Since no man ever walked a mile in another man's shoes, how about the possibility of simply following someone -- someone chosen at random in a foreign city?
[W]hat I’m doing is a one-off exercise, and, as artist and writer Phil Smith puts it, is handing over control of exploring the city to someone else, chosen at random.Neutralizing "your will" -- erasing a blackboard in order to admit new writing and thinking and seeing and being. What a great idea. I don't travel well any longer, but if I were to, what a plum-wonderful experiment.
Smith regularly gives this task to students of theatre and performance at the University of Plymouth, seeing it as a valuable exercise. “The idea is that you’re exploring the space but someone else dictates it to you – it neutralises your will,” he says. “The intention – or hope – is that the followed person will lead you into places you haven’t been before.”
Reminds me of the 1961 book "Black Like Me," about the white author who traveled the deep South here in the U.S. as a black man. I can imagine the current exercise would be full of false starts and do-overs, but still, when you think about what you see as a tourist or visitor ... hot damn!
"Where you haven't been before."
Too weird for me, plus, I’d probably get arrested for stalking.
ReplyDelete