Hybrid walking as art
Art practices and approaches on revealing the emotional geographies
of tube stations
Bill Psarras (Author)
Goldsmiths Digital Studios: Department of Computing
Goldsmiths University of London
London, United Kingdom
vasillis.psarras@gmail.com
th
Abstract. Throughout the 20 century, urban walking
has been regarded as an aesthetic practice and critical
tool with great potential. In the ever-changing city,
socio-economical transformations indicate various
changes in its emotional attitude as well. The
emergence of mobility plays an important role in our
everyday life with various terminals, platforms and
thresholds becoming our new spatio-sensorial
vocabulary, as in the case of the Tube. Can such
spaces act as urban samples for further emotional
consideration? Based on the concepts of flaneur and
psychogeography and considering past metaphors of
perceiving the urban, this paper investigates the
potential of a hybrid artistic walking method in order to
set the foundations for an exploration of emotional
geography of Tube stations. To achieve this, it sets up a
dialogue between metaphors, contemporary practices
as well as it highlights the potential of such spaces of
transition by reflecting on the spatial features, the
sensorial and in-between experience. On the final
section, this paper embarks on a speculative approach
of hybrid walking in the London Tube, based on an
author’s idea, in order to illustrate potential tactics of
revealing the emotional geographies of these spaces.
Keywords: walking as art, media art, city, tube stations,
flanerie, senses, metaphors, in-between.
I. INTRODUCTION
…’One step after another, one foot moving into the
future and one in the past. Did you ever think about
that? Our bodies are caught in the middle. The hard
part is staying in the present. Really being here.’
(Cardiff, 2004: Her Long Black Hair)
Walking – ‘this most obvious and the most obscure
thing in the world’ [1] has been used to ascribe
physical actions and metaphors across various fields,
particularly philosophy, arts, landscape, literature,
religion, science and geography among others. Walking
has been a symbol of metaphor and action. Such an
inherent biological activity has set the foundations for
human beings to walk, socialize and explore the world.
In the past, walking has been associated with humans
This work has been funded by the department of Computing –
Goldsmiths University of London, which the author would like to
thank.
and the city; linking the subject to a series of everyday,
socio-political and cultural-oriented activities –
attempts to understand or interact with the urban
condition. Such richness in stimuli, situations and data
forms a significant palette for the artists and a reason to
set themselves in motion on the streets. In recent years,
walking has been attracting a variety of scopes ranging
from cultural practitioners, artists and sociologists to
architects and urbanists and thus creating a developing
field. The notion of urban walking has been interrelated
with the flaneur – a concept of great cultural
significance when speaking about walking in the city.
Flaneur synopsized the walking observer of urban
modernity and a considerable number of artists, poets,
writers, social theorists and art movements have used
the method of walking for artistic, critical and aesthetic
purposes. What influences this paper to explore a
hybrid form of walking art is a need to balance between
metaphorical1 and actual aspects of walking in the city.
It has been argued that as human beings, we think
through our body, and in such way metaphors become
‘means of doing things and not merely ways of saying
things’ [2]. In particular, metaphor and action create a
dynamic dipole, which balances between actual
practice and poetic symbolism. Here, it has to be
mentioned that such a dialogue between metaphors and
actions of walking, is informed by another kind of
ongoing dialogue while moving– that of our senses and
the outside urban settings, which impact on emotions.
This paper is also interested in interrogating such
walking practices by focusing on tube stations through
out the entire metropolis and thus covering potentially
a wide range of social terrain. Undoubtedly, the Tube is
characterized by diversity and it has been argued that
‘the subway is one of the few places in a large urban
center where all races and religions and most social
1
Metaphors constitute a way to ‘describe through the use of a
familiar image an unfamiliar experience’ [26]. On the nature
of metaphors, Lakoff [27] argues that metaphor is conceptual
and not linguistic and he suggests that from a structural point
of view metaphors are conceptual mappings that are part of
the everyday body and experience.
classes are confronted with one another and the same
situation’ [3]. Mobility plays an important role in our
everyday life as we spend most of our time being in
transition through various kinds of terminals,
thresholds and intersecting paths and consequently this
impacts on citizens’ emotional attitude as well. Much
of the discussion in these spaces mentions them as non-
places; ‘spaces that are not anthropological places
themselves’ [4] – spaces or situations where there is an
excess of time, space and individualism. Such spaces of
transition fall in-between semi-public and semi-private
categories. However, the particular interest of this text
in tube stations stands in the in-betweeness and thus in
the potential it offers for the artist to act as a walking
‘antenna of the society’ [5], whose sensorial dialogue
with the surroundings and collection of data and
stories, creates the palette for an after-thought or a
glimpse at the emotional landscape of city. Elisabeth
Grosz explains in-betweeness as ‘something more than
a mere residue or inevitable consequence of other
interactions’ [6]. To arrive at an emotional geography
of these spaces, it has been suggested that emotional
geography’s role is to understand how ‘the suppression
and repression of emotions originated’ [7] and the
interrogation of hybrid walking tactics in this paper
falls into the former framework. Hence, the paper will
further explore relevant artistic practices and theoretical
standpoints in order to illustrate the author’s approach
to a hybrid practice within Tube spaces.
II. APPROACHING FLANEUR AND CITY: METAPHORS
FOR THE FUTURE
The process of walking in the city has a long-standing
tradition, which has been mainly shaped by the
accounts of Charles Baudelaire (1864), Walter
Benjamin (1924), the Surrealists (1925) and
Situationists (1957). To this, we can certainly add the
theoretical contributions of Michel de Certeau (1984)
in everyday walking tactics. Metaphors are encountered
in all of their accounts. Charles Baudelaire was
strongly associated with the concept of flanerie [the
walking method of strolling in the city] and
descriptions of the era mentioned him as a ‘walking
daguerreotype who retains the faintest traces of things’
[8]; by transforming them later into a kind of urban
poetry. However, it was mainly Walter Benjamin who
first elevated the Baudelairian flanerie and brought it as
a theme of discussion in the academic circles. The
Benjamian flaneur simultaneously found the city being
a familiar and alienating place; enclosing him as ‘now a
landscape, now a room’ [9]. He considered flanerie as a
threefold walking activity that contained a
metaphorical reading of urban space and anonymous
crowd but also an observation of everyday social
rhythms. For Benjamin ‘the flaneur going botanizing
on the asphalt’ [9] and his metaphorical comparison of
the walking observer of urban life and the naturalist
gives us inevitably an impression of an evolving
landscape. The metaphorical use of “botanizing”
assigns walking-flaneur meanings of urban collection,
recording and an investigation of social and sensorial
terrains of the city. The walking foot of the flaneur on
the asphalt becomes a medium that gives him the
opportunity to immerse himself into social situations
and encounter future potentials. This opportunity of
being privileged to feel the social vibrations can be
parallelized to what Ezra Pound and Marshall
McLuhan referred on the artist as ‘the antenna of the
society’ [5]. Surrealists and Situationists International
experimented with similar walking techniques but with
different intentions. Surrealists practiced deambulation
– what has been described as a way ‘of entering into
contact with the unconscious part of the territory’ [10]
while Situationists introduced the walking method of
dérive. Despite the common background of flanerie and
dérive, the latter functioned as a more critical method
of walking in the city - ‘a technique of rapid passage
through varied ambiances’ [11], where the city is
experienced psychogeographically and described
through metaphors of contours, vortexes and constant
currents. The concept of psychogeography – which will
influence later artists – can be grasped as the meeting
point of art, psychology and geography. Further
metaphors speak on the perception of city as a body
metaphor and in particular through the use of ‘arteries’
and ‘veins’ [15] as well as in the accounts of Michel
de Certeau who delineates the everyday urban walkers
as ‘bodies that follow the thicks and thins of an urban
“text” they write without being able to read it’ [12]. For
Solnit, the city becomes a language and a ‘repository of
possibilities’ where ‘walking is the act of speaking that
language’ [1]. She identifies a metaphorical connection
between walking and thinking, which also generates a
series of locations and thoughts. Passing from a
metaphorical terrain to the everyday public space –
Henri Lefebvre argued that the mixture of walking
rythm and other everyday socio-temporal patterns
suggests city spaces as polyrythmical fields of
interaction [13]. More recent accounts describe
metaphorically these changing patterns as ‘body-
ballets’ and ‘time-space routines’ [14] – a metaphorical
choreography that opens up unrealized possibilities for
the artist to approach the complex surface of the urban
in various ways. However, the ongoing privatization of
public space and ‘the acceleration of history’ [4] due to
various mobilities seem to be agents that restrict
walking in various ways. Consequently, post-modern
city reveals an irony in some of the previous walking
metaphors and this lies in the possibility of passing into
a post-pedestrian city that metaphorically has fallen
silent or even has a dead language [1]. However, can
we consider the urban condition as a stimulating
driving force for the walker/flaneur? Prior accounts
have described the richness of sensorial stimuli in the
city through a gamma of affects but also various
constraints are encountered as well. Recent accounts
have described city as ‘a mere function of motion’ or a
superficial transition between spaces, which in relation
to CCTV monitoring creates ‘a tactile sterility’ for the
walker and contributes to a demise of affect [15].
Parameters like the former ones tend to transform the
walking bodies into passive everyday performers. In
what ways could a neo-flaneur walk in such a public
spaces that have been dominated by escalators,
walkways and pre-designed paths without arousal?
How such metaphors coming from the past could
potentially inform new hybrid tactics?
III. DEFINING THE HYBRID IN WALKING: A
SPECULATIVE APPROACH
Hybrid is described as ‘something heterogeneous in
origin on composition’ (Merriam-Webster dictionary)
whereas Encyclopedia Britannica mentions the
importance of hybridization for the sake of variety and
evolutions. To explore a concept of walking in tube
stations the notion of hybrid is used here to denote two
processes. Firstly, I consider as hybrid the walking
practice, which does not focus fully on the conceptual
neither on the embodied aspects of walking, but rather
it situates itself in-between to create a constant
dialogue among them. Thus, it is speculated that such a
hybrid tactic could create a sensorial dialogue between
the poetics and actions of walking; between the
metaphorical schemas and actual practices. As a result,
it is speculated that this in-between position can
potentially create various instant emotional encounters.
Secondly, the meaning of hybrid is used to describe a
kind of walking that is not limited only in a series of
steps but also in a series of underground journeys. This
second meaning of hybrid indicates a potential tactic of
not being static and thus avoiding security constraints.
However, I will try to illustrate the potential of hybrid
walking by considering relevant walking tactics in a
series of other works first.
IV. APPROACHING THE WALKING ART: PERSONAL
AND COLLECTIVE URBAN ACTIONS
The concepts of flanerie and psychogeography
continue to have an impact on contemporary art
practices although the framework of documentation of
these experiences has been broadened. But, what can be
actually a definition of walking as art? Such kinds of
practices originate from the cases of Richard Long and
Hamish Fulton – two pioneers who began to use
walking as ‘a primary act of symbolic transformation
of the territory’, either as an instrument of perception
or a tool for drawing [10]. Their different perspective
on the driving force of walking is reflected on later
walking artists in urban settings where their works are
distinguished between concept-based ones and others
more playful and technologically explorative.
Contemporary artists have seen walking in the city as a
way of personal interventions and practices as well as a
chance to encounter further communities share
opinions and feelings. Francis Alÿs constitutes the
exemplary walking artist who balances between the
poetic metaphor and the pure action out in the streets.
In his walks – documented through audiovisual
mediums – The Collector (1991-1992) and Magnetic
Shoes (1994) he uses magnets in his shoes and a self-
made magnetic metallic toy to walk through the city;
collecting various metallic pins and coins he
encountered. Further connections could be drawn
between his walks and the Benjamian notion of
botanizing on the asphalt as Alÿs’ wanderings in the
city reveal a flaneur, a moving collector of small
objects of the urban tissue. In other walks such as on
Railings (2001), he produces a series of video works in
which he walks in London dragging a stick in railings
of public spaces. His action is transformed into a
rhythmical audiovisual piece where his body’s actions
produce sound. Such a performed action indicates a
deeper meaning at the same time as the railings indicate
the presence of capital and the privatized space [16].
Thus, the action of the walking artist intrudes ‘norms of
how walking should be performed’ and extends the
body beyond his feet by showing the presence of his
gesture through sound [16]. In the case of Simon Pope,
he conducts collective walks documented through
video, photography and maps by using walking as a
speculative tool. The former derives from the need of
Pope to find ways to ‘a tactical ambulant science’ as he
has stated, which encompasses both the literal walking
process and the metaphorical heuristic approach of
exporation. The latter speculative framework is similar
to this paper’s approach of hybrid walking. In his
video-documented walk Memory Marathon (2009) the
artist and a large number of participants, walked and
talked one entire day through the urban locations of
London that had been regenerated for the 2012
Olympic Games. The ‘co-production of knowledge
through collaborative and connected encounters’ [17]
between Pope and co-walkers create a conversational
trace, ‘a shared-walk’ [18]. It can be argued that the
collectiveness of the walk as ‘sharing viewpoints and
earpoints’ [17], indicates the convergence of senses
from both sides and creates the potential for an
emotional geography to be revealed. Again, past
metaphors of “botanizing”, “antenna” and “tuning” can
be identified in his work. The emergence of locative
media enabled artists after millenium to integrate
technologies into their walking practices, often
influenced by concepts of flanerie and
psychogeography. The works of Kubisch, Savicic,
Nold maintain this creative dialogue between the
conceptual and the actual [technological] sides. In the
case of Christina Kubisch, we encounter a
contemporary flaneuse who integrates wearable
technological elements to her Electrical Walks (2003)
in the city. In particular, she uses special, sensitive
headphones that capture the electrical fields of the
urban environment. Kubisch walks and captures the
invisible vibes of the urban; ranging from ATM
machines, subway and security systems to walls,
various neon surfaces and antennae along her way. This
work also draws connections back to S.I. dérive
although in Electrical Walks the walker experiences a
psychogeography of the unseen. Such personal and
collective walking practices, including listening and
collecting sounds or frequencies from the city,
transform the Benjamian “botanizing” to a
“botanizing” on the urban data, where the artist seeks
to tune perception with urban surfaces and objects.
Similarly, in the case of Gordan Savicic’ Constraint
City: The Pain of Everyday Life (2008-2010) – a digital
art walk performance in the streets of city – the artist
walks by wearing a metallic corset with GPS and Wi-Fi
sensors sensitive to wireless signals coming from
encrypted networks of locations. The stronger the
wireless signal around is, the tighter the corset on the
body of the walking artist becomes by inscribing scars
on it. In Savicic’ case the “palette” for the
contemporary walking flaneur becomes the city’s
constraints. Reflecting on the former work, the
contemporary flaneur becomes a contemporary
“walking daguerreotype”, a collector of the intangible
whose body is transformed into a map of scars; a pain
map as Savicic adds. Drawing connections from
Baudelaire, Benjamin and Situationists, he produced
pain-maps in every city he went botanizing on the
invisible data; bringing once more in real action the
Benjamian and Baudelarian metaphors. A clear
emotional aspect is being presented through the work
of Christian Nold in the Bio Mapping – Emotion
Mapping (2004) project. Nold works collaboratively
with communities across various cities and through
collective walks he records their Galvanic Skin
Response in relation with their geographical location
through a special-designed device. The result includes
various visualizations of emotion in digital and printed
maps and the annotation of personal comments and
thoughts on them. Emotional maps of various cities
depict the emotional dimension of each walked area
through the co-walkers’ bodily experiences,
visualizations, words and arrows. A new kind of
knowledge is generated as objective and subjective
qualities are merged into a singular result and thus
creating a new kind of psychogeography. Here, two
things could be suggested. First, the collective practices
of Nold and Pope take into account the stories and
personal data of co-walkers through these ‘shared-
walks’ [18]. Secondly, the realization of Bio Mapping
across different cities in different countries shows a
potential connection to a new kind of global flanerie,
which alters the spatial framework of conventional
flanerie and extends it around the world. Τhe
aforementioned examples attempted to delineate
potential ways metaphors of perceiving the urban can
be transformed into actual practice of walking through
various media ways. All enact a sensorial dialogue
between the artist and the city or between the artist and
a community, by focusing on different aspects of this
dialogue.
V. APPROACHING THE TUBE: ARTISTIC
ENCOUNTERS
This section will also focus on works and projects
mostly related on tube underground transit spaces. Art
on the Underground constitutes a programme of
Transport for London, which includes permanent and
temporary commissions. Thus, I would like to focus
first on three quite recent commissioned works by
Barbara Kruger (2008), Ruth Ewan (2011) and Liam
Gillick (2012). Barbara Kruger uses subversive tactics
by using the London Tube map and changing the
names of each station with a personal word that
indicates her feelings. In practice, a personal
psychogeography of the Underground is revealed,
where Victoria station becomes ‘Fame’; Piccadilly
becomes ‘Irony’, or even Oxford Street station
becomes ‘Confusion’. Through her work A Lock is a
Gate, Ruth Ewan uses the map to create letters by
drawing lines among the stations. As the tube map is
transformed into an imaginative canvas of letters, the
result becomes more imaginative walk rather than
physical. Liam Gillick proposes walking tours by using
specific tube stations to create circles both in maps and
reality, by inviting passengers to walk in this way in the
real locations above the surface and thus rediscover
location’s details. In all three cases, we encounter a
need of artists to communicate with everyday people
through the spatial context of tube station, which apart
from the banality and repetition of the everyday; offers
a great potential for such concepts to be deployed. It is
this potential of such in-between space that this paper
attempts to elevate. Its iconic London tube map
designed by Harry Beck (1931) has become a symbol,
a navigational tool and a personal map for generations
and hence the specific artists use it as an initial
platform to trigger imagination or action while riding
the Tube everyday. Art on the Underground sets the
conditions through commissions for art to be deployed
in the everyday transit tissue of London, however for a
geography of emotion, the Tube might need hybrid
tactics and more time in order to reach a “tuning” of
artist’s and commuters’ senses. The concept of
experience in transit public space has been influential
for the Jabberwocky application of Urban Atmospheres
research team. Jabberwocky constitutes a mobile phone
application for visualizing urban familiar strangers. As
an application, it aims to focus on transit points of
public space by practicing what Goffman (1967)
argued to be a kind of ‘civil inattention’ that everyday
commuters might maintain in subway platforms. Also,
some of Martha Rosler’s photographic and video works
address themes of transition and ephemeral experience
in spaces of the subway platforms and airport
terminals, while portraits of anonymity and sensuality
of individuals can be encountered in the photographic
series of Walker Evans (1941) and Bruce Davidson
(1980) among others. Further mentionable works from
the past with conceptual implications that aimed to
question the mundane and the potential of subway
spaces, are the performances Subway Stories (1977-
1979) of Ann Messner. Through her performances
Messner aimed to question the experience of such
transit spaces by conducting a series of actions based
on her conceptual schemas like by using a rowing
machine in a subway passageway or ringing a bell to
count each passenger that entered the subway.
However, what can be the deeper reasons to go
Underground in the contemporary city?
VI. REASONS TO GO UNDERGROUND: SENSES, IN-
BETWEEN AND THE POTENTIAL
‘Tourists climb the Eiffel Tower to see Paris. Parisians
know that to really see the city you must descend into
the metro’ (Tom Conley, 2002 in: In the Metro – Marc
Augé).
This section will analyze reasons for walking and
focusing on the tube stations of the contemporary city
through a consideration of sensorial aspects and the
potential that such in-between spaces provide.
Speaking of London Underground, almost three million
people travel everyday by using the subway system,
which stands out as the oldest subway system in the
world. Such spaces of everyday transition might be
described as non-places, in-between places or liminal
places, as all these terms describe similar spatial
experiences. For Tube passengers, their experience
consists of walking distances in corridors and
platforms, enter or exit through barriers, periods of
waiting and periods of travelling. Undoubtedly, Tube
gathers large numbers of different people together [3].
It is not only a place of movement from point A to B
but also a ‘socio-technical’ system that ‘facilitates the
meaningful and mobile engagement between systems,
objects, humans and the city’ [19]. In order to approach
the tube experience, recent studies [19] have proposed
the following criteria: the technical (platforms, trains,
corridors, barriers), the social (passengers, ways of
moving and feeling) and the aesthetic (visual symbols,
art, signs, ads, forms, codes). A sensorial approach of
such spaces could be applied while walking in order to
be understood. What is it sensed and what is
constrained? The experience of walking within tube is
subject on pre-defined spatial frameworks and
regulations, as series of interconnected elements
become our sensorial surroundings. We walk by and
move through escalators, walkways, straight corridors,
electronic barriers, platforms, and ticket-collection
corners. Such materiality reduces arousal and
consequently might have an impact on passengers’
experience. Considering the aforementioned technical,
social and aesthetic criteria of tube station, it can be
suggested that different interconnections between them
and passengers’ senses create the final experience of
the individual within the tube. The constant mobility of
the space, the anonymity between commuters as well as
the dominance of electronic barriers, pre-recorded
voices and lack of communication have brought tube
under the question of whether it can be described as a
non-place. Previous accounts of influential
philosophers such as Foucault, Derrida, De Certeau,
Lefebvre, Sorkin and Augé have approached the notion
of non-place through relevant notions. Spaces like
these lack of historical memory, identity and human
communication due to the pre-determined reason of
their existence, which is to serve transition and their
origination as spatial products of capitalistic era. It has
been suggested that main attributes of them are an
excess of time, space and individuality [4]. Non-place
have been an ambiguous concept and its ambiguity
demands a closer look. Hence, we have to consider our
position to this; as such transit locations are separating
spaces, meeting spaces, waiting spaces but also
working places for others. What does it mean to
experience these spaces as terminals of departure or
arrival and what as places of work? On a discrimination
of this experience, different modes of insideness and
outsideness have been suggested [20]; modes that
indicate numerous variations of people’s experience;
ranging from attachment to alienation and the different
qualities of feeling and ambiance that can have an
impact on it. Nevertheless, feelings slightly differ from
emotions and affects. Αffect has various intensities and
describes ‘a positive or negative evaluation of an object
or idea’, while feelings as ‘experiences of physical
drive states and emotional ones’ [21]. The importance
of knowing ‘frequencies and distributions of various
feelings across social positions of the everyday life’
[21] has been also suggested. Thinking of London
Underground, a vital part of an exemplary city for its
cultural diversity, one could interrogate the great
potential of such diverse emotional hues to be revealed.
Speculating about this, the linking process to achieve
such a goal is the experience of the in-between and the
potential ways to sense this condition. Ideas of in-
betweeness and its transformational qualities have also
influenced the contemporary accounts of Deleuze,
Guattari, Derrida among others. Although the concept
indicates an experience in the middle, here I would like
to approach it as a metaphorical and sensorial terrain
where ‘objects, subjects and spaces […] establish new
crossing points and possible connections’ [22]. In the
case of experiencing the Tube, the in-between spatio-
temporal experience calls for further attention, as the
passenger creates ‘a short-lived transitional place’ [22]
as well. This is something that resembles Michel
Foucault’s (1967) spatial concept of ‘heterotopia’ – a
concept that contains ‘shifting senses of time and
place’ [22]. Hence, it is the potentials of subject’s
experience that are revealed during that in-between
condition and have to be interrogated. For Deleuze, the
in-between constitutes an important point as ‘thought
starts in the middle, at the point of intersection of two
series, events or processes, which however temporarily
share a common milieu’ [6]. In contrast with non-place
and its relation to individual points rather than the in-
between process, the concept of in-between constitutes
a nexus for two edges, two processes or two moments.
It could be suggested that the nexus quality of this
concept resembles the artist’s position through the
Tube as the walking connector/antenna of the material
and immaterial. Could walking be a tool for exploring
in-between experience? Indeed, an attentiveness of
Tube requires not only observation but also an active
engagement with it through a ‘live method’ [23].
Walking even intermittently and sensing in such spaces
offers a great potential of revealing spatial and thus any station could serve as a starting point of the
sensorial everyday details that can lead to a revelation process – with the selection to be subject on
of emotive niches to everyday passengers. Previous psychogeographical reasons. For the purposes of this
recent studies [22] have re-mentioned the role of a paper, Tottenham Court Road station is selected as a
sensing body in public places by highlighting its starting point, as it is one of the most central stations of
perceptual and cognitive capabilities. Drawing from the London Underground. The steps of the idea are as
former, the quality of walking itself as ‘a spatial following: [images at the end of the paper]
practice embodies the in-between’ [22]. Can we thus
A) Go to Tottenham Court Road station, check how many
speculate the potential of hidden sensorial layers in the lines serve the station (Black: Northern Line, Red: Central
‘non-places’ of our everyday encounters? Tube as a Line) and then ask an assistant which line (color) to follow.
semi-privatized system of the city is often perceived as B) Take the CENTRAL LINE (RED) corridor, choose
a mundane and anonymous space of our everyday life. intuitively which direction, go to platform and pick up a
What could be an exploratory walking tactic [a hybrid waiting stranger. Ask him/her how does he/she feel about the
flanerie], which senses and “weaves” experiences from X thing and take a short walk towards platform while
all the unnoticed and transient spatio-temporal qualities walking. Ask their first name and [ideally] take a photo of
of the tube? While walking in the platform or through a them if agreed.
C) Take the train with him/her and stop at the same station
tube carriage, the surrounding passengers constitute
(i.e. Bond Street). Then if that station serves other lines ask
nothing more than anonymous strangers – moving them to suggest you which one to go. Change line and go to
bodies which sharing the common goal of destination. JUBILEE LINE (GREY), repeat the step B and stop at the
During such moments, can we thus speculate we do not station where the stranger stops (i.e. Finchley Road). Then if
have anything in common apart from wireless networks that station serves other lines ask them to suggest you which
we are online at the same time or some familiar one to go. Change line and go to METROPOLITAN LINE
strangers we may encounter there? Reality in spaces (MAGENTA). i) Repeat again all the steps as many times it can
like the Tube is more complex and fast-lived but details get. ii) If arrive at an end of an Underground line, then go
could trigger a series of metaphors and actions to again the opposite direction until finding a hub of lines and
start again.
elevate the mundane. An example is what is being
Bill Psarras - Personal notes (December 2012)
found in the written and sound warning to “mind the
gap”. For Tube authorities it express their suggestion
for a potential danger the moment of our transition, but
for this paper’s intentions it constitutes exactly the
opposite – the welcoming of the possibility to
experience that gap, and to find the potential there.
However, an understanding of our senses in these
spaces and a creative socializing of them through a
series of methods ranging from physical to digital,
could gradually changed the lived transit reality of
Tube. In some cases some of them might fall in an in-
between category of ‘familiar stranger’; a concept,
which argues there is a number of people that, we
might have repeatedly observed in such places but have
not interacted with. In the subterranean experience of
riding the tube through different lines as well as
walking through stations’ spaces, the walking subject 1: A Speculative Approach of Walking London Underground
Bill Psarras © (December 2012, concept)
becomes a sensuous moving “terrain” always situated
between arrival and departure poles.
VII. A SPECULATIVE APPROACH TO LONDON TUBE:
HYBRID WALKING IN SEARCH OF EMOTIVE FRAGMENTS
As a London Underground passenger myself as well as
an artist being interested in such urban experience, this
section will reflect on a personal speculative approach
to the London Tube that is currently in progress (March
2013). The speculative approach of hybrid for this
paper has been already mentioned in the previous
section and it shapes a methodological backbone for
the following idea to be deployed. The documentation
tools include a sound recorder, a digital camera and a
pedometer, but also a GPS application has been
included as an extra tracking tool to be used when 2: A Speculative Approach of Walking London Underground
Bill Psarras © (December 2012, concept)
possible. London Underground serves 270 stations and
The above concept functions as a walking algorithm; a
series of methodological steps, which form a tactic that
potentially penetrates difficulties of such semi-public
spaces. Such an idea intents to eavesdrop on the in-
between of such transit spaces and to set the conditions
for temporary “tuning” between the artist and the other
passengers. The metaphor of “eavesdropping” used
here, could be described as ‘another type of
attentiveness’ [28] to the shared feelings and anecdotal
stories of co-walkers. Also, the use of “tuning” used
here indicates a dialogue between the metaphorical
aspect of it and the potential performance of such
metaphor while talking, walking, sound recording,
photographing and sensing through other embodied
sensors. Such approaches of doing, performing and
direct sensing illustrate the suggestion [7] of searching
for an emotional geography, which does not fully
concentrates on abstraction or detailed data
visualizations. It could be suggested that this concept
provides the artist with the ability to merge walking
and riding the tube, to find niches, to act as the
connector of senses, stories and moments and gradually
go “botanizing” on the transit. While reflecting on this,
it is through this playful action that the artist chooses to
fill the in-between by collecting emotional answers.
His walking body becomes a sensorial device which
balances between lived moments and gathered data.
Consequently, both of them become the palette to
illustrate such experiences. By having a pre-defined set
of short questions that trigger emotional responses, the
artist set the conditions for a narrative to be created
while traversing the Underground. This contemporary
flaneur goes Underground, where the potential
emotional face of city might be reflected. Suggestions
by other passengers or tube assistants, personal
intuition, sensorial exposure or even an unexpected end
of the line; create a psychogeographic background for
the idea to be realized. The physical action of
connecting/disconnecting stations, lines, strangers and
personal senses as well as the recorded material of
others’ responses, visual documents and short videos
synthesize a process of “weaving”. Simultaneously
through walking and senses, emotional fragments of
different people across the whole subterranean urban
landscape are connected. This “weaving” approach
both in actual and conceptual levels also becomes a
guiding quality while audiovisual material and other
data are being interpreted through various digital or
physical outputs. This speculative art approach
resembles flanerie and psychogeography, however its
subterranean and semi-‘mobile’ [23] realization renders
it hybrid. On the other hand, a potential challenge
might evolve through the consideration of time. The
rhythms and scheduled arrivals and departures
challenge the emotional expression of the subject while
standing or walking in the platform. The short-lived
moments inside the Tube require careful selection of
words or questions to trigger a short ‘mobile dialogue’
[23] or what the author has mentioned as “walking
stories” and not an interview-oriented one. The final
juxtaposition of words, sounds, pictures, numbers,
names and lines results from an ongoing interaction
between the artist and each stranger, who influences the
next step by directing the artist to a next line where a
next stranger will be encountered. The in-between
station where the artist leaves the one and goes for
another, becomes a space that chance factor is of great
importance. Hence, this repetitive performed action
entails continuous traces of this process, which reveal a
new “weaved” Underground line – resulted from
chance encounters that the artist sensed and merged
together. To conclude, it is in the author’s future
intentions to further use and reflect on various
combinations of conceptual and technological elements
embedded in the actual process of walking in London
Underground.
VIII. CONCLUSIONS: ON A HYBRID FLANEUR
Reaching a conclusion, this paper aimed to explore the
potential of a hybrid artistic walking method in order to
set the foundations for an exploration of emotional
experience in Tube stations – in between spaces of
transition within the urban tissue of everyday life. In
order to achieve this; a trajectory of considerations
were described around walking, urban spaces of
transition and in-between experience. First, a series of
cultural and sensorial aspects of walking in the city was
drawn. In particular, there was a focus on the
metaphorical schemas that had been used in the past to
grasp the concepts of flaneur, city and sensorial
dialogue between them. Metaphors such as
“botanizing” (Benjamin), “tuning” (Schafer), walking
as “urban text” (De Certeau), “the artist as antenna”
(McLuhan), the city as “living organism” (Sennett)
among others, were used as guiding schemas to form a
palette of understanding current approaches in the city.
Second, a selected body of personal and collective
ambulatory art practices focusing on the city and
subway was considered. By covering a wide spectrum
of medium (audiovisual, photography, maps, locative
media), these practices were approached and
interrogated through the lenses of the former
metaphorical schemas in order to explore
interconnections between such metaphors and actions
and consequently to set the foundations for a
speculative walking tactic; entitled hybrid. Third, the
paper offered an analysis of reasons to focus on the
Underground emotional experience, by reflecting on
the spatial features, the sensorial and in-between
experience of such spaces of transition. On the final
section, this paper embarked on a speculative approach
of hybrid walking in Tube stations, based on an
author’s idea. Since the mid 1990’s, walking as art
practice in the city has opened an ongoing discussion
between artists, cultural practitioners and academia –
what has been mentioned as ‘walking studies’ [24]. The
contemporary walking artist has elevated the concepts
of flanerie and psychogeography to a hybrid level by
integrating physical and electronic elements. Walking
as art in the city nowadays can be described as a rich
sensorial and aesthetic practice due to ‘the
unpredictable social encounters’ and invisible layers
[1]. It also becomes an emerging ‘aesthetic practice and
critical tool’ [10] and it was one of this paper’s
intentions to interrogate its aesthetic and critical
qualities in tube stations. The potential of the in-
between experience in such spaces of everyday
transition needs to be further researched. Thus, not only
walking itself can become an exploratory tool of this
in-betweeness but also embodied tools can retrieve
useful temporary data, emotional responses and
information – where all of them can be then used as
main sources for an understanding of the experience.
Focusing on in-betweeness, the artist/flaneur shares
both his ‘viewpoints and earpoints’ [17] with co-
walkers, talking, walking and performing a
contemporary subterranean “botanizing”, “tuning” and
“weaving” of experience. Thus, the artist’s experienced
“walked line” with other people’s ‘curving lines create
a knot’ [25]. Consequently, it acts as a ‘live method’
[23] of attentiveness, which goes sensing the
Underground, practicing through repetition, listening to
and converging sensorial fragments through an ongoing
potential from station to station. The terminal, the
platform, the Tube carriage, the escalator could be the
new urban samples for a new hybrid flanerie in search
of emotion. While walking always entails a potential
method for such an urban immersion, it asks for new
hybrid tactics, which magnify the in-between, generate
questions, seek for emotion and create a sensorial
dialogue between the conceptual and the actual. Hybrid
tactics for a hybrid flaneur.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author would like to thank the following people for
their feedback and constructive comments: Nadia
Georgiou, Ezwan Mokhtar, Rain Ashford and Fotis
Psarras.
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