During the walk, HPU members perambulated through the Hamilton Farmer’s Market with a rough map in hand. Their task was to document the different “scents” they smelled within the market using words associated with another sense modality.
Synesthesia is a literary device wherein the writer uses words associated with one sense modality to describe another eg. “loud yellow” (aural/sight), “burning silence” (haptic/aural), “bitter cold” (taste/haptic), “piercing fragrance” (haptic/smell). Lots of poets use synesthesia as a literary technique in their writings – notably, Baudelaire who was also one of the friendly flâneurs!
Synesthesia is also a psychological “pathology.” Members of the HPU are not trying to become synesthetes. We are interested in finding new ways of using language to describe place.
“WORD WALKs” is an initiative from HPU that anyone can do. As you meander however through the city, take photos of words that catch your eye/mind. Arrange them into a poster—a slideshow—a story—by colour—by meaning….as a collage—whatever you like. Send it to us and we’ll post it here…video, pdf, jpg, gif, film…whatever digital means you like. I have been making Haiku (as is my way) which is poetry arranged in syllables—first line 5 syllables, 2nd 7 syllables and the final 5 again (5, 7, 5).
“WORD WORKs” is the first public invite for work you can do solo. We will be doing more of these in time. Join in whenever you like.
A two-channel video installation on LED screen truck as part of the Hamilton Perambulatory Unit (HPU) with Donna Akrey. Commissioned by curator Kristine Germann for Supercrawl Hamilton, September 2023.
The HPU led an Itinerant Reading Group as part of Michael DiRisio’s exhibition ArchivingUnrestat the Worker’s Arts and Heritage Centre in Hamilton, Ontario. We discussed a chapter from Karen O’Rourke’s Walking and Mapping: Artists as Cartographers, focusing on the political practice of perambulation and critical cartography.
The Hamilton Perambulatory Unit invites you to a performative talk about practices of engaging with urban space, using some of the methods we have devised from our research. From Baudelaire and Benjamin to the Situationists and Fluxus, the city has long been fertile ground for creative practices. The HPU conducts public walks as creative propositions towards understanding the city and the self in relation to place. Our methodologies include stratigraphic cartography, locative media experimentation, sensory synesthesia poetry-writing, and found material sculpture-making. During this talk, HPU will give a summary of our past collaborations as well as conduct a short on-the-spot research project with the audience.
Department of Art History and Communication Studies Speaker Series McGill University Arts Building W-215, 853 rue Sherbrooke O, Montreal, QC, H3A 0G5
The Googlemap City Center Drift takes as its starting point the spot where Googlemaps has placed its city marker. How does Google Maps decide exactly where the center of a city is? Is it according to the city’s dimensions? Should it be city hall, the cultural center, the financial center? Where do you think the city center should be? And what are the relationships between a digital information space as perceived by a dominant geolocation service such as Google and every day urban space?
In order to investigate these urgent questions, HPU members journeyed to the location, which Google Maps pinpoints as on Young Street, between Catherine Street South and Walnut Street South.
Young St. between Catherine St. South and Walnut St. South.
Hamilton City Centre?
Does this place coincide with what one usually thinks of as a “city center”? We didn’t think so, but then what does? We thought this mound of dirty snow could be the center.
Toronto’s city marker falls just shy of its city hall, and that is certainly logical since, given the size of the city, there must be many centers. City hall is a diplomatic choice (as a symbol only however; not as a reference to the hijinks that occur within city hall these days). By contrast, I don’t think Hamilton’s city center is its city hall, or this snow mound on Young Street. To me, it’s Gore Park, especially the corner that angles into Jackson Square. It seems that the city radiates outwards from that intersection. It is always moving, and it is always the same: colourful. But that’s just me. Where do you think city center is?
Corktown, Hamilton ON.
From the seemingly arbitrary spot chosen by Googlemaps as the center of Hamilton, we explored Situationist drift techniques, such as relying on our senses to guide us through the city, identifying areas of “attraction” and “repulsion” as well as “switching stations” that offer opposing directions of choice. We ended up exploring the neighbourhood of Corktown and its historic row houses and old stone buildings, the waterworks building (which we made Sarah investigate), and some interesting streets and underpasses.
Map of flows by Sarah Truman.
This is the map Sarah made while we were walking, indicating switching stations, the flows and areas of attraction and repulsion.
The idea for the Googlemap City Center Drift was influenced by artist Aram Bartholl’s project Map, which places giant red Google placemarkers, twenty feet high, in places designated as city center.
Aram Bartholl, Map, 2006–2019.
The beginning point of this walk is more or less arbitrary, as so it seems the Googlemap designation of city center. But the idea of center and margin is always usefully challenged by inquiry into these terms, along with a healthy sense of urban adventure that gets you out into the city, exploring. It could be as simple as a blind jab at a map to designate a starting point.
LANDLINE: walking with a soundtrack, cellphones and strangers
In 2015, the HPU attended a theatrical performance called Landline by Adrienne Wong and Dustin Harvey of Secret Theatre. As described on the ticketing site: Using smartphones, the audience is invited to take an audio-guided experiential tour while texting live with a stranger in a distant city. Landline is ‘a curious exposure to the feeling of being alone together. Landline first premiered in Vancouver/Halifax. This iteration was between Granville Island in Vancouver, BC, and downtown Kitchener, ON, where HPU members Donna Akrey and Taien Ng-Chan participated. More info: http://www.xosecret.org/landline/
We began as a group, getting earbuds and iPod shuffles ready, getting our cellphones ready, entering the number of a stranger who, at the very same moment, will be doing the same thing. We stood in a circle, counted down the seconds, everyone pressing play at the same time. The sounds of a city came into my ears, the sounds of Granville Island in Vancouver, where my unseen scene partner was now listening to downtown Kitchener. We drifted off into the city, each in our own solitude, listening and walking. Every now and then, we were asked to do something: find a spot that reminded us of someone we missed, find something to lean against, text our partner something. The hour quickly passed in a story about memory, loss, and place.
After it was over, we gathered again as a group to find that the organizers had connected the other group on a screen so we could meet visually, over snacks, if we wished. Then we drove home, talking about our experience in the car. Here we attempt to capture some of that conversation:
Taien: The piece ended with such a lovely and poignant mood… the experience was bittersweet and beautiful.
Donna: It was…but somehow manipulative?
Taien: Yes, a bit… in the way that movie music is manipulative, signals a feeling or directs emotion (there was a lot of piano music used, which in movies always signifies “depth of feeling,” for instance). A little too easy, a short-cut to emotion, just as being asked to think about “absence” will often produce that bittersweet feeling. The piece was just as much or more about cinema than theatre… we experience cinema in a solitary way. Theatre is more about presence, of the actors, the audience.
Donna: Yes, definitely-very much like cinema. Sound track to walk? Directed walk/manipulated walk (but in a good way—it could have sucked)
Taien: I would definitely see it as locative cinema in that it connects you to the landscape through emotion and story. I guess it doesn’t matter quite so much what it is labelled as though. There’s too much emphasis on labelling. It was a hybridized experience.
Donna: I was certainly pulled into it – but I committed. I think everyone did. It seemed everyone had shared an experience so it was directed well. We were the actors/participants and we were fed our lines, then asked to improv and collaborate. The narrative was the director. The set was our feet in the space. and our heads – and our cell phones. It did not always synch up as dramatically as the narrative proposed. There was a bit of forcing.
Taien: I liked the connection to a stranger through the texting and felt that could have been used a bit more. But I agree, I think we committed and it worked quite beautifully. It was kind of sad though that the Vancouver people got beer and sausage at the end while we got water and granola bars (trading cultural stereotypes?!) A very successful piece overall, whatever however it is defined… The full moon certainly helped add to the atmosphere!
Doris McCarthy Trail and Plant Pilfering Walk by Donna Akrey
2015 – Donna Akrey and a friend headed to east side Toronto along side the Scarborough bluffs. This is where there are many trails through the woods and down the steep sandy bluff to Lake Ontario.
This trail is on the property of the painter, Doris McCarthy, who lived and worked and then generously donated to the Ontario Heritage Trust to become a retreat for future generations of artists, known as Fool’s Paradise.
I (Donna) was in search of a handful of plants to work with for a video project called Plant Life to hopefully be made in the near future. This trail is near the last place my mom lived and we used to go for walks closer to the Guildwood Inn. I will also be walking between the two places looking for plants.*
The plants I was looking for are rare species. They are buffalo berry, Hitchcock’s sedge and blue cohosh. I did find some plants, but not those yet. I will keep looking for the perfect plants to collaborate with.
*Note-The Doris McCarthy Trail to Guildwood is 1-2 minutes shorter than the Guildwood to The Doris McCarthy Trail. What is the meaning of this??? I endeavor to find out!
On December 21, 2014, the HPU hosted a Yule Walk (you’ve all heard of Christmas food/clothing “drives;” well, we are perambulators so we had a “walk” instead!)
The walk took place in Kirkendall neighbourhood – we perambulated the streets with our wagon and collected from numerous houses. Others also contributed to our efforts (via car) from as far as Ancaster, Dundas, Westdale, and Beasley neighbourhoods.
By the end of the walk we had two vehicles full of new toys, clothes, gift cards, food and other items to donate to The Native Women’s Centre.
Dates: March 1, March 8, March 15, March 22, 2014 Location: Hamilton Artists Inc. 155 James Street North, Hamilton, ON
The HPU’s winter project 2014 was entitled Km2, and consisted of 3 different directed walks within a square kilometre of Hamilton’s downtown. Each week’s event began with an artist talk by the walk leader, who showed some of her work as well as introduced the themes and objectives of the walk.
March 1: Map Voice Film Poem (led by Taien Ng-Chan) Poet Ezra Pound observed that “In the city the visual impressions succeed each other, overlap, overcross, they are cinematographic.” The urban experience of unrelentless stimuli was what, for philosopher Walter Benjamin, created the need for cinema. Map Voice Film Poem explored the city through the microcinema of videos and stories. Participants were invited to map the city through the digital image. The final video was edited from the contributions of participants.
March 15: Search Gather Research Make (led by Donna Akrey) Search Gather Research Make focused on the visual arts and how to forage the city for ideas to realize as art works. Participants were offered some directives and then embarked on a walk within the KM2; the participants gathered found materials/found ideas to use as art-making supplies or inspiration for new works.
March 8: Flânerie Collect Contemplate Write (led by Sarah E. Truman) Historically, the flâneurs were “men of leisure” who ambled through urban streets and observed, mused and wrote about the cityscape. In week 2’s Flânerie Collect Contemplate Write, participants strolled within the KM2 as modern day flâneurs (leisurely if only for an hour, and any gender, not just male!) and composed written works inspired through the acts of walking and sensory exploration of the city’s core.
March 22: Final get together share session (Hamilton Artists Inc.) The works we made were exhibited to the public and other artists/creators in a final meeting
