Emotive Terrains Exploring the emotional geographies of city through walking as art, senses and embodied technologies Vasileios Psarras Thesis submitted to Goldsmiths University of London for the Degree of Ph.D. in Arts and Computational Technology 2015 Declaration I declare that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Reference to the work of others has been cited and indicated throughout. Vasileios Psarras 2 Acknowledgements I am deeply thankful to my main supervisor Prof. Janis Jefferies for her attentive supervision, significant insights and help along this fascinating and difficult journey. Her distinctive guidance and encouragement of my interdisciplinary writing provided this thesis’s 21st century flaneur with the confidence to keep walking. I also thank my second supervisor and Assoc Prof. Lanfranco Aceti for his helpful feedback on my professional steps and our challenging discussions over these three years. I would also like to thank the AHRC for having awarded me with funding (2013- 2014), the Goldsmiths Graduate School and the Department of Computing (GDS). I would also like to thank a number of people that I have talked and collaborated across different platforms and levels: Asst. Prof. Angeliki Avgitidou (Aristotle University), Prof. Paul Coldwell (Chelsea College of Arts) for listening to my very first intentions, Dr. Eleanor Dare (University of Derby), Daphne Dragona (University of Athens), Dr. Dalila Honorato (Ionian University), Dr. Vicky Hunter (University of Chichester), Rocio von Jungenfeld (University of Edinburg), Dr. Eva Kekou (Athens), Anastasis Maragiannis (University of Greenwich), Christian Nold (UCL), Tadgh O’Sullivan, Stacey Pitsilides (Goldsmiths), Dr. Tina Richardson (Leeds), Dr. Phil Smith ‘mythogeography’ (Plymouth University) and the research-curatorial platforms of The Thursday Club (Goldsmiths) and Something Human (London). I also would like to thank my doctoral colleagues Rain, Ezwan, Rebecca, Tom and Nicky. I would also like to thank two people from Ionian University: Assoc Prof. Marianne Strapatsakis for her interest and encouragement on an artistic level as well as the Asst. Prof. Andreas Floros for his help and insights on my research development, particularly as I realised my very first conference publication alongside him (Munich, 2009). I would like to thank Spyros Ntzioras for his significant walking and verbal contribution on Emotive Circle as well as N. Grigoriou and D. Dermousis for their cinematography, equipment and important support (Athens, 2012). I would also like to thank my close friends in Greece for their support over these years! Also, this PhD has been written within the ambiance of a number of cafés, libraries, trains and spaces in Britain and Greece. Most importantly, all these steps would have been impossible without the love and dedication of my family and partner, to whom I dedicate this thesis. I am deeply grateful to my father Ioannis, my mother Angeliki, my brother Fotis, his wife Mersini and Nancy for their unending love, encouragement, discussions and understanding during these doctoral years. This PhD came to life at the same time with my niece (Oct. 2014), so I welcome her! My gratitude extends to my grandfathers and grandmothers for all the past words and metaphors that seem to reverberate throughout this research. 3 Abstract Walking has always been the nexus between humans and the city, constituting an expression with artistic, cultural, performative and sensorial implications for an array of artistic and intellectual voices. This thesis investigates the personal and shared emotional geographies of the city (e.g. streets, tube stations) through performative and aesthetic considerations of walking, senses, metaphors and embodied technologies. Three areas primarily inform this thesis and shape its chapters: i) contemporary urban walking theories and artistic spatial practices (e.g. flaneur, psychogeography), ii) sensory/technological aspects of walking and of contemporary city and iii) the investigation of emotional geographies. The research has opened up new dialogues within the 21st century city by highlighting the sensory and social importance of walking as art and the flaneur in the production and exploration of emotional geographies. Consequently, it proposes a hybrid walking as art method, which is pursued through a trialectic of actions, senses and selected metaphors (e.g. “botanizing”, “weaving”, “tuning”, “orchestrating”) amplified by technologies. The core inventive method and methodology is personal or shared walking, shaped by the qualitative sub-methods of talking whilst walking, embodied audiovisual/GPS tools, metaphors and online blogging. These methods contribute to a live reflection and documentation of sensory and emotional attentiveness. Outputs of this research include a series of fully documented walking artworks in London and Athens, presented through audiovisual means and maps. This thesis argues that the trialectic of actions, senses and metaphors through technologies extends our understanding of walking and flaneur as a hybrid method of production and analysis. Consequently, it re-contextualises the concept of flaneur in the 21st century city by proposing the one of the hybrid flaneur/flaneuse through a merging of artistic, sensorial, sociological and geographical standpoints. Therefore, the thesis offers new and distinctive insights into the practices and theories of walking, regarding interdisciplinary explorations of emotional geographies of the city. 4 Table of Contents Acknowledgements....................................................................................................3 Abstract ......................................................................................................................4 List of Figures and Diagrams.....................................................................................8 Personal Motivation ...................................................................................................9 Related Information .................................................................................................11 CHAPTER 1 ..............................................................................................................13 Introduction: Stepping Stones ....................................................................................14 First question – first step..........................................................................................14 Themes and questions ..............................................................................................15 Contribution and interdisciplinary approach ...........................................................18 Histories and beginnings........................................................................................21 The city....................................................................................................................21 Walking practices ...................................................................................................24 Senses and technologies.........................................................................................27 Metaphor and action...............................................................................................29 On emotional geographies .....................................................................................32 CHAPTER 2 ..............................................................................................................37 Methods and Methodology .........................................................................................38 Introducing methods and methodology ...................................................................38 Walking and talking method................................................................................39 The Audiovisual and locative: Video, sound and GPS........................................40 Online blogging ...................................................................................................43 Metaphors ............................................................................................................44 A derived methodology............................................................................................46 CHAPTER 3 ..............................................................................................................48 Walking in the City: Actions, Metaphors and Senses...............................................49 Introduction: A question of walking ........................................................................49 The cultural/aesthetic ...............................................................................................50 Illustrating the trajectory......................................................................................50 The evolution of flanerie......................................................................................50 Psychogeographical dérive and transurbance ......................................................55 The Everyday ...........................................................................................................58 The Sensory .............................................................................................................64 On a sensory “tuning”..........................................................................................66 Sensorial constraints ............................................................................................67