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.
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
