suivez / segua / follow
a project from the laboratory of interruptions
alessandro carboni
dana cooley
ingrid simon
Arguably, the act of walking took on a new significance in the early 20th century with the appearance of the figure of the flâneur. Later, artists such as Vito Acconci (Following Piece (1969)) and Sophie Calle (Suite Vénitienne (1980) and La Filature (The Shadow) (1981)), for example, continued this trajectory of ambulatory enquiry, emphasizing the critical potential contained in the act of walking. The project we developed in the workshop follows in the footstep of this tradition of walking as a form of artistic inquiry.
suivez / segua / follow’s premise is simple: use a stranger as a catalyst to explore the city in new ways. With this project we also wanted to investigate the tensions between subjective and objective mapping. In order to do so, we devised a set of simple, yet strict rules:
1. we would all begin at the same location and, in a predetermined order, each would follow a stranger and record both a GPS and audio track
2. when one of us could no longer follow our subject (they went in a building, boarded a bus, train, etc.) that person would send an SMS message saying ‘change’ to the other two, who would then have to stop their current course and proceed to follow the next person to pass by
3. after the allotted time for the experiment (30 mins) all of us would cease our following and recording
In order to visualise our experiments we set up two projections. The first showed all three of our GPS tracks playing in real time; the second, three audio tracks (each of us recorded our thoughts and observations in our native tongues––French, Sardinian, English). The result was an interesting mixture of representations of our experiences. Not only could we observe how closely or widely our paths had diverged (or even crossed at times!) by studying our GPS tracks, but the audio recordings also gave an indication of the differences as well as similarities in our understanding of our surroundings.
Paradoxically, the rigid structure we created for our experiments permitted us to surrender to chance, the random, and serendipity. By following strangers we had to abandon our usual habits and preconceptions; we were moving through the city of another, experiencing some small part of someone else’s daily life.
Further, the interruptions caused by the text messages instructing us to pick a new stranger to follow often proved frustrating. After trailing someone, even if only a few minutes, we began to develop a certain attachment to them, wondering about them and their life. When torn away from that narrative, it could feel somewhat disappointing–we often wanted these stories to continue, to see them home safe, as it were.
As well, it quickly emerged that a sense of agency, the ability to exercise one’s own will, was an important aspect of our experiments. For example, at times, due to the patterns of our strangers, we ended up trapped in spaces, ‘pinged’ back and forth, at the whim of passers-by. It was remarkable how powerfully the sense of being controlled by the actions of others was in certain instances.
The fact that we were conducting ‘anonymous acts’ which in some ways were also quite invasive (to follow, to observe, to note without that person’s knowledge) served to heighten our awareness of the tension between public and private. In a sense, suivez / segua / follow acted as a microcosm, drawing attention to the paradox played out by much state and commercial / entertainment use of (mobile) locative technologies: despite proximity, there is little (meaningful) interaction.
Overall, suivez / segua / follow creates the space to move outside of one’s self, to experience the city in new ways. By amplifying the everyday, suivez / segua / follow makes the invisible manifest. In undertaking these experiments we often vividly felt the cinematic and narrative quality of our trajectories; we were characters unfolding in space and time, scrawling stories in the landscape.
We would like to continue our following, perhaps by conducting experiments from our respective countries of residence and see what happens when we push the disjunctive / connective nature of the project even further in this way.
