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April 14, 2005
Flip Walk Gallery
In 2000, my buddy Gavin bought an apartment just a block away from the World Trade Center. He and his wife Jen were home on 9/11, and they raced north through the smoke with their cat, Alma. When I visited them all a couple of months later back at the apartment, the smell was still thick in the air.
Living in that neighborhood since then has been a distinct kind of challenge. Most of the retail vanished - the grocery store, the Borders, the Krispy Kreme. The future of their neighborhood has been the subject of architectural competition, international debate, and political grandstanding. And tourists hover on the corner to get a peek at Ground Zero.
Last year, Gavin began documenting part of his experience in this recovering neighborhood. Here's what he does:
In the summer of 2004, I decided to start walking around. I would leave my house and flip a coin. If it was heads, I'd go left. If it was tails, I'd go right. At every intersection, I'd flip the coin again: after an hour, I'd stop and photograph whatever block I was on.The result is this gallery. I've chosen one photograph from the end of each walk, and written up some information about where I went and how I got there. The plan is to do a hundred walks. I have a few ground rules about where I can walk and what the flips mean, but my basic rule is not to cheat: I'm surrendering my fate to chance.
As I step out my front door and flip my coin, I keep walking away from home. So far, I keep coming back.
Posted by tedf at April 14, 2005 02:04 AM
Comments
Is Gavin familiar with de Certeau's Walking in the City essay?
Posted by: jason at April 14, 2005 03:07 PM
No, he isn't. What is that?
Posted by: Gavin at April 14, 2005 05:02 PM
Gavin, this is awesome (and I didn't know you were such a skilled photographer). It should be a book!
Posted by: KT at April 15, 2005 09:42 AM
Gavin, I had no idea you were a psychogeographer! I really love both the photos and the recaps.
"Walking in the City" is an essay in the de Certeau collection The Practice of Everyday Life. Eerily, it begins with him standing at the top of one of the WTC towers. He's much quoted by psychogeographers (along with Debord and the other originators of the movement) because he mixes his theories about street-level urban life with stories and tactics for exploration. Here's a quote from the essay that really reminds me of your project:
There is a rhetoric of walking. The art of "turning" phrases finds an equivalent in the art of composing a path (tourner un parcours). Like ordinary language, this art implies and combines styles and uses.
Anyway, keep on derivein'!
Posted by: amoeda at April 15, 2005 10:32 AM
Andrea's French reference reminded me of something--is the Flaneur still going online? I think Miles Finley (also of YU and Nadine fame) is/was associated with the site in some capacity. That might be another source of exposure for the project.
Posted by: KT at April 15, 2005 02:57 PM
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