2023-24

Being with ghosts thus entails a process of being with the unfinished, with ruins and in ruins.

And in contrast to ruling regimes of growth and accumulation, this sense of embracing the minus as an act of reconciling with the unfinished poses to me a far more meaningful negotiation with the everyday.

If growth implies a move upwards, then my proposition definitely resonates with moves inward, downward and underneath.

"Women’s fear of men takes on a geographic logic."

Male Subject & Female Subject.
Özlem Günyol / Mustafa Kunt, 2011

“If you see something, say something” (The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Security Awareness Campaign) is a phrase that indicates every individual has responsibility over his/her surrounding, should be vigilant and report suspicious activities. As every individual observes his/her surroundings, essentially the observer becomes the object of the surveillance. This provides an indirect message to every individual to control their actions or activity. The individual is under surveillance, not just by law enforcement, but also through the public itself.

For the work “Male Subject & Female Subject”, Özlem Günyol & Mustafa Kunt asked Residency Unlimited to establish a contact with a private detective from ICORP Investigations to follow and investigate the artists for a one-day period. The detective was asked to conduct the surveillance for 1 day (out of 3 days suggested by the artists). Thus, the artists didn’t know which day they were being followed. The only instruction given to the detective was to make a detailed report of their activities. In this way, a regular day of Özlem Günyol & Mustafa Kunt was translated into a report by a private detective and thereby transformed a regular day into a suspicious situation.

Hauntology & Scoring:

Scoring
Ville vs. Cité:

"We need to explore the rich potential of the dark, of the nocturnal city as an alternative frame for thinking and being."

There is a social conundrum here. These capacities should have served to develop the social realm, to broaden and strengthen the well- being of a society, which includes working with the biosphere.
Instead they have too often served to dismember the social through extreme in e qual ity, to destroy much of the middle- class life promised by liberal democracy, to expel the vulnerable and the poor from land, jobs, and homes, and to the expulsion of bits of the biosphere from their life space.

A exercise in discerning the difference between the complexity of lived experiences and the cold yet efficient functionality of the built environment, as inspired by Richard Sennet's 'Building and Dwelling: Ethics for the City'.

Barzakh (Arabic: برزخ, from Persian Barzakh, "limbo, barrier, partition") is an Arabic word meaning "obstacle", "hindrance", "separation", or "barrier". In Islam, it denotes a place separating the living from the hereafter or a phase/"stage" between an individual's death and their resurrection in "the Hereafter".

'The Life and Death of Great American Cities' Jane Jacobs:

James Bridle's 'The Render Search' project is an attempt to track down people who appear in architectural visualisations using social media, Facebook adverts, and other means [click image]:

Other living matters

On (ante) senses (post) and scoring:

"What might becoming a body of water—ebbing, fluvial, dripping, coursing, traversing time and space, pooling as both matter and meaning—give to feminism, its theories, and its practices?"

...on becoming philosophers of the feel...

(Lo)cal + (T)raditional, (E)cological (K)nowledge

"Just like humans, trees breathe."

....learning how to look, to use a different lens and to learn
and see what remained unseen to a general public’s eye.
It also involved learning to understand what it is that we
see...

"Storytelling and urban navigation are embodied practices, and our bodies are connected to the stories and are therefore not taken
as “neutral,” in ways white people can supposedly practice
neutrality in the Netherlands."

Click the image below to acces a full online publication of GLORIA WEKKER's - WHITE INNOCENCE

WALKING WITH ALL THE SENSES.

In this game of monitoring and being monitored, I lost my following target three times.
The cemetery became my best cover and determined the distance between me and my target.

Do I feel safer when I stay with ghosts?

It's silent here, no one talks,
I am acutely aware that there is something surrounding me.
"Can you find me?"
I wave my arm vigorously,
I put down the leaves on which these words are written along the way.
If I stay with ghosts,
Then I will get the response from inside and memory.

But I know there must be another person there seeing me,
Or, I assume that I will be found soon.
Someone will follow the traces I left,
He/she is watching me every time and everywhere.
Silence is not real silence,
There is just no one talking, but someone is always there.

Nightwalking Werkspoor

Sohrab's records (15:30-16:19):

15:42 A train passes by.
15:45 Do people ever visit the old graves?
15:47 Another train passes by.
15:49 You can almost hear the wind.
15:45 Either someone is really bad at following me or no one is really following me.
15:55 Hier Rust. Here Rests.
15:56 A broken grave.
15:58 Taking a detour.
15:59 Where is everybody? Am I lost?
16:00 Almost unreadable gravestones. Are they forgotten?
16:01 Why put a fence around a grave?
16:02 Deadend.
16:03 I walk by Isabel. She's on her phone. I know I'm not supposed to but should I follow her?
16:04 I swear I saw Mark for a second, but then he disappeared in the bushes.
16:05 How do you not get lost in this place? How do you find someone here?
16:07 Grave of an artist.
16:09 I wish I knew how to read Dutch.
16:10 A statue of a hand holding a flame.
16:11 Time to head back.
16:12 I see Mark emerging from behind me. Coincidence?
16:12 Everyone is almost back.
16:13 Is it going to rain?
16:14 Another train passes by.
16:17 Mire is missing. Everyone is looking for her.
16:18 I start looking for Mire.
16:19 We don't find Mire. We head back.