You can touch whatever is in your way

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You Can Touch Whatever is in Your About Crossing Borders, or How to Be Mixed

Way

Frontier, beyond what we think, is something that puts differences side-by-side, announcing the tension between them, pointing out the conflicts necessary for this mapped territory to be filled with paths that goes from difference to difference: paths of coexistence.

I’m starting with the idea that the body is a map and, as such, full of frontiers. These body-maps occupy and have the ability to transgress the official map, full of rules and dynamics of preservation. Each of these bodies are flexible in their space; they are “spassers.” This syllogism points out how they can both release space—in a Heideggerian sense (“Clearing-away brings forth the free, the openness for man’s settling and dwelling”) - and can pass by it, always moving, going through paths. This is a singular mutability that I defended in my Master’s dissertation, Caminos Micropolíticos: Indecisión, Búsqueda y Fronteras (2013). I pointed out the need for a pulsing space (natural and ruled by the body itself, based on freedom and solitude), for the construction of a singularity. A space that opens and closes, increasing or decreasing the distance between one body and another.

The image used at that time was the space between the arms when we dance or when we are in a ball.

I understand the body as being a constellation of paths and limits and frontiers. These frontiers, when in contact with another body, tend to foster tension. And it is precisely by tension that something may happen between these two distinct beings that touch each other.

TENSION

Erratic space of the Body Body

Body

Frontiers

man: Deviation into Space man <> man: Erratic Space of the Body man x man: Tension world: Space dwelling: Singular Maps system: Official Map

Walking is living the risk of finding another body. To walk is to share and change space through your inner desires, and by way of the desire for otherness always within you. I’ve never seen so many skateboarders using the streets.

Walking is also about listening to music. Or dancing. I remember my father waking us up with music in the morning. The sound came from another room and grabbed us slowly from our dreams. Waking up— even out at my own pace - was warm. Waking up as such today, regardless of what I hear, is a walk back in time. It is always sweeter waking up in memory. Those random notes arriving unsteadily, your brain trying to understand - then, you wake up and there’s someone in the world with you and this someone is listening to music. We could have continued sleeping, but were driven to wake because we felt it was a gesture of affection, even from a gentle parental authority who introduces his children into the world... A world of sounds, otherness sounds. At home we have an old stereo system that only plays radio. It stays in my parents’ bathroom. Sometimes it’s left on and the music goes all day. Radio: a playlist that is not ours. I like to find out what people are hearing. For a moment, we all are listening to the same thing, no? The boys heard music when they were building the Los Bar. I remember that their music was coming inside the flat from the backyard, without first asking permission. Last Sunday, a neighbor was listening to very loud music, gospel radio, early in the morning… and all I could think about it was that someone is alive.

I’ve discovered that, these days, I prefer to offer people these gentle authoritarian gestures as an invitation to come inside.

A Game: How to learn to walk I wrote this guide to organize my dance sessions and my ideas about the body in the city - about the walking body as a way of dwelling in space. With this guide, we can alternate exercises and improvisations. I think of the guide as a political method to invent the body in collective. 1. Body: Exercise of touch Exercise of Resistance Exercise of the Edge

(induction) (opposition) (contamination)

1.1. The Walker: Formatted Bodies Fast walk Slow walk Deviating walk Stopping and Resuming 1.2. The Wanderer: Erratic bodies Body glued to the ground Body averse to the ground Unbalanced body 2. Space: The Floor as plane The floor as line The floor as sphere Asymmetrical space

You can touch whatever is in your way. Being open to this contact is a deviant act, a diverted and therefore transgressive act. As Foucault said: “Transgression is an action which involves the limit, that narrow zone of a line where it displays the flash of its passage, but perhaps also its entire trajectory, even its origin; it is likely that transgression has its entire space in the line it crosses.” Etymologically, transgression is the “crossing over,” moving from an ordered state to an unordered—so, being a transgressor is being a deviant, a disobedient body.

Michel de Certeau says that every story is a travelogue: traveling and living the space. A map delimits the space and the narratives make the journey. Each person is a map, an affective cartography that I add to my image of the city of Los Angeles. To show a place to someone (a place, a walk, an object, a change of light) is a personal and political act. Because there is an emotional connection between the one who shows and the one who is taken for a walk. A personal activation of the urban space happens then, full of narratives.

This is the story of my journey.

Pedro de Llano Mission San Gabriel Arcángel The walk of the plobadores “Rejoice, Mary, filled with grace. The Lord is with you” Most of the missions still stand along the 600 miles of the California coastline. This mission was founded by the Spanish Franciscan order in 1771. There are 21 such missions in the state. Pedro said that the missions were located a day’s walk apart. Let’s keep this image in mind. The “Tongva” are also know as the Gabrileños, Fernandeños... Europeanized names following the Spanish colonization. There are nearly 6,000 natives buried at Mission San Gabriel Arcángel. Pedro told me that the first time he visited the mission he had the opportunity to see a ceremony by descendants of the indigenous people. He remembered their long braids. I remember that on the way we passed Alhambra, Cordova, Sevilha, Hidalgo ... We were in Spain again. After the Mission we steal public flowers, reap jacaranda seeds and drank micheladas.

“I’m quite convinced that cooking is the only alternative to political art. Maybe there’s also another alternative; that’s walking by foot.” BAUCHWITZ AFTER HERZOG

Todd Lerew Central Library and L.A. River I met Todd at the Central Library downtown, where he works. The Library could be a place for me. I don’t really like libraries... I think I spent too much time at the library in college. But this one is special. We walked around the exhibition To Live and Dine in L.A., which maps the gastronomy of the city. Many old menus and other memories. Then we went to Atwater Village to see the river, where the river is greener and less gray. We walked by the edge, passing under bridges and listening to the sound of the cars overhead. At some point the river turns away and moves, and you can actually walk on it... on the rocks that are the river. White rocks. Dry river. Todd said there where people living in the middle of the bushes - like Crusoe living on the island, I guess... A turn-and-a-half and four bridges later, after passing the fishermen, the art installation, the ducks, and the heron... we had dinner: goulash.

"Para aprender da pedra, freqﾃｼentﾃ｡-la" JOﾃグ CABRAL DE MELO NETO

“Wir dürfen nicht denken, warum wir gehen, sagt Oehler, denn dann wäre es uns bald nicht mehr möglich, zu gehen und konsequent weiter, wäre uns bald überhaupt nichts mehr möglich...” THOMAS BERNHARD

Santos Vázques Hi Sofia, I can participate in your project if you’d like.... made a list of my favorite places... some have changed... but some remain... some don’t exist any longer... Strange that I never really thought about my favorite places... they just exist almost in this subconscious realm... and they have to do with time also.... which I also never thought about.. that time has given meaning to them...

Hi Sofia, I listed some of my favorite spots/places... I tried not to list touristy places... although some here can be... Sorry if it’s a little long... I’m sure there’s a couple I’m forgetting... but for now... They do have to do with memory, repetition, space...energy... What gives a place meaning? ... To go someplace, a particular place over and over throughout the years... to see it change or not change... and also to be aware that you too have changed... in relation to that place....

FAVORITE PLACES OR SPOTS 3/10 1. My Own Private/Public Vista -- A spot, my spot, his spot, her spot, their spot,.... our spot.. Una muy bonita VISTA... a place in a large park in the hills...Elysian Hills/Park. This little place one can drive up to, get out and sit on a low wall and contemplate life... a nice view looking North... I can see my first school, first neighborhoods, where my grandmother’s house once existed... those little hills and that little slum I once lived in... so for me it’s little personal... a place where memories fly... very old memories... but so clear.. It was a place where I came since I can remember... as a child, as teenager, as a young man... and I comeback once in awhile... we smoked here, drank here, laughed here... contemplated the past and the future... and the present... There are other places in the Park I like also... some have changed too much... but this is one of contemplation.. 3. Avenida Caesar Chavez -- East Los.... Boyle Heights... originally Brooklyn Avenue. I come here to escape the art world and other artists... I like to disappear into the rhythm of it... when I can become just another person... It’s the last refuge of an Old Los Angeles that is disappearing... because of gentrification and businesses... an immigrant community mostly but full of life.... things you can buy cheap here... I will help fight gentrification here.... here is the last place.... before it all goes away... Also, down the street on 1st is Mariachi Plaza... things are going on here.... the Mariachis hang out waiting for jobs here.... festivals happen, music is played, people dance and laugh...love explodes here... 5. A Family Restaurant in Cypress/Highland Park... One of the last remaining family run places still existing... they are also disappearing... This is in my old neighborhood and it’s been here a long time. I really like the lady who works here... I can look out the window and see the pine tree where I once fell and broke my wrist... on my friend Miguel’s porch... it’s still there... I see the little park where my aunt used to wait for the bus to go to work.. before I was born... Before it was a restaurant it was a Panderia... where I loved to go when I was really young... those candy colored sprinkles on the pan-dulce... I lived for! A place where I can still get a good plate of Webos Rancheros.

We had our brunch at La Abeja where we ate huevos rancheros. Through the window we couldn’t see the pine tree from his childhood, but after we took a walk around the neighborhood. I saw the school where little Santos had studied… He told me that he once found cans of paint and sprayed the school’s walls with his friends. He was the leader of the vandals. He had problems with the teachers, but managed to hide it from his mother. Same goes for when he hurt his arm… He should have gone straight home after school, but instead went to play in his classmate’s backyard with the pine tree. He fell and injured his arm. He was afraid of his mother’s reactino, so when he got home went directly, and oddly, to bed. Santos also told me how he worked as a paper boy and how the older boys took almost all of his money, leaving just too little to buy candies. He decided that working in such conditions was not worth it and left the group We passed the front of his friend’s old house. The pine is still there - it’s a big tree. We passed by his old neighborhood, the old house that caught fire... For a second walk we went to Mariachi Plaza and hired a group of musicians. We walked through Boyle Heights at 7 pm, not too busy - we stuck “anti-gentrification / pro-tension” stickers on the walls. We evaded the police and ate tacos. We also painted mustaches on our faces and sang along with the mariachis at the Los Bar.

Para subir al cielo se necesita una escalera grande Una escalera grande y otra chiquita Ay, arriba y arriba Ay, arriba y arriba y arriba iré

‘Rhythm is originally the rhythm of the feet. Every human being walks, and, since he walks on two legs with which he strikes the ground in turn and since he only moves if he continues to do this, whether intentionally or not, a rhythmic sound ensues. The two feet never strike the ground with exactly the same force. (...) Man has always listened to the footsteps of other men; he has certainly paid more attention to them than to his own. (...) Thanks to the dominance of rhythm, all throbbing crowds have something similar in their appearance� ELIAS CANETTI

Jack Bangerter Runyon Canyon With Puppy, the dog First we went to Puppy’s favorite place, Runyon Canyon, a park in the Hollywood Hills. You can unleash your dog there, the park is hence full of dogs and people. We went at 2 pm and it was hot. Puppy is an old dog and she was tired. We climbed the hill to the first observatory and I could see Los Angeles from above for the very first time. I could see all the places I knew from the cartographer’s perspective. Suddenly Central L.A. did not seem so large. If we drew a straight line from where we were sitting we would reach the Mackey Apartments. Runyon Canyon has some ruins. We passed by an abandoned sports court. How rare to see such a space here ... I like this court and the abandoned lot full of chairs on Cochran Avenue...

“Walking is how the body measures itself against the earth” REBECCA SOLNIT

Antohony Carfello In Time 3rd Street. We started to go down the street. We left Little Bangladesh, in the middle of Koreatown. On the streets you could hear Spanish, the pawnshop on the corner, formerly a porn video store, has signs in several languages. Ahead we found the Taco Móvil and a fruit vendor in her trailer, the inhabited sidewalks. Anthony lived here at the beginning. He showed me the building where he waited for his foot to heal, he show me the place that years ago the YMCA used as a garbage site... Before Western Ave. the sidewalks become a parking slot. We cross the street and the sidewalks begin to be greener and narrow. The houses become isolated from the street with hedges and gardens and the street starts to be quieter. It is the border. Anthony points out: a psychological border. We are about to reach the Secret Garden zone. One more street and the walls begin to grow, the distance between outside and inside increase... The perpendicular streets grow away with long palm trees and beautiful gardens. They ask you to drive like your children live there. The flowerbed grew wider, the sidewalk more narrow, no one walks. Nothing really invites the movement. Back there in Little Bangladesh was the mixture, the contact, the contamination. Here, with the walls, the many no-native luxuriant plants and trees and the green curtains, the security system signs, the wasted money and life... I can’t contaminate or get contaminated, but I feel a bit of pity and derision. Upon arriving at Windsor Boulevard: mansions. Streets are covered with trees, a green and quiet tunnel. No living soul out there, maybe inside. That scares me.

The street where the mayor lives is wide. The big houses are islands. The neighbor’s garden is always greener and the mayor’s garden has native plants. Good example. But no one follow it. Far away I see a bus passing by. Workers need to return to their homes after all. There has to be a way to go out of all this fear and return to the city. We walked down the street to Wilshire and saw little-by-little how Koreatown begins to appear again. Hancock Park is behind us. By the St. Andrews intersection, we have a coffee at a place called Document.

“I have written most of my melodies walking and I feel it is definitely one of the most helpful ways of sewing all of the different things in your life together and seeing the whole picture.” BJÖRK

You can touch whatever is in your way earns its name and character as a response to a poem about a stone on a road by Carlos Drummond de Andrade. A stone come up to force us to change the way we walk.

“No meio do caminho tinha uma pedra / Nunca me esquecerei desse acontecimento / Na vida de minhas retinas tão fatigadas / Nunca me esquecerei que no meio do caminho / Tinha uma pedra / Tinha uma pedra no meio do caminho / No meio do caminho tinha uma pedra.” DRUMMOND DE ANDRADE

Bodies occupying the empty streets and the gaps that modern architecture was unable to inhabit: that’s what you should think about when walking through Los Angeles.

“En aquel Imperio, el Arte de la Cartografía logró tal Perfección que el Mapa de una sola Provincia ocupaba toda una Ciudad, y el Mapa del Imperio, toda una Provincia. Con el tiempo, estos Mapas Desmesurados no satisficieron y los Colegios de Cartógrafos levantaron un Mapa del Imperio, que tenía el Tamaño del Imperio y coincidía puntualmente con él. Menos Adictas al Estudio de la Cartografía, las Generaciones Siguientes entendieron que ese dilatado Mapa era Inútil y no sin Impiedad lo entregaron a las Inclemencias del Sol y los Inviernos. En los Desiertos del Oeste perduran despedazadas Ruinas del Mapa, habitadas por Animales y por Mendigos; en todo el País no hay otra reliquia de las Disciplinas Geográficas”. JORGE LUIS BORGES

With Monica Rizzolli I took the first walks by foot through Hollywood and West Hollywood. We were living in a motel for one week, almost without any money. The distances of Los Angeles were recorded in our bodies. I went to Topanga for the first time with Robert, Christoph, Ute and Axel. Trails lead to a large rock where you can enjoy the wind and the landscape. That day I discovered one of my favorite places in the city, the Reel Inn. With Robert, I’ve been to Zuma Beach a few times. It’s another favorite place in L.A. I saw whales, dolphins, seals, and flocks of pelicans. I fell in love. It was thrilling. Zuma beach and a green apple. Lukas and Andi took me to the beach. First Malibu. Then Venice. They go surfing and I sunbathe and swim. We all began playing with stones.

First I saw the palm trees and they all seemed to be the same tree walking with me. But shortly afterwards I realized that Los Angeles was rather purple. It was full of lilies and Jacarandรกs. Carpets of purple petals on the sidewalks. Purple touches along the avenues, in the gardens of the houses. The purple sky.

“Pois minha imaginação não tem estrada. E eu não gosto mesmo da estrada. Gosto do desvio e do desver.” MANOEL DE BARROS

“Walking is one of our last remaining intimate spaces” FRANCIS ALŸS

“Why is it that the contemporary equivalent of landscape painting is so often based on action and narrative at the expense of representation?” NICOLAS BOURRIAUD

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