to themselves until lived and as explained before, we may experience space within our imagination.25 Once lived, we compare to what we already know and how they differ to our current knowledge, all of which is written within having first hand experience of transient spaces is a statement of differences and alterations to already lived space. From an individual to a whole society, these contrasts create a deciphering of spatial practice, continuously evolving amalgamations of coherently thought space.26
20 Neil Leach, Camouflage, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006), Page 2. 21 Gregory Dart, ‘Daydreaming’ in Beaumont, M. and Dart, G. eds., Restless Cities, (London: Verso, 2012), Page 80. 22 Ibid., Page 86. 23 Ibid. 24 Sheringham, Everyday Life, Page 60. 25 De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, Page 117. 26 Lefebvre, The Production of Space, Page 38. THE JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING: Pippa Hale-Lynch
We met Rich at a bus stop in Bristol,27 hours before we are supposed to depart and spent most of the time anticipating the bus’s arrival, fidgeting away from the sweltering sun. Finally the Bus glided down the slightly tilted road, creating an exaggerated shadow on all of its soon to be passengers. Embarking on the bus, eager to get settled and cooled down, the bus driver hailed his voice down the bus saying someone would have to get off. Hearts racing we awaited for the rest of the sentence. He found humour in not telling anyone who it was until he got to the end of the bus. It turned out there was a group of guys (also about to go backpacking by the looks of it), one of which booked the bus on the wrong day. The poor guy longingly waved the bus off as he stood on the pavement after attempting to persuade the driver otherwise. From a simple transition from home to a friend’s house then a bus stop, an impulsive thought process is created from the shear acts of a collective new experience and the stages of anticipation progress and evolve. “Every story is a travel story - a spatial practice” a palpably increasing anxiousness arises, causing a restless relationship of space from being in a constant state of transition. 28 A train becomes too narrow for holding an overflowing backpack, a bench being too limited to sit for a mere few minutes or the earliness and eagerness of the day alluding to the journey ahead and the possibilities it holds while fidgeting away from the sun. All these successive encounters results into a relative interpretation and reaction of space that we chose to occupy or appropriate, as a result, the spaces are interiorized by the inhabitant causing the memory of a space to become part of a microcosmos of memories that contribute to its evolving history.29 We arrived at London Victoria Coach Station30 to a cacophony of people hauling luggage. We followed the ample signs from the dark chilled underbelly of the arrivals station to take a deep breath of fresh air and cross a busy street of London, a snippet of reality until entering the departure station.31 Observing peoples eyes scanning 27 The bus stop in Bristol is a patch of pavement located opposite the Colsten Hall and right by a parking lot, which you can see into through gaps in small spaced wooden slats. There was no seating, apart form a wooden sloped surface (with spikes on the edge, obviously made for people not to accommodate, however it did seem to accommodate empty crisp packets and Pepsi bottles). This led us to waiting at the bus stop, attempting to find comfy positions on this metal spiked edge slowly shuffling further into the diminishing shade produced by a concrete overhang. 28 De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, Page 115. 29 Sheringham, Restless Cities, Page 10. 30 The coach station is segmented into two buildings, arrivals and departures, with a road between them. When previously visiting for the first time I even printed off a map, puzzled how they weren’t in the same place and worried that I wouldn’t make the connection. Turns out that wherever you decide to place your eyes there is a sign guiding you to the departure station, from ceiling to floor. 31 The departure station was filled with light compared to the dullness of the arrival area. A sea of people sat on metal benches met the eye as you turn a corner to the terminals, each one next to the other. All the people seemed to be in a continuous state of unease, waiting upon every announcement or change on the screen. A whole space 9
digital screens filled with information of coach terminals, some more franticly than others, we followed their puzzled gazes to the screens and realised we have to checkin. It seemed that it didn’t dawn on many others either as an American guy perilously scared himself into believing he wouldn’t get onto the coach as the queue for check in was so long.32 In the queue we sought entertainment via people watching,33 though all seemed to be gazing longingly into the sea of coaches past the glass threshold,34 restlessly awaiting their own journey. Hours into the excursion we’ve realised the task of trying to sleep on a bus. The ‘Megabus’35 is not so ‘mega,’ with just enough room for some knees they were definitely not designed for long journeys, let alone for sleeping. Chairs that don’t recline (or do recline but once you let go of the lever it returns back to upright), no foot rests and plenty of sharp corners. This was a recipe only for the incredibly tolerant. Luckily we had a few breaks to split up the monotonous task of resting. People were sleeping on the floor of the ferry, as well as every surface that promised a horizontal posture, even my companion Rich nearly walked on one person thinking they were a mound of bags, this was not voiced until well out of earshot. Passing the time I discovered that I’m not so good at the card game ‘bullshit’36 which Lee taught us, mind you neither was Harriet and her cheeky grin with every play. Even though Rich and Lee had only just met and we were all suffering with lack of sleep, we were still content with our pending adventure enough to smile and laugh our way through designated to being on edge, helped by the pointy metal bus stop like furniture. 32 He seemed like a friendly man, eyes that smiled. He frantically went back and forth about the queue as the time passed. The line appeared thirty people long, with but one check-in desk. Even us in our organized state near the start seemed to be cutting it fine. While on the bus, after everyone organized themselves into seats, two men appear exhausted yet relieved, their luck proved better than the person left on the pavement at Bristol. 33 This is a hobby that has become harder to do while getting older due to not having a child’s innocence yet still equally as interesting. It was curious to see that whilst sat down, aimlessly letting thoughts wonder about the possibilities of the commencing trip, each person was doing the same themselves. Some people would pass the time by browsing the food being sold at shops while others tap away on phones, all tried to amuse themselves for time to go faster. As mentioned in William H Whyte, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces - The Street Corner, accessed from http://vimeo.com/6821934, [last accessed, 6th of February 2013]. 34 The glass stood at around five meters tall, tour guides and sometimes coach drivers guarded this boundary with their fluorescent yellow jackets and clipboard that possessed a whole realm of power. These manned boundaries emitted importance, so much so that we had to double check that we were at the right terminal. In the end the dutiful tannoy lead us to a manned terminal to board the coach, yet I still didn’t find out whether they would have to be manned to be used? 35 This is a coach service available over Europe for budget priced travelling. Paying such prices means sacrificing many hours to the journey, and as I have found out, also surrendering any comfort wished to be had while sacrificing those hours. 36 ‘Bullshit’ (an American term) consists mainly on the art of deception, trying to get rid of all your cards. You look at your card and put it face down, declaring what card it is or what card you want it to believe as. The other players will decide whether you are good at lying, if they think you are not telling the truth they can call ‘bullshit’ to see the card. If the card is what you declared, then you are free of that card to whoever called bullshit, however if the card revealed is not what you said then you have to acquire another from the middle. We played cards everyday on the trip, and this game proved good at killing time. Also referred to as ‘Cheat’ in David Parlett, The A-Z of Card Games (Oxford Paperback Reference), (Oxford: OUP, 2004), Pages 84-85. THE JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING: Pippa Hale-Lynch
the discomfort.
Image description of chair on the Megabus: by Pippa Hale-Lynch
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The transience of a journey is represented through our thought process, as our journey fluxes between tense relationships of space, to states of boredom. “Participation in daily acts places us in a sphere of anonymity, a fluid, undramatic present.”37 The everyday is not ‘anarchic’ as described by Lukåcs, but a repetitive mechanism of necessities that “from time to time is alleviated by miraculous moments.”38 It is the transience of space and anticipation that can create moments of discovery within our everyday as we dream and desire in moments of solitude or childlike whimsy. As the darkness faded we had apparently succumbed to overwhelming tiredness… vague memories of people alighting at Brussels and before we knew it we arrived at Amsterdam. Very early and feeling dishevelled with the morning sun beating down, we took a metro in a bid to find our campsite.39 Our journey had begun. Feeling a lot less refreshed than we would have liked, we had hit Amsterdam in the middle of a heat wave and had been in the same clothes that we attempted sleeping in. The fresh air hit us like no sleep could, the warm touch of sun was welcomed on the skin and the idea of the metro, only being two minutes away from arriving was a morning to be thankful for. The metro arrived promptly40 and we swayed with the tracks, relieved to be within unfamiliar surroundings. Stopping at the central station to gather maps and get our bearings, we then walked and stumbled upon a café to get a morning coffee41 perusing at our newly acquired maps. After around nearly two hours of navigating we turned up at a quiet secluded patch of large dollhouse sheds42 in an array of colours surrounded by trees. The construction
37 Michael Sheringham, Everyday Life, Page 16. 38 Ibid., 19. 39 The bus station was on the outskirts of Amsterdam and right the other side of the city was our campsite. 40 One of the things that I am thankful for in cities is the digital display of arrival times for public transport. Without such a device, it has lead me to waiting for buses for over two hours in the middle of the night as they didn’t meet their allotted paper time chart. I would have just left the bus stop and got a taxi and very nearly did due to the cold, however the time and patience I had put in to waiting for the bus made me more determined to achieve alighting the bus. Yet the digital display can mean that standing idle in a time of transition can be an option rather than necessity. 41 This was, without a doubt, the best coffee I had ever tasted. The aroma and taste wakened my previously dulled senses, bringing to life the idea of this beginning we had encountered. We had looked all over Europe for another coffee to taste as good as this one did, and we failed. It may have had something to do with the 16 hours of restless travelling to the start of our journey. 42 These dollhouses (technical term, cabins) were each painted a different colour, made of wood with a white detailing around the overhang of the roof. They had a small window with white detailing, a wooden deck area and THE JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING: Pippa Hale-Lynch
Getting the metro in Amsterdam: by Pippa Hale-Lynch
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of our little blue daisy house, No. 66, was very much like a wooden frame with mattresses but it was all we needed. Each temporary dwelling had their own porch and path, each looking onto the other; it created quite a sense of community with the lack of barriers. Everyone was laid back, giggling and chatting to themselves within their designated territories, visible so others can share a back seat in the noise. Settling in we used our 7.50 euros day ticket to return to the centre and aimlessly wander amongst the city. The streets were continuously lined with bikes and every bridge and canal seemed to blur into one. Getting lost and constantly walking, we managed to build up a slight understanding of where we were. The morning coffee wore off and the warmth soothed us as we sought refuge by a park canal, soaking up the rest of the afternoon sun with the grass between our toes.
Invention 27th -29th July 2012 Prague A hostel in Prague, the Clown and Bard,43 was full of matured character. Each room was different, each corner and each step up to our floor. We utilised the hospitality of the bar and retreated to our room,44 the floorboards creaking under each step as we reached floor seven. Being in such unacquainted surroundings coerced my imagination into trickery. I woke up in the middle of the night, the heat of the day was still amid the room, the sheets barely on the bed, looking for the cold side of the pillow as moonlight softly danced through the window panes into the room. All I saw was a tall dark figure carrying a huge backpack on their shoulders with bag on the front torso and a bag also held in his hand. Half asleep, horizontally questioning my eyes I led there pretending to be asleep, opening and shutting my eyelids to verify what I was seeing. This illusive figure was static, as if to hoax my mind into thinking the figure was watching, staring at us as we slept. My senses sharpened, the closeness of the heat upon my skin, trapped between the sheets, the deprivation of light made my eyes a threshold into the cabin, mainly used as an outside social area. The layout of these dollhouses created a community of campers, all with the intention of holidaying. 43 The hostel was situated on the outskirts of ‘Old Town’ approximately 20 minutes walk from the train station (this actually took more like an hour when we arrived due to bursting backpacks and steep inclines 50% of the way). The streets were lined with colourfully aged townhouses at least 15 meters tall, towering over the 5-metre wide streets underneath. The hostel entrance resided at the ground floor of a typical weathered townhouse, underneath a modest protruding sign, that lead down a murky tapered stairway. 44 The room was the top floor attic conversion, with a private bathroom. The walls were layered with unofficial murals of all sizes such as “Praha Possy 2012” and “HP R Happy as Larry” etched onto the layers of crumbling pink and blue paint. Amid the murals was a bare mezzanine level, great for sitting on the edge and peering out of the slanting windows that gorged the room in light. THE JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING: Pippa Hale-Lynch
Dollhouses in campsite. No.66 to the far left: by Pippa Hale-Lynch
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squint and search for a more tantalising look. A panic descended as I stared at this figure. I thought of nothing but questions; is he lost? Does he know this is not his room? Is he sleepwalking? Finally, I sat up. The figure realigned, manipulating itself into reality of the beam and column in the middle of the room with Lee’s washing45 drying on it. Harriet said that I spoke to her, saying her name and then telling her to go back to sleep, although that part did not reside in my memory. The idea of ‘hostel’ represents the continuous transience of people and each individual creates and leaves a history and memory of place. Such ephemerality leads to people being as transitory as the space itself, continuously changing “between the outer world of material objects and the inner world of dreams and fantasies.”46 When being constantly bombarded with new surroundings and discoveries of cultures, almost like a sensory and experiential overload, it brings forth a “sphere of invention” that is part of the everyday, rather than just repetition of daily activities.47 Space is perceived through primary experience of the instant and tangible, everything that is new to the everyday and over time, becoming a continuously evolving paradigm of memories, a memory machine.48 This continuous reinvention of space being perceived as such, like a curious child seeing everything as new is a tool for invention, not in a epiphany, but in discovering our spatial surroundings. 49 “[Discoveries] which depend upon no knowledge and are derived from no practice, but get their existence and value exclusively from a certain accord of the soul, the eye and the hand of someone who was born to perceive them and evoke them in his own inner self.”50 The representation of space in our own consciousness is related to our individual perception. We imagine and dream of space, contributing to illusions and the fluidity of the transient, a heterotopia. Foucault uses a mirror to describe heterotopic space. “The mirror functions as a heterotopia […] it makes this place that I occupy at the moment when I look at myself in the glass at once absolutely real, connected with all the space that surrounds it and absolutely unreal, since in order to be perceived it has to pass through this virtual point which is over there.”51 The mirror produces a virtual reality relating to the spatial surroundings, yet what is being 45 As we were never in one city for longer than 2-3 days, and sometimes less than 24 hours, we had to wash our clothes in sinks and showers aided by a handy travel wash solution. Therefore in every hostel room we acquired for over a night eventually got meticulously draped with drying clothes. 46 Sheringham, Everyday Life, Page 76. 47 Ibid., Page 361. 48 Sheringham, Restless Cities, Page 10. 49 Matthew Beaumont, ‘Convalescing’ in Beaumont, M and Dart, G. eds., Restless Cities, (Verso: London, 2012), Page 74. 50 Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, (London: Fontana Press, 1992), Page 106. 51 Foucault, The Visual Culture Reader, Page 231. THE JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING: Pippa Hale-Lynch
The hostel to room of The Clown and Bard: by Pippa Hale-Lynch
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perceived is a copy of what is actually there, a distorted representation of present space. “The space of our primary perception, the space of our dreams and that of our passions hold within themselves qualities that seem intrinsic.”52 We may experience ideas of space that are not tangible, though this does not make them irrelevant. The way in which we experience space, however illusive, still contributes to the actualities of that space. It didn’t stop there. The next night after a long day of getting lost, I seemed to have woken up at a similar time, I could tell this from the light that highlighted every surface it touched, though this time it delicately brushed the wall and ladder to the mezzanine level. A mirror appeared in the midst of the light, and an ascending creature on the wooden ladder. It seemed as if these figures were staring at us sleeping. I studied the height of the figures, why was there two? Why stare? From the experience of the night before it took less urgency to sit and check it wasn’t just the manipulated view from the bed. ‘The illusive figure’ perplexing my thoughts, causing me to constantly relay time over again with different scenes of action. However, what about within a world of which cause and effect are erratic? 53 A heterotopic dream where one may precede the other, where either may lie eternally in the past or future, or even where the past and future are entangled. There would be no need to consider the consequences of a stranger in a room as it could be seen to reside in the past. “Each act is an island in time, to be judged on its own.”54 Therefore no longer would there be a sharpening of the senses, or a feeling of deprived sight, my sense of space would be as illusive as the order of cause and effect, yet each all as possible as the other as conceived space. This as such a statement is not to simply state the complexities of human psychology but to show that the everyday is constituted by a whole assimilation of experience, virtual or otherwise, that is formed and reformed continuously in human activities and encounters.55 The heterotopic space of juxtaposition and otherness is a conceived space of moments and realities not materialized but experienced all the same. It is eternally changeable, from a sweeping thought to a double take of a reflection, a reality of space made up of a transient perspective and representation of space. “As this wave from memories flows in, the city soaks it up like a sponge and expands.”56 By depicting a whole virtual situation due to the questionable familiarity of the hostel a whole conceived space is invented both mentally and physically and becomes a space in a state of continuous fluidity.57
52 Ibid. 53 This is a concept of time that Alan Lightman proposes. Alan Lightman, Einstein’s Dream, (New York: Time Warner International, 1994), Pages 39-42. 54 Ibid., Page 41. 55 Sheringham, Restless Cities, Page 398. 56 Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities, (Vintage: London, 1997), Page 9. 57 Sheringham, Everyday Life, Page 385. THE JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING: Pippa Hale-Lynch
Perception 2nd August 2012 Ljubljana We planned to detour out of Ljubljana to Lesce Bled, a quietly nestled lake in between snow-capped mountains. We set off early58 and headed towards the train station, meandering the streets with familiar ease. Arriving at the station, an acquainted sight it seemed,59 revealed a whole section of the station that was not apparent on our arrival. There stood an elongated platform that took 15 minutes to walk its length to actually get to the ticket booth. We alighted from the platform (back down from the platform length once we had purchased our tickets) to a sleek, tall, new train, with bursts of graffiti and paint on all sides but the pristine windows. The interiors resembled a plush metro or bus, with plastic scented air circulating the vast height of the carriage and around softly furnished seats. While the four of us sat comfortably next to a vast window, gazing at the world through the boundary of glass, I leaned on the cool surface of the transparent threshold as the sun tinted the scenery beneath it with utter obliviousness of the surroundings within the carriage. In this stage of lived space the participation of the anticipation and invention is manifesting into a series of physical events. It is no longer a mythical daydream, yet a slow ticking, each event linking and informing the other to create a string of other events that make up the day, “a field of action.”60 Each event transpires and is stored in the subconscious to decipher the space from it. “Nothing disappears completely, however; nor can what subsists be defined solely in terms of traces, memories or relics. In space, what came earlier continues to underpin what follows.”61 We act and react to each event as time passes by so carelessly and we become part of an entity in which we all go about our daily activities or activities of necessity ‘following’ what came before. “In a culture of fluidity and flux, the increased mobility of life today exacerbates the need to find alternative mechanisms of belonging. In such a context, the capacity to assimilate quickly can be seen as a vital mode of arrival in an ever-changing world.”62 In an ever-changing world, the ‘arrival’ is not a singularity 58 We had actually aimed to get the train for around 9am however the lack of sleep over the past weeks or so of travelling meant that even our eagerness was not enough for the task of getting out of bed. This meant that we got the train at 9.45am to make sure we didn’t sleep the day away. 59 Train stations were what seemed to take up much of our time on our journey. Along with the actual journey, we would need to arrive early to be certain of getting the right train on the right platform. Then there would be arriving and departing the station to try and find our bearings. All of which would take twice as long as anticipated, as if the station had some time accelerator (along with all the queues and standing under information boards that occurred). 60 De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, Page 115. 61 Lefebvre, The Production of Space, Page 229. 62 Leach, Camouflage, Page 3. 19
but rather a compilation of arrivals that ‘assimilate’ to create a perception of the inhabited whole. We are continuously ‘underpinned’ by the histories of a space that constitute a subjective perception, or even a ‘true identity’ of which “is not hidden deep inside us so much as scattered around the perceptual world, where we can piece it together from our sensory reactions.”63 In a constant state of transition, we create a sense of belonging by perceiving ourselves as part of the surroundings as to be able to live momentarily rather then metaphysically. The train would slow and make beeping sounds64 each time we came to a station. We would continuously look out of the windows from our container, the slow approach of the platforms soon became smooth and comforting and the beeping sound a white noise to our conversation. While gawking out the window with the beautiful scenery and distractingly flowing conversation65 I noticed the snow capped mountains were idyllically framed by the corners of the window pane, apparently we were not looking out of the right window as I was pointing this out to the others, it wasn’t until I looked around to the opposite side of the carriage that we realised the train was leaving the platform of Lesce Bled. In our bewilderment, we erupted in laughter and appeared at the next dusty station, Zirovnica, not a soul was there and we were stranded.66 Bemused, we ate some lunch67 in the shade of the crumbling structure and walked around in close proximity to the station staring at the vast snow capped mountains that had been our distraction and waited for the possibility of another train arriving and miraculously going in the opposite direction. After eating and the possibility of a train gradually dwindling, we entertained ourselves by searching for ways to improve our marooned state. A hand drawn map proudly displayed on the front of the building demonstrated the two-hour stretch of which we would have to walk to arrive at a populated town of any sort. After a weighing up of options our impatience and familiarity of the suns glare upon our shoulders ruled out walking and we persisted in the optimism of a train’s prompt arrival.68 63 Sheringham, Everyday Life, Page 71. 64 It sounded like a computer in the 90’s was being turned on, a symbol-ridden noise that petered out towards the end in a bid to warn passengers of the doors closing. 65 Many of our conversations included the strange or awkward situations that we found ourselves in. Before, we were people watchers, whereas now we were the people being watched and that lead to many a time encountering the people that we would of once watched ourselves. 66 The stranded nature of our situation was heightened by the condition of the station. The doors were not even open, let alone anyone working there. The boarded up windows and crumbling façade all entangled to create a perfect stranded scenario. 67 This consisted of baguettes with chorizo and cheese bought from a local supermarket, by this point in the trip it had become our staple diet due to ease and budget constraints. As a general rule it was better to eat food shortly after buying it due to the heat, so the reroute ended up being an excuse to eat while the food was still edible. 68 A small, barely legible sunburnt chart, found on another part of a crumbling wall, solidified this optimism. Although in another language and faded we deciphered a 30 minutes to an hour gap between trains and hoped that the train was just unduly unkempt rather than an accumulation of outdated information. THE JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING: Pippa Hale-Lynch
Zirovnica station and the hand drawn map: by Pippa Hale-Lynch
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In a situation of distraction and subsequently the unknown we are compiled with a feeling of alienation. Within transience we encounter the new, always striving to place ourselves within our surroundings, to relate and understand it. However, the more we impart memories, interiorizing the space, the more we become apart of it. “Nothing is alienating forever. Eventually any space will become familiar.”69 It is in this familiarity that coalesces the intensity to how we mentally and physically manifest transient lived space. Salvation in form of a train arrived after a time of sunbathing passed and we once again submitted to gawking out of the cold window on our longingly anticipated train. Passing our newly befriended station we negotiated our pre-bought passes with a hospitable ticket man that dutifully overlooked our detour and swiftly carried on with his checks. Changing our mode of transport we swapped to a bus, swaying with the snaking roads encircling the mountains. Beyond the tarmac stood idyllic tall trees, plush greenery, blue sky, snowy mountains and water that sparkled in the gleaming sun. We were all very eager after our deviation and sauntered by the lake, stripping down to our swimsuits the first chance we got and galloped in. The water was a refreshing interval from the immense heat, better than a cold shower. We investigated the waters near our newly acquired spot, revelling in the view of the island, sun and cool water. From our seclusion we ventured to the waters heading to the isolated mound of land protruding the middle of the lake, wading through the 400-450 metres of cool tantalising water. We climbed the platform edge,70 ignoring signs71 for no swimsuits and adventured up and down the craggy, yet small boulder of an island. On the island the sound of the bells as people rang it frequently was more potent, a beacon of our triumph, however small. “Space [...] is a product of relations-between, relations which are necessarily embedded material practices which have to be carried out, it is always in a process of being made. It is never finished, never closed. Perhaps we could imagine space as simultaneity of stories-so-far.”72
69 Leach, Camouflage, Page 4. 70 The wooden platform acted like a swimming pool edge rather than a platform to alight and board small boats. Children and families would dive, jump and splash around the wooden deck, revelling in the novelty of the small island and its vistas. 71 ‘No swimsuits allowed.’ It was assumed that people exploring the island arrived by boat; therefore there would be no reason to arrive with nothing but a swimsuit on your back. The sign seemed to promote the purchase of a boat ride in order to serve the sign in walking the island in ‘suitable’ attire. However curiosity got the better of us (and all who swam), instead the sign signified our conquest of discovery. 72 Doreen Massey, For Space, (London: Sage, 2005), Page 9. THE JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING: Pippa Hale-Lynch
Lesce Bled and the church: by Pippa Hale-Lynch
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A spatial syntax that is constantly being lived and relived within the train journey, with changes from one space to the other, an interlaced series of narratives evolve a perception inclusive of anticipation and invention. Within lived space we act upon what has preceded us to continue in our ‘field of action’ abruptly being isolated from a pre-determined ‘assimilating’ train journey, we are deployed into a new series of interconnecting encounters that realign our perception and experience of a space. “Lived space bears the stamp of the conflict between an inevitable […]. It is in this space that the ‘private’ realm asserts itself, albeit more or less vigorously, and always in a conflictual way, against the public one.”73 Each event and encounter successively creates situations of indeterminacy and inevitability. The discovery of being lost and unbeknown to the possibilities of being marooned, a thought process of conflicting decisions (walking or waiting) and events become a platform for interplay of the mental (anticipation and invention) and physical to decipher a space. The manifestation of this interplay and deciphering creates an experience, a series of actions that culminate to produce a history of memories, yet lived space is not the embodiment of perceived and conceived rather the mediations between them.74 By arriving at a destination, whether indeterminate or inevitable, “The focus is on active exploration through experimental practice, of lived experience in concrete space.”75 We go about the everyday, never aimlessly wandering, always with a destination or purpose though within these activities it is the way in which we seek discovery and enjoyment from them that derives a subjective ‘story-so-far’. The location acts as an origin for the multitude of these ‘stories-so-far’, but it is the continuous differences of the multitude that formulates practiced space. From these differences within the everyday we are able to discover, to evolve our perception of space through anticipation and invention. “The storyteller is the figure in which the [...] man encounters himself.”76 As an evolving story that we constantly learn, transience in the everyday explores the evolution of our lived experiences.
Conclusion [Epilogue] Each of the accounts within the narrative whether true or exaggerated explore the realms and ideas of transient space using the ‘spatial triad.’ By analysing the situations and circumstances that are created by the accounts, space becomes an entity of exploration, each detail portraying a certain mark within the memory of that space; it’s identity being continuously reinvented by the transience of the people who experience it. These moments of participation between anticipation, invention and perception, are not studies of what 73 74 75 76
Lefebvre, The Production of Space, Page 362. Ibid., Page 298. Sheringham, Everyday Life, Page 74. Benjamin, Illuminations, Page 107.
THE JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING: Pippa Hale-Lynch
constitute space but part of a larger embodiment of experiences that build and transform to create a relationship of the everyday, not necessarily a coherent whole.77 This phenomenology of lived space brings with it a rejuvenation of our anticipations and inventions. It is not gaining knowledge of space that comprises an experience rather the harmonic and contrasting relationships that manifest our internal and external worlds (imaginary and tangible). “A moment of perception provokes a reaction that reveals a connection between life as something given (rather than earned), and individual subjectivity as something virtual rather than circumscribed.”78 These ‘relations’ that are continuous dialects of space therefore are created subjectively in accordance with a sense of identity and self. These congregate to an appreciation of moments that are being discovered as each ‘relation’ is successively played out inevitably or indeterminately. From a critical reflection of the prose we can discover these relationships of space, subjectively creating a possibility for creativity, a reaction of the inner child. We need not to have knowledge of how space is lived rather than a concept of space where we embrace the differences and contrasts that a spatial syntax proposes, and ultimately drive our imaginations in a direction of discovering within the everyday. “Reason and utilitarianism, habit and routine, the shibboleths of maturity, self- improvement, and ‘getting on in life’, that conspire to alienate the individual from the possibilities held out by childhood creativity and imagination.”79 By embracing our creative imaginations, the contradictions and indeterminacies of everyday life produce with it a possible discovery, an illumination in the inevitable mundaneness of everyday activities, a continuous exploration in spatial syntax. The more differences that we discover; whether a marooned station, an illusive figure or waiting on a bench, becomes the increasing evolution of understanding the “ ‘phenomenology’ of existing in the world.”80 The criticality and prose narrative reveal this continuation of spontaneity and prolonged evolution of space as being what we seek and subconsciously crave, and resultantly act upon in a state of constant transience. Becoming “victim[s] of [our] own compulsion to see the real world as a springboard for [our] imaginative processes.”81 Creating a whole subjective world that evolves through our experiences.
77 78 79 80 81
Ibid., Page 40. Sheringham, Everyday Life, Page 69. Sheringham, Everyday Life, Page 16. De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, Page 118. Ibid., Page 77. 25
Bibliography Books Baker, N., The Mezzanine, (London: Granta Publications, 1989). Beaumont, M. And Dart, G., eds., Restless Cities, (London: Verso, 2010). Benjamin, W., Illuminations, (London: Fontana Press, 1992). Bishop, C., ed., Participation, (London and Massachusetts: Whitechapel and MIT Press, 2009). Borden, I., The Unknown City, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001). Braham, W. W and Hale, J. A., Rethinking Technology, (New York: Routledge, 2007). Calvino, I., Invisible Cities, (London: Vintage, 1997). Cook, P., ed., Archigram, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999). De Certeau, M., The Practice of Everyday Life, (Berkeley, Cali.: UOC Press, 1984). Doherty, C., ed., Situation, (London and Massachusetts: Whitechapel and MIT Press, 2009). Eco, U., The Open Work, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989). Foucault, M., Of Other Spaces, Ed. Mirzoeff, N., The Visual Culture Reader, Second Edition, (London: Routledge, 2002). Goodman, N., Ways of Worldmaking, (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1978). Jencks, C. and Kropf, K, Theories and Manifestoes of Contemporary Architecture, (Chichester: Wiley-Academy, 2006). Leach, N., Camouflage, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006). Lefebvre, H., The Production of Space, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991). Lefebvre, H., Writings on Cities, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996). Lightman, A., Einstein’s Dreams, (New York: Time Warner International, 1994). Massey, D., For Space, (London: Sage, 2005). Parlett, D., The A-Z of Card Games (Oxford Paperback Reference), (Oxford: OUP, 2004). THE JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING: Pippa Hale-Lynch
Raunig, G., Art and Revolution, Semiotext(e), (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2007). Sadler, S., The Situationist City, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998). Sheringham, M., Everyday Life, (Oxford: OUP, 2006). Tafuri, M., Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1976). Till, J., Architecture Depends, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2009). Turner, J. F.C., Housing by People: Towards autonomy in building environments, (London: Marion Boyers Publishers, 1982). Zardini, M., Sense Of The City, (Switzerland: Lars Muller Publishers, 2005).
Films Whyte, W. H., The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces - The Street Corner, accessed from http://vimeo.com/6821934, [last accessed, 6th of February 2013]. Journals Hensel, M., Hight, C. and Menges, A., Space Reader: Heterogeneous Space in Architecture, AD Reader, (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2009). Latour, B., Yaneva, A., “Give me a Gun and I will Make All Buildings Move.” In Explorations in Architecture: Teaching, Design, Research, ed. R. Geiser, (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2008). Lum, E., ‘Conceptual Matter: On Thinking and Making Conceptual Architecture’, Harvard Design Magazine, Fall 2003/Winter 2004 (19) (2003).
Image References All images by Author
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