Trans Artists Monthly AIR mail
No. 23 / A Field Guide To Getting Lost
"Not to find one's way in a city may well be uninteresting and banal. It requires ignorance nothing more. But to lose oneself in a city as one loses oneself in a forest, that calls for quite a different schooling." Walter Benjamin.
To walk the city, Georges Perec notes, is to write with the city ("Species of Spaces and Other Pieces").
To Walk the City
Detail of the map of Beirut, February 2009, by Dutch artist Jan Rothuizen. Upper left corner: "On the horizon the grey silhouettes of navy ships on patrol… (like predators…waiting)"
Last Tourist is an online passage along hand drawn maps, texts and photographs by Dutch artist Jan Rothuizen . This website provides a personal reading of the cities that write themselves. To walk in a city without a set destination is relatively new. It was only in the twenties of the last century that the flaneur emerged, a modern day man who went drifting trough the cities that appeared.Natural Habitat
Diogene bivaccourbano is a programme for international artists. The selected artist will be hosted in a small housing form (the Bivouac), built in an "interstitial" area of the city, that will become the place where the artist lives and works, experimenting a new way of strong interaction between the urban environment and its community. 
The Bivouac, designed by Diogene’s members, is assembled from left over materials and is equipped with a survival kit made up of a solar panel, heating and cooking kit, and portable toilet
The Bivouac has been created using salvaged materials and a survival kit, reducing the needs to what is strictly necessary. It is an attitude that cannot be considered as an extreme survival experiment but rather as a wish to relate to the city, our natural habitat, seeking the essentiality.
- Where: Torino, Italy
- Deadline: May 23
Lost in NYC
"Her Long Black Hair" by Janet Cardiff takes each listener on a winding, mysterious journey through Central Park’s 19th-century pathways, retracing the footsteps of an enigmatic dark-haired woman.
- What: Audio Walk with photographs, 46 minutes
- Where: Central Park, New York.
- Download the audiotracks here
GET LOST is a collective portrait of downtown New York in the New Museum. Twenty-one international artists were invited to create a personal view of the city and draw a map of downtown New York, uncovering a territory that is both real and imaginary. The maps were collected in a fanzine publication that was distributed for free at galleries, not-for-profit institutions and other sites that animate the life of downtown New York.
FRANCIS ALŸS, PACING (2001). He chose to present the sketches for two walks he took in downtown Manhattan following the attacks of September 11. According to the artist, these walks were taken "with no expectation or destination," relaying an experience of being urban driftwood.
New Routes
Artist Eric von Robertson works under the conceptual framework of CARL: The Center for the Advancement of Recreation and Leisure. This evolved in series of field studies that travel between remote and urban landscapes: places where a large inflatable cushion of air is uncontrollably swept through the streets, to a pack of stray dogs sporting custom designed textiles that offer new routes and intersections for "City Guides". Look here at the project Eric did for the Canadien Center for Architecture.- A 3-month residency in Montreal during June, July and August 2010.
- The Power Corporation Award provides a total stipend of $7,000 CAD to cover the travel, housing, and living expenses.
Cities Change Every Hour
- Participate to city 1 minute! Cities change every hour. One artist will make a one minute video between 9.00 and 10.00 pm. Another artist between 10.00 and 11.00 pm and so forth. Together they make a portrait of 24 minutes. Together these 24 visions make a collective art work.
- Deadline: 1 october 2009
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