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C r e a t e t h e S i t u a t i on: I d e a s F or E n g a gi n gWi t h On e’ s C i t y an d I nh a b i t an t s c r e a t e t h e s i t u a t i on. b l o g s p o t . c om

A Situation

But what action have we taken? Interventions are for emergen-cies. And sometimes, something turns into nothing; and some-times, nothing turns into something. As you know by now, thephrase, “create this situation”, is rooted in a 60’s youth countercul-ture movement, with roots in street theatre and symbolic politics.

Simon, authoritatively denes symbolic politics as the ability to

envision and represent change. They are gestures worked on, tobe worked out, in aesthetic form. Actions forever falling on deafears; always limited by their necessity for interpretation.Again, interventions are for emergencies. Avoiding simple reac-tion to the ailments of contemporary urban life, we’ve looked toour heros of the city for guidance, Francis Alÿs, Andrea Bowers,Guy Debord, Fredrick Engles, Harrel Fletcher, and many more. Intheir lives, work, and writing, we’ve found clues for re-imaging cityspace, and our interactions in it. We’ve taken these precedentsas workable solutions, and in a caffeinated state, adopted them toour city, and to our lives. It’s been a process of misquotation.

It happened more than once

The three of us have met on Sunday, twice a month, since Febru-ary. We meet, drink coffee, eat, and talk. Simon, makes mockgestures towards formal meeting etiquette by drafting agendas;including topics like ‘our feelings’, and ‘our feelings about the proj-ect’. It takes us awhile to focus; the agendas don’t entirely help.With clear direction or not, we always re-enter into the circulationof the city.

I only drift

By Amber Landgraff, Sean Martindale, and Simon Rabyniuk

A Situationi only know i drift without youMeeting Agenda, Feb. 22ndSome Dogs I Know

SymposiumToronto, Ontario, Canada

To the Beaches!Free TimeBios

Spending entire days together, we generally bundled culturalevents into our meeting time. There is a certain narrowness to ourbackgrounds, relationships, and activities. Or, a visible pattern toour use of Toronto. Regardless of the size of the city, by virtue ofbeing a city, it is big. And, big cities are built through repetition; arepetition of needs, and a repetition of desires. A city's large scale

provides the room required for all possible permutations to nd

form in neighborhoods, based on wealth, ethnicity, or lifestyle; withhandfuls of spaces to meet.Our meetings have served as an occasion to at least marginallyveer from the familiar. Our three lived lives literally exchangingfamiliarities.

Our Feelings

How does any one feel while in the city?

It’s expensive to live, hard to nd work, over crowded, the afford

-able housing stock is shrinking, neighborhoods are being turnedover, working class people are being displaced to the under-ser-viced margins, zoning variances are allowing an unheard of con-centration of bars in certain residential neighborhoods, sexy condotowers have shitty branding and worse advertising campaigns. Itsexciting, there is a sense of possibility, people are working hard,opportunity exists, including interaction with diverse people andideas. Again, how should one feel? We're not really po-litical;although, we each have our ideals.

Our Feelings about the Project

(a subset of “Our Feelings”)

We know each other beyond this work. Although, this project hasallowed us to set aside time to meet regularly. Our feelings aboutthe project don’t simply mirror those for each other. Clear commu-nication, inciting focused action, feels good – of course. Frustrated

expression, failing to nd audience does not. We’ve experience

both; and continued to speak to each other in spite of it. A running joke emerged, our 'stupid idea song'. It was a not so subtle way tocall people on bad ideas.

i only know i drift without you

From our earliest conversations on we expressed an interest inexploring unfamiliar areas of Toronto. We discussed wandering asa tool for having new experiences. Past work led us to the idea ofsmall public interventions. We also held the belief the city wouldprovide our necessary materials.

Amber, spoke rst, misquoting bp Nichol. She choose the line “I

only drift without you”, for its beauty. Walking south of Queen W.,through side streets, we collected and ordered found materials.

Courting impermanence, we xed maple keys, paper, twigs and

pepper in the realm of language. As a group, it was an action sur-prisingly unaware/unconcerned with any potential audience.