a project of mapping flowspace in an urban milieu

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A project of mapping flowspace in an urban milieu Tanya Toft

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FLOWSPACE

Independent study 2010The New SchoolDepartment of Film and Media Studies

Author: Tanya Søndergaard ToftAdvisor: Jessica Blaustein

A PROJECT OF MAPPING

IN AN URBAN MILIEU

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PROJECT CONCEPT

A Project of Mapping Flowspace in an Urban Milieu explores the optics of understanding urban space in the media city through mapping. It is an interdisciplinary, theoretical and empirical experiment that opens up a place of thought to challenge notions of the urban site as a destination for tourist experiences, real estate interests, or as ‘a product’ of symbolic interpretation. Rather, the project suggests that a spatial perception of any urban site derives from the qualitative mode of the experience of place-based space that is informed by a web of flowspaces. This is bringing historical, cultural, geographical and abstract contexts into the urban milieu. The project examines these spaces as pockets of informative impressions and forms of methodological and analytical frameworks of media urbanism throughout empirical investigations of an urban milieu.

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Experience of place-based space; The urban experience of a place that is informed by a web of flowspaces that fold into it.

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010 INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1020 THE MILIEU IN ITS URBAN CONTEXT

Chapter 2044 MEDIA CITY - MEDIA URBANISM

Chapter 3054 MILIEU DOCUMENTATION

Chapter 4066 MAPPING

Chapter 5118 FINAL MAP

126 MEDIA URBAN DICTIONARY

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I will refer to this project as a place of thought. It is an invitation to an unconventional thinking about urban space; one that is focused on what influences the experience of it. Although the project is anchored in the discipline of media studies, it has been my aim to avoid it being theoretically rigorous or loyal. I intend to liberate it from particular disciplinary structures, to let the project lead the way, so to speak. It integrates methods from media studies, architecture, urban policy, anthropology, sociology and the arts. As a researcher, I have acted as a detective searching for clues and traces which have guided my investigation through the process. The project takes off in a contemporary change in attitude and ideas about the urban space, which follows up on Jane Jacobs’ critique of urban renewal strategies in the 1950s (Jacobs 1992). The movement towards the qualitative of urban space is experiencing a contemporary revival, as particularly new communications technologies have opened up for new ways of reading and engaging with the urban space. Ideas of “geo-narrative” (Kwan 2008) (Schobel 2006), urban space as a performative actor (Samson 2008), the cultural systems of the contemporary city (Al-Zubaidi), the metropolis as a social complex (Leach 2002) and the ‘mediation’ of urban space (Ellsworth 2005, Miranda 2007, Morley 2001) are part of a renewed emphasis that takes the humanities and media studies even further into the fields of urban planning, urban design and architecture. This book looks at urban space as a social, cultural, historical and aspirational complex, where urban milieus live their autonomous lives while being interconnected with and under constant influence by the neighborhood, the city and the world. It provides a reflection on the concept of urban space in the media city while building up a methodological and theoretical framework for mapping an urban milieu. My work is inspired by a number of projects and writings: The Bauhaus school of thought which brings all disciplines together to inform ‘the Bau’; Rem Koolhaas’ manifesto-like narratives about the chance-

Place of thought;Imaginary platform flexible enough to allow for experimentation with existing perceptions.OFOREWORD

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Dérivé;Moving through an environment within a flow of acts and encounters that are linked to the conditions of urban society.

like nature of the city as a collection of “hotspots”; Geoff Manaugh’s blog-format, concept-curated case studies that make BLDG BLOG; Sophie Calle’s detective-like investigations of ‘augmenting’ an urban place based on arbitrary sets of constraints; The 1950s and 1960s’s Situationist International’s idea of allowing movement to be guided by randomness in a dérivé; and not least by everyday encounters and exchanges that have offered me inspiration, some unconsciously implemented in my project design. The topic of the project is addressed through the organization and layout of the book. It is organized as a chronology with abruptions, built up in flows – progressing, cutting through, following, counter-reacting and taking off. Typically, an academic would follow a strict line of argumentation. This project has integrated “jumps” and flight lines – creative take-offs to plateaus of abstraction. I will quote the fictive character Stéphanie in Michel Goundru’s film “The Science of Sleep” from 2005: “The distraction is an abstraction of the construction”. The book is designed to distract the reader, in order to reach a plateau of abstraction from where a new construction of thought can be created; a new interpretation of the urban site. I am not a philosopher, but I believe that through a slight degree of confusion, it is possible to disturb preconceptions and reach an openness for new compositions of meaning. The greatest challenge throughout the process of exploring flowspaces was to decide when to stop. When identifying the flowspaces that inform an urban environment, when do you know that you have identified ‘the right ones’? Or, when do you know that you have identified the appropriate ones for supporting an argument – without simply choosing the ones that fit into your argumentation? The answer is, you cannot. And maybe that is not what the exercise is about either. My identification of flowspaces was guided by a few basic principles: I wanted to force my attention to be guided beyond strategy and argument. I wanted to follow my

Flowspace;A dimension of impulses and connections that move through urban milieus in flows of currents and interconnects an urban milieu in circulation within a bigger and global urban system. A particular flowspace is characterized by a mode of relationship between inhabitants, the milieu and the broader urban and global context.

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curiosity and interest in the spatial layers informing the place. And, I wanted my orientation to be as much horizontal, vertical, three-dimensional, object-focused, top-down and bottom up, transparent, spatial-temporal, scanned, curated and guided by the in between. Put in short, I wanted to look beyond the obvious – like traffic, colors and numbers – and challenge my own perception. The aim of this project is to suggest a qualitative way of understanding urban space in the media city through a methodology of urban mapping. It is about the optic and method rather than the scientific results. Therefore, I temporarily decided to stop my flowspaces investigation when my curiosity was stimulated.

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LEGEND

Plateau;A relational perspective that combines circumstances on a plane of immanence. The plateau is connected to the multiplicities in the rhizome and never a culmination point, just a extention of the rhizome. The horizontal yellow line marks a plateau of abstraction.

Flightline;An abstract, instance of thinking outside of the box with questions that challenge the stable situation. A flightline indicates an impending take-off.

Concepts;Terms and ideas to be defined throughout the book and collected in a Media Urbanism Dictionary.

Concepts;Concept description.

NCompass;Indicates direction of perspective.

Specification note;Draws attention to a specific point on an image.

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Today’s world is characterized by changing spatial and temporal structures. Structures of community life are shifting from spatial stability towards the continuous, the temporal and the shifting. Local economies and cultures are bound into bigger, global networks, and events and changes occur faster than ever before. The contemporary city is both connecting and “disconnecting” to the global. As a simultaneous centrifugal and centripetal force, digital media technologies connect us in the city while sending us out and away into the global non-space. These circumstances lead to changing perceptions and mixed constellations of space and place, changes in urbanization processes, which depend on people’s explorations of the city. The changing perception of place invites a reflection on how we can develop perceptual models to understand and intervene in the urban environment, while taking contemporary spatial complexities into account. I am suggesting that in order to understand and identify urban places in transition in the media city, we might have to rethink the system of contemporary urbanism, by thinking of it in terms of media urbanism. We need to approach the subject from a methodology that is founded in the media city’s own logic. With its interconnected and ever-changing nature, the logic of the media city could be characterized as rhizomatic. The rhizome is a concept presented by Gilles Deleuze and Feliz Guattari to describe theory and research. This concept allows for multiple engagements and interpretations (Deleuze and Guattari 2009), on which my project approach is founded. It also mirrors Bataille’s idea of a labyrinth of language. Bataille considers the labyrinth of language as a ‘space’ without an entrance, and as such as a disoriented space (Noys 2000, 14). In Bataille’s philosophy, ‘to be in language is to be in relation to others’ (Noys 2000, 14), similar to the ‘being’ in a rhizome, as an interconnected and interdependent flow in a space of relation without closure. A space full of openings. Bataille’s concept of the labyrinth suggests an alternative understanding of what the urban landscape is

INTRODUCTION1

Media urbanism; A focus on cities and urban areas that recognizes the complex processes of urbanization that have developed particularly in the digital paradigm. Media urbanism understands the logics and nature of the urban environment from cultural concepts characteristic for the digital media paradigm, like connection, multiplicity, transparency, collaboration, interactivity.

Urban labyrinth;The anatomy of a complex irregular network of urban structures plaiting passages and paths into each other. This figurative arrangement is dynamic, like a web of flows, and it has a nature of random encounters.

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Think of the city as a labyrinth; a complex myriad of paths and intersections, hidden arcades and secret views from tops of architectural compositions. When following the direction of a flyer, an individual may be lead to unplanned events; or, if a stranger’s route is followed, one may find urban paths too complex to recreate. The city is built on a labyrinth of accessible and inaccessible channels that plaits into nets of functionality, connecting here and there and taking you from a to b, l or g. The labyrinth of the city is a web of experiences and functionality. It is dynamic, circulating as electricity, advertisement, memory, history, aesthetical types, plans or environments, without stopping to describe or re-describe itself in new ways. It is a web of flows. The city as a labyrinth is different from the kind of labyrinth you might find in a sculpture garden, as it reflects completely different forms and logics of navigation. Every path can be connected with one another; it has no center, no periphery, and no exit.

Labyrinthic structures; The constant movement, flow of matter and energy that builds the structure of the urban labyrinth.

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and how it can be studied, one that Manuel Castells echoes in suggesting that “The new frontier of spatial research is in examining the interaction between the space of flows, the space of places, function, meaning, domination, and challenge to domination, in increasingly complex and contradictory patterns.” (Castellls 2007, 15). The perceptual model I wish to establish in this project is constituted from these philosophical conceptions on urbanity and urban structures, while recognizing the complexity of interrelationships in an urban environment. My mapping of flowspaces is not an attempt to understand the entire complexity of an urban space or a city, nor is it a proposal of a general interpretation of ‘right’ or ‘existing’ flows. There may be as many interpretations and experiences of a place as there are people, or, as De Certeau puts it, “There are as many spaces as there are distinct spatial experiences” (De Certeau 1988, 118).

15This is an exploration of new perceptions and viewpoints about the urban processes that flow through a site, and of how such processes are connected to each other. My exploratory analysis to pursue this takes off in an intersection in Clinton Hill in Brooklyn, New York, where Clifton Place meets Grand Avenue. The milieu of the intersection is my experimental zone, and the milieu of my mapping. I will use a method of abstraction to open up interpretations of the urban environment. In this metaphorical exploration of the logics of the media city, I am aiming at developing a conceptual apparatus for understanding how flows of history, potentials and time lapses come into play in the process of urbanization, by looking at how these inform the place-experience. My project becomes a response to the quest by Neil Leach, that we should multiply the ways in which we read and experience the city (Leach 2002, 5).

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Pluralism; A condition where multiple groups, principles, traditions and religions coexist.

CASE SITE

Brooklyn was developed by immigrants from all over the world, who settled from the 16th to the 19th hundred and formed ethnic enclaves of culturally significant neighborhoods. These ethnic enclaves were rich with distinct architecture, boutiques and food. The condition of urban pluralism came to form the borough’s identity and is still characteristic; however, more and more neighborhoods, like: Park Slope and Williamsburg in particular, are blamed for their increasing gentrification and loss of original cultural significance. My chosen case site for exploring the flowspace concept is the intersection of Grand Avenue and Clifton Place in the neighborhood of Clinton Hill in Brooklyn, New York. The intersection is lively, in the middle of the small business hub of Grand Avenue. The site brings together architecture students from Pratt, drug dealers, vintage shoppers, trolleys and prams. Over the past ten years, the Brooklyn-neighborhood of Clinton Hill has transitioned from being a neighborhood struggling with crime, drugs and decay to a hip, affordable and culturally diverse hub of cafes, restaurants, yoga and dance studios. Currently, Clinton Hill is in a relatively early stage of what might be referred to as gentrification, however the neighborhood still has a strong sense of authenticity and ‘roughness’. It is my aim with this project to get underneath this simplistic characterization, and discover some much more complex and dynamic relationships between the place and the media city system.

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CHAPTERS

The project is divided into five chapters. Chapter one will explore the context of Clinton Hill with its historical shaping into what it is today. The historical background and definitions of underlying themes of the urban environment will serve to anchor my mapping in the milieu’s context of origin and formation into what it is today. Chapter two will formulate a quest for media urbanism as a paradigmatic framework for understanding contemporary urban processes. This chapter will reflect on the relationship between media and city to define an understanding of the concept of the media city as a complex of process and development, rather than of sign and medium. It is characterized by a change in spatial organization towards autonomous, agency-driven structures, rapidity of change and displacement of conceptual and symbolic elements. The concept of experiencing space is describing the context of my research methodology within media urbanism. The flowspace concept is anchored in the logics of the rhizome as presented by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Chapter three describes my milieu documentation of the intersection of Grand Avenue and Clifton Place in Clinton Hill. Through my documentation or ‘investigative flaneurie’ I collect data in the form of images, overheard conversations, spatial stories and in notes on the daily rhythm of the milieu, presented in note form. In chapter four I am performing my mapping exercise on the empirical data. In a combination of James Corner’s method of mapping and Moriarty and Barbatsi’s method of rhizome analysis, I map four identified flowspaces in my milieu of investigation: Ambiguous morphologies referring to appearances, framework grids referring to order and organization, locomotive assemblies referring to movements by people and traffic in the milieu, and temporary landings that make a collection of flexible and replaceable ‘impulses’. Each category will be analyzed and illustrated, in order to spatialize my identified flowspaces.

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Chapter five shows a map that weaves together the themes discussed throughout the book and propose a media urbanist, reconfigured spatialization of experiencing the space of the milieu. The map illustrates the relationships between flowspaces of organization, movement, appearances and impulses of the milieu, formulated through the idea of experiencing an urban milieu, and it is the aim through the outlined process of its becoming to form the ideological and conceptual principles behind media urbanism. The main purpose of this book is to raise discussion through the concept of flowspace, about the nature of contemporary urbanization processes in the digital media paradigm. These have found a new mode of complexity with the new agency driven ways of urban intervention in and imaginations about urban space. The qualities that make up livable and successful places might be most sustainable when they represent contradictions, and contemporary conditions for appreciation of public spaces might rest on renewed logics of engagement.

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REFERENCES INTRODUCTION

Layla Al-Zubaidi, “Urban Anthropology,” at http://www.indiana.edu/~wanthro/URBAN.htm

Manuel Castells: “An Introduction to the Information Age”, in: City analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action, (London: Routledge) 2007

Michel de Certeau: “Spatial Stories”, “Making Do: Uses and Tactics”, “Walking in the City”, “Reading as Poaching” in The Practices of Everyday Life, (Berkeley: University of California Press), 1988

Gilles Deleuze and Feliz Guattari: “A THousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia”, (Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press), (1987) 2009

Elizabeth Ellsworth: “Places of Learning: Media, Architecture, Pedagogy”, (New York: Routledge), 2005

Jane Jacobs: “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”, (New York: Vintage Books), (1961) 1992

Mei-Po Kwan and G. Ding: “Geo-Narrative: Extending geographic information systems for narrative analysis in qualitative and mixed-method research” (The Professional Geographer 60 (4)), 2008

Neil Leach: “The Hieroglyphics of Space: Reading and Experiencing the Modern Metropolis”, (London and New York: Routledge), 2002

Maria Miranda: “Uncertain Spaces: Exploration of New Socialities in Mediated Public Space” (SCAN Journal of media arts culture, Vol 4 Number 3), December, 2007

David Morley: “Place, Space and Identity in a Mediated World”, (European Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 4 No. 4, November), 2001

Benjamin Noys: “Georges Bataille: a critical introduction”, (London: Pluto Press), 2000

Mervyn Rothstein: “Clinton Hill: The Past Serving the Present”, in: The New York Times, December 6, 1993

Kristine Samson: “The Becoming of Urban Spaces: From Design object to design process”, IN: Conference: Perspectives on practice-riented design science 15th of May 2008 : proceedings. ed. Jørgen Ole Bæren-holdt; Jesper Simonsen; John Damm Scheuer (Roskilde University), 2008

Soren Schobel: ”Qualitative Research as a Perspective for Urban Open Space Planning”, JoLA – Journal of Landscape Architecture, Vol. 1, spring, 2006

Clinton Hill Historic District Designation Report, New York City’s Landmark Preservation Commission, No-vember 10, 1981

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“...if we want to undertake a semiology of the city, the best

approach, in my opinion, as indeed for any semantic venture,

will be a certain ingenuity on the part of the reader. Many

of us should try to decipher the city we are in, beginning if

necessary, with a personal report. Dominating all these readings

by different categories of readers (for we have a complete scale

of readers, from the native to the stranger), we would thus work

out the language of the city. This is why I would say that it is

not so important to multiply the surveys or the functional studies

of the city but to multiply the readings of the city, of which

unfortunately only the writers have given us some examples.”

– Roland Barthes in Semiology and the Urban

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“...if we want to undertake a semiology of the city, the best

approach, in my opinion, as indeed for any semantic venture,

will be a certain ingenuity on the part of the reader. Many

of us should try to decipher the city we are in, beginning if

necessary, with a personal report. Dominating all these readings

by different categories of readers (for we have a complete scale

of readers, from the native to the stranger), we would thus work

out the language of the city. This is why I would say that it is

not so important to multiply the surveys or the functional studies

of the city but to multiply the readings of the city, of which

unfortunately only the writers have given us some examples.”

– Roland Barthes in Semiology and the Urban

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The intersection of Clifton Place and Grand Avenue is a neighborhood center to many. It is in the middle right side of the neighborhood of Clinton Hill, almost contiguous to the rougher neighborhood of Bedford Stuyvesant. Over the years, a small business area has formed along Grand Avenue and turned the street into a busy path for grocery suppliers, sanitary vans and pedestrian flows. Grand Avenue intersects with Lafayette Avenue to the north, where the grocery store Pioneer directs the locals for their daily grocery shopping. On Lafayette Avenue, a few corner stores and the trendy French bakery, Choice Market, can be found. This market attracts many Pratt students from the Adelphi Academy on St James Place, only a block away. The intersection connects street sections with very different characteristics. Clifton Place to the west is characterized by beautiful brownstone houses and tightly placed trees, until it intersects with St James Place. Clifton Place to the east on the other hand begins with similar brownstone row houses, but these are quickly replaced by industrial buildings and more diverse facades. The environment changes; old abandoned cars take up the front yards or space between buildings, and old addicts from the past decades of rougher times mark the street with provocative comments. The intersection reveals the struggles of Clinton Hill which have shaped the neighborhood throughout history. Compressed bags containing white powder is delivered on the corner outside of the Clean Society one morning, at the same time as mothers and white babies enter the Urban Vintage café to purchase an organic oatmeal with soy milk catches my attention. The struggles of a neighborhood that faced its biggest downturn in the 1960s and 1970s still characterize the environment, meanwhile the contemporary struggle of gentrification

THE MILIEU IN ITS URBAN CONTEXT1

4:21 pm One of the older kids that has been hanging out for long in the intersection asks me: “Mam, why are you taking pictures all day?” I explain that I am conducting a research project about this place in Clinton Hill and need to document what it looks like and what is going on. “Alright, I thought you were nuts.” I ask him what he thinks about this neighborhood. “It’s boing here, look around, there is nothing to do; there is much more going on in the city; we’re just hanging out here all day.” I tell him that I really like it here, and that I think it is a very cool neighborhood. “Then maybe you’re boring too!”

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and real estate speculation shows its establishment - threatening to some, a relief to others. The intersection appears to be a site of parallel societies. However, as one becomes acquainted with the site, it appears more and more like a bricolage, put together by elements from particular times, cultural influences, financial structures, demography of past decades, and trends from the present and the past. The intersection hosts a beautiful mix of diverse cultures and traditions. The different types of businesses reveil a meeting of multiple ethnicities, beginning with the Grand Dakar serving Senegalese African Food, Choice Market imitating a French bakery cafe and Urban Vintage offering organic treats from an allround inspiration. Throughout the year, events bring cultures and languages together in celebrations, right on Grand Avenue. In the fall of 2010, I experienced the Grand Halloween Block Party in October, The Future Africa Now Festival, also called Le Grand Dakar Block Party in September, and The Spirit and Soul of Brooklyn Annual Block Party, also in September. The intersection is a melting pot and represents the diverse cultural multiplicities which have characterized Brooklyn and which flavors the borough’s uniqueness and differentiation from Manhattan. The current face of the intersection is a face of ‘the multiple’, a bricolage or a pluralistic text of urban stories about the manifold. However, in similar cases, these stories do not unveil themselves unless someone tries to understand their languages.

Bricolage;The jumbled effect produced by the close proximity of influences from past and present of multiple cultural characteristics.

Urban stories; Tales of the milieu that can be told from singular or collective memories, or they can be echoed in the urban structures right under the current appropriation of space.

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THE BUSINESSES ON GRAND AVE

HIP: HIP on Grand Avenue in number 283 is a children’s clothing store. It has been around for three years. Previously, there was a Carrot Health food store for one or two years, and prior to that a barber shop.

3L: The Three Luigis pizza restaurant on Grand Avenue number 273 opened in 1983, but it had previously been a bar.

CM: Choice Market on Lafayette Avenue has been open since 2006. The building housed a nail salon before that, where the female rapper Lil’ Kim is supposed to have had her nails and hair done. A glass-framed image in the cafe shows that sometime in the era of black and white photography, the house was a home for Boritz Delicatessen.

CMS: The cabinet maker shop on Grand Avenue in number 290 opened in 2001, after the space had been empty for five to six years. Before that is was a fax store, and before that, in the late 70s and early 80s, it was the home of a local newspaper, and even before that, it was a shoe repair shop for nearly fourty years.

UV: Urban Vintage on Grand Avenue in number 294 opened in 2010 and was a bodega for twenty-six years before it turned into an organic cafe. Before that it was a daycare center.

GD: Grand Dakar on 285 Grand Avenue is a Senegalese African restaurant and opened in 2003. Before that, the building hosted a fruit and vegetable shop.

Sources: Interviews with local inhabitants.

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BORDERLAND OF CLINTON HILL

The boundaries between neighborhoods in Brooklyn are not official and may vary according to interpretations of local residents. The map of Clinton Hill presented in this project derives from Kenneth T. Jackson’s research presented in “The Neighborhoods of Brooklyn” (1998), where boundaries are identified on the basis of research and consultation with local civic and neighborhood associations. The boundaries of Clinton Hill stretch from Vanderbilt Avenue to the west to Classon Avenue to the East, and from Park Avenue or Flushing Avenue to the north to Atlantic Avenue to the south (Jackson 1998, 61). As I walked the border of the neighborhood of Clinton Hill, I noticed the obvious borderland; a clear change of character of the one and the other side of the streets dividing Clinton Hill from Fort Green (west), Bedford Stuyvesant (east), Prospect Heights (south) and Brooklyn Navy Yard/Williamsburrg (north). I found outback prairies and highway walls, radical changes in architecture, fencing and empty spaces. Borders are there to protect and define what belongs and what does not. Of course, the term of ‘borderland’ is metaphoric, because neighborhoods do not have borders in a literal sense or in the same ways as countries do, and they do not have any ways of gating themselves from the outside. Even so, I discovered that Clinton Hill is a neighborhood island in Brooklyn with clearly defined borders, at the same time protected and threatened by “borderland wars” of traffic and competing businesses. These borders are there to gate a particular symbolic value of the neighborhood and the local residents’ sense of belonging to the particular place. Considering the context of the bordering neighborhoods of Bed Stuy and Prospect Heights, a border of real estate prices is certainly growing as well.

Borderland;The zone that surrounds a territory and witnesses struggles of identity, power and symbolism.

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Gates Avenue

Greene Avenue

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Lafayette Avenue

Dekalb Avenue

Willoughby Avenue

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Before 1524 the place now known as Brooklyn was home to Munsee-speaking indians called Lenapes or Delawareans, The subgroup Canarsee was specially prominent in Brooklyn.

1800170016001500

In 1626 the Dutch ‘bought’ Manhattan from Indians.

By the eighteenth century, a third of the population in Brooklyn is black – more than in any other county of what. became New York State

In 1801 Brooklyn Navy Yard opens.

In 1636 attention is paid to Brooklyn - or ‘Kings County’ - and land is purchased. Kings County is divided into five boroughs: Created five towns in Kings County: Breuckelen (Brooklyn) 1646, New Amersfoort (Flatlands) 1647, Midwout (Flatbush) 1952, New Utrecht 1657, Boswijk (Bushwick) 1661. Sixth town, Gravesend, founded in 1645.

By 1820, Brooklyn is growing faster than Manhattan.

Source: Kenneth T. Jackson: “The neighborhoods of Brooklyn”, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press), 1998

1865: After the Civil War, Brooklyn becomes a major center of five black arts.

The Brookyn Eagle was founded in 1841.

1827: New York State abolished slavery.

1875: Charles Pratt, executive and philanthropist, owner of Astral Oil Works build his mansion in Clinton Hill, then build four houses for each of his sons and prompted wealthy industrialists to build mansions on Clinton and Washington Avenues between 1880 and 1915, designed by architects William Tubby, Montrose Morris.

BROOKLYN / CLINTON HILL HISTORY TIMELINE

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20001900

In latter part of 19th century third biggest city in the US.

In 1895, Brooklyn became a borough of NYC because of its debt to the city.

By 1940, the population of Brooklyn has grown to 2.7 millions and more than doubled since fifty years early where the population counted 1,2 million.

1908 first subway opened in Brooklyn, which opened up for a big influx.

By 1940, regular ferries were established between Brooklyn and Manhattan.

1930: Brooklyn is one of the greatest manufacturing centers on earth.

The population of Brooklyn grew by 540.000 in the 1920s decade.

In the 1920s and especially 1930s, Brooklyn is one of the centers of organized crime, along with Chicago. The criminal group of “Murder, Inc.” and Al Capone started their criminal operations in Brooklyn.

Manufacturing drops to half size between 1940 and 1990.

1966: Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara closes the Brooklyn Navy Yard along with over 90 other military bases and installations. At the time of its closing, the Brooklyn Navy Yard employs more than 9,000 workers. For the next decade, Brooklyn looses jobs and people leaves for nearby suburbs.

1967: The Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation hires unemployed residents to renovate and restore historic structures in the neighborhood.

Spectacular decline in crime in Brooklyn in the 1990s. Brooklyn ranks as one of the safest urban centers in the Western Hemisphere.

In 1981, a portion of Clinton Hill is designated a New York City historic district.

1998: The first tourist bus was scheduled by New York’s largest sightseeing company to enter Brooklyn.

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HISTORY OF CLINTON HILL

Clinton Hill experienced a pattern of growth in the 1830s and 1840s, which was unique compared to Brooklyn’s neighborhoods at the time (Morrone 2010, 65). Up until the late 19th Century, Clinton Hill was a form of a gold coast to Brooklyn. Business celebrities at the time, as the Pfizers of Pfizer pharmaceuticals, the Bristols of Bristol-Myers, the Sperrys of Sperry-Rand, the Otises of Otis elevators, the Reynolds of Reynolds Aluminum, the Liebmans of Rheingold Beer, the Underwood of Underwood typewriters, the Arbuckles of Yuban coffee and, not least, Charles Pratt who was a partner of John D. Rockefeller of the Standard Oil Company, all built impressive villas and moved to Clinton Hill (Rothstein 1993, 2). Soon however, the extraordinary “villas” were surrounded by brownstone row houses, as the city sprawled eastward. Many of the rowhouses were posh residences of the upper middle class who wanted a bite of the Brooklyn calmness and idyllic as well (Morrone 2010, 65). By the turn of the century, Manhattan proved to be the New York center to be living in, and as the lordship moved, their mansions were either torn down or divided into apartment buildings. In the 1920s and 1930s, Clinton Hill – and broader Brooklyn - became one of the centers of organized crime. After World War 2, Brooklyn declined radically in population and in industrial employment due to new roadways to the suburbs and federal mortgage programs that made new homes on the periphery available. This is when hundreds of thousands of whites and middle-class residents left Brooklyn for Nassau County, Staten Island, New Jersey, or The American South (Jackson 1998, xxviii). With the closing of the Brooklyn Navy Yard and the loss of 9,000 jobs, a wave of dismissals, poverty and increasing crime rates was escalating in Brooklyn and particularly in the Clinton Hill area. In the 1960s and 1970s, Brooklyn kept losing jobs, and people left to nearby suburbs. Stories in newspapers at the time report about rioting, arson on the rise, poverty, labor strikes, racial tensions etc. (Jackson 1998, xxix).

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The Pratt Institute and the St. Joseph’s College helped to keep the neighborhood up during the downturn and played a major role in the community of Clinton Hill. The Pratt Center of Community Development, lead by chair of Pratt’s Department of City and Regional Planning George Raymond and his former student Ron Shiffman, with help from a Rockefeller Brothers grant, stepped in to help the urban community with technical assistance and guidance on how to address problems in the community. The Pratt Institute kept attracting students that added live to the community (Morrone 2010, 76). Clifton Place reaches the relocation in 1967 of the Adelphi Academy which is a part of the Pratt Institute and originally founded by Aaron Chadwick and Edward S. Bunker. The Adelphi Academy is situated between Clifton Place and Lafayette Avenue on St. James Place and is responsible for a daily invasion of young architecture students to the shops and cafés on Grand Avenue. More local initiatives helped Brooklyn’s rising. In 1967, the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation hired unemployed residents to renovate and restore historic structures in the neighborhood. This movement inspired residents in Brooklyn to do the same, and the new look brought in new business, and new housing, and with that, new optimism (Jackson 1998, xxix). Although Clinton Hill appears pretty and stable today, when walking around the idyllic brownstone houses within a friendly neighborhood ambiance and among strolling families, the Brooklyn neighborhood has not always had that character. Over the past one and a half century, Clinton Hill has gone through dramatic changes and been the home of wealth, decline, crime and cultural victory. Despite Manhattan’s tourist attractions and taking- advantage-of adventure-seeking visitors, the first tourist bus was not scheduled to enter Brooklyn before 1998. Before this event, Brooklyn had long been characterized as boring, out of date and torn by racial strife and violence (Jackson 1998, xvi). This marked a shift in the perception of Brooklyn about its accessibility as well as perhaps an appreciation of its cultural diversity and uniqueness.

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Karl’s furniture repair shop

3:05 pm Karl graduated from Pratt in painting in the seventies, and now ownes the furniture repair shop on Grand Avenue. He is from Detroit but has lived here for 27 years. I visit him in his shop and ask him what he thinks about this place and if he has noticed any change over the past years. He very much has and claims that it is a completely different neighborhood today. Much more boring, gentrified and sad. “It is a strange thing”, he repeats that over and over again. The parties were a lot more fun back then, and he loved that this was not a place for kids or sensitive people at all. He tells me that nine years ago when he bought his shop, there was only one coffee bar across the street, and then a hairdresser where the Choice Market is located. This was where Lil Kim, the female rapper, used to get her haircut. In the big red house on the corner of the intersection, the biggest weapon confiscation of weapons in America’s history took place, about seven years ago. Karl remembers how before that, guys with machine guns used to walk around on the roof when the big drugs were brought in. He thinks that the biggest thread of the neighborhood today is all the kids that are everywhere. He blames “white people like myself”. We have ruined it all. Now trendy women in their end twenties show up because they want to buy him out of his workshop and open a vintage shop. He points out that there is still hope that the transition will not be complete because some public housing blocks are placed around Clinton Hill. “They will keep it down, luckily” he says. The one good thing that has come out of all the rich upper middle class white people moving in is that some of them have not been able to send their kids to private schools after the crisis, and that means that the puclic school (PS11) has been improved significantly. Karl knows, because he has friends in the board.

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Source: Clinton Hill Historic District Designation Report, New York City’s Landmark Preservation Commission, November 10, 1981

LANDMARK DESIGNATION AS DIVISION MARKER

Clinton Hill was a rural retreat until the 1860s when developers began building row houses. By 1880, these outlined most of the streets and attracted affluent professionals (Jackson 1998, 58). The “brownstone belts”, together with the mansions from the beginning of the 19th Century, qualified a part of Clinton Hill for a designation as

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historic district in 1981. This was declared by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. The historic district reaches Grand Avenue from the west side and thus includes half of the intersection. The designation promised ambitious changes for the declining neighborhood. It started as a regeneration of housing value and then came to open the doors to new investments, which could take an advantage of the potential market. At this point, Clinton Hill had much vacant space in a time of real-estate expansion, and in combination with a Federal historic-district tax credit and the eagerness of moderate- and middle-income people to renovate houses, the neighborhood experienced an uprising. However, as noted in a New York Times article from 1993, the costs of housing went up and became too expensive for less economically fortunate residents. The conforming to landmark standards was a costly affair (Rothstein 1993, 1). When approaching the intersection from different angles, it is evident that the designation as historic district has influenced the experience one gets when approaching form either the west or the east. The intersection has become a division between two forms of authenticity, one representing the “original character” of the becoming of the neighborhood into its contemporary architectural appearance more than a century ago, the other representing the group of people having shaped and appropriated the neighborhood throughout the past sixty-or so years, groups of low income. The sense of a division is evident even when observing the different groups of people approaching the intersection from east or west. Perhaps, the overweight of trolleys coming from the east corresponds to the number of children in prams accompagnied by their grand parents from the west.

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DIVISIONThe act of separating one part into two will always have a consequence. The question that can only be answered by time is whether this will lead to the drying out of the one part while the other grows stronger, or whether it will strengthen both parts, because the line-up of differense fertilizes both?

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BROOKLYN HISTORICAL CONTEXT

A combination of brownstone and brick rowhouses, late nineteenth-century homes, luxurious apartment buildings, tenements, carriage houses, and institutional buildings, together with architectural styles of Romanesque mansions, classic Victorian row houses, Italianata frame villas, pre-Civil War frame houses characterize the plural nature of the architecture of Clinton Hill (Jackson 1998, 61). The constellation of such architecturally diverse houses witnesses about times of greatness and fall, and of different groups of people that have contributed to the shaping of Clinton Hill throughout history. The pluralism that characterizes Brooklyn has formed through diverse and shifting enclaves and a composite of churches and festivals that flavors neighborhoods in different cultural, religious and ethnic tones throughout the year. Each neighborhood in Brooklyn has a unique history and identity, with groups of people arriving from Europe, Asia, The Caribbean, Central or South America, Africa and the Middle East all who have shaped the diverse neighborhood of the borough over the past three centuries (Jackson 1998, preface). Being one of the city’s oldest settlements, Brooklyn was the first home in America for millions of immigrants of more than 150 nationalities (Jackson 1998, preface).

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REFERENCES CHAPTER 1

Roland Barthes: “Semiology and the Urban.” in: Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory. Neil Leach. (London: Routledge), 1997.

Kenneth T. Jackson: “The neighborhoods of Brooklyn”, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press), 1998

Francis Morrone: “An Architectural Guidebook to Brooklyn”, (Layont: Gibbs Smith, Publisker), 2001

Francis Morrone: “Fort Greene Clinton Hill, Neighborhood and architectural history guide”, (Brooklyn: Brooklyn Historical Society), 2010


Clinton Hill Historic District Designation Report, New York City’s Landmark Preservation Commission, November 10, 1981

9:09 am The Urban Vintage bartender tells me that the Clean Society is not about cleaning cloth as much as about selling marijuana. He says that the best thing about this place is all of the things that are under-neath the surface that people do not know.

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Although the concept of the media city was not defined until recently, the interactive and communicative city has been explored in multiple ways; as a multifaceted, intertextual linguistic cosmos (Walter Benjamin), as at the same time geometrical, geographical, metaphorical, poetical and mythical (De Certeau 1988, 93), as a social scene for human interaction (Simmel 2000, 153) and as a spatial construct produced by social spatial practices (Lefebvre 1991, 9). A contemporary exploration of the media city would inevitably recognize the contemporary character of media systems, modes of perception through new technologies and ideas of space and interaction that have become so integrated in our daily engagement with the urban environment. Media is often related to the context of urban space in terms of communication distribution, such as advertisement and press, as systems built into urban structures, such as telephone cables and mail systems, as mediated representations of urban spaces such as in tourism and city branding material, or in terms of media overlay in architecture and urban form, like architectural light installations or in terms of making urban spaces ‘intelligent’. Finally and more recently, attention has been paid to media devices for GPS navigation and locative media experiences. My project will not address these issues but focus on perhaps more complex aspects of the media-urban relationship, which is how media is changing urbanization processes and engaging with the perceptual – and physical - formation of the city. My project is based on an understanding of the media city concept where the role of media in an urban context goes beyond sign and medium and into process and development. In Scott McQuire’s description of the media city, he refers to media in an urban context not as a means of representation but as a phenomena that constitutes the experience and sense-making of the city. McQuire’s media city is a media-architecture complex where media is considered an integral part in the condition of city formation, because “an expanded matrix of feedback loops increasingly shape the

Media city;an optics of the city as a media-architecture complex where me-dia is considered an integral part in the urban system and the con-dition of city formation.2 MEDIA CITY - MEDIA URBANISM

Media-urban relationship; How media is changing urbanization processes and engaging with the perceptual - and physical - formation of the city.

Urbanization process; The continuous transformation of urban logics, perceptions and interactions that is stimulated by urban inhabitant’s ideas on and practices in the city.

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ambiance and intensities of urban space” (McQuire 2008, 57) McQuire’s media city goes beyond media as a form of representing the urban, as a technology to be applied to the urban construct, or as a palimpsest overlay of new media images. He acknowledges how media, perhaps by virtue of these examples, has grown into the urban system and should be recognized as a nerve within urban life. Media is currently changing human practices of communication and ways of organizing urban life, and this is manifesting itself in new modes and processes of urban transformation. Today, urban environments are affected by autonomous systems in which people have agency to distribute, connect and communicate in ways that affect the rational thought of the city and disturbs the regular ‘routes’ of the urban labyrinth. Local communities have better means of organizing themselves over social media network platforms. News about events is reaching a much broader audience much faster due to the efficiency of emails and social media networks, and private blogs promote urban neighborhoods and allow for more personal and temporal recommendations – from the people who actually live there.

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ON THE EDGE OF GENTRIFICATIONWhen urban planning and renewal strategies fail to understand a place in terms of the contemporary urban processes, a place is in danger of being added a symbolic value that ruins its existing qualities. Often referred to as gentrification, this is the case of what is happening to the neighborhood of Williamsburg in Brooklyn. Williamsburg is currently undergoing a transformation, with modern condos and chain stores like Duane Read and Starbucks threatening to move in (Bagli, 2010). As this neighborhood becomes more hip, rents increase and the artist community that helped the neighborhood out of slum is forced to move their galleries elsewhere. Theresa Alves stresses how the conformity of symbolic representation of a place and the flows that penetrate it is a premise for constructing a city’s cohesion and competitiveness (Alves 2007, 1).

Symbolic value; The meaning of the flows that runs through an urban environment.

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Place; The location where urban ele-ments coexist in s particular or-der, from where we experience an urban space.

Experiencing space; A framework for approaching urban space based on the prem-ise that space is dependent on social practices and relational systems of flows, and it should therefore be explored through experience rather than repre-sentation or observation.

Flaneurie; Moving through space s an ur-ban observer in order to experi-ence and it.

EXPERIENCING SPACE IN PLACE

De Certeau defines place as the order in which elements are distributed in relationships of co-existence. Place is a concept that defines a location, a configuration of positions and it implies an indication of stability (De Certeau 1988, 117). What takes up the place and what influence its change over time, is the space that folds into a place. Manuel Castells describes the space of places as the predominant space of experience, because places root culture and transmit history (Castells 2007, 14). When we experience a place, we really experience the spaces of it. The idea of experiencing space was explored by the concept of flaneurie, first presented by Baudelaire as the idea of walking through the city in order to experience it (Baudelaire 1978), and later by Benjamin as the lifestyle and analytical tool of the urban observer (Benjamin 1999). The concept of experiencing space might be more complex in the media city of today than at Baudelaire and Benjamin’s times, because the urban experience engages with more dimensions and spheres, simultaneously, and this makes a space more ambiguous and changeable. The experience of spatiality can no longer be attached to physical objects or structures alone but forms with the flows of territorial, cultural, political and social processes of the dynamic and interconnected and global society that ‘make their way into’ the urban place through multiple channels. James Corner refers to this as a shift from ‘static object-space’ to ‘space-time of relational systems’ (Corner 1999, 228). Corner’s idea is comparable to Castell’s idea of the space of flows, which he defines as the material organization of time-sharing social practices that work through flows (Castells 2007, 13). To Castells, the logic of the space of flows is prevalent to the space of places. Both theorists are concerned with the co-existing between space and time. This explains why some spatial elements might lose their original meanings, because the space that “contains” them has ‘moved’ to a different time lapse. This is why we might wonder when people pick up the phone from a phone booth, as the mobile phone has become a possession of almost everybody nowadays. Space is composed of space-

Urban space; A multiple-dimensional sphere of flowspaces that folds into an urban milieu and informs the ur-ban experience.

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Investigative flaneurie; A method of moving through space according to its spatial rhythm while collecting empiri-cal data for spatial mapping. An analytical tool based on the ob-jective of investigation must be defined and structure the fla-neurie.

time intersections of mobile flows and relational systems of the media city that concurrently produce multiple temporalities (Crang 2000, 304). The reflections I am making lead to an essential premise for the methodology of this project that is based on the idea of experiencing space, rather than documenting or representing it. Since space is dependent on social practices and relational systems of flows, the mode of experiencing allows the researcher to engage with the object of investigation, the urban milieu, and get ‘under the skin’ of the urban exploration. My exercise of ‘documentation’ can be characterized as a form of investigative flaneurie, as I am taking on the role of the urban observer and let myself move through the rhythm of the milieu, while collecting data.

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Rhizome; A virtual ecology of mind; a network that establishes con-nections across categories and consists of a multiplicity of di-mensions, determinations and magnitudes.

“Line”;A dimension of multiplicities in a rhizome.

RHIZOMATIC CONNECTIONS AS SOCIAL STRUCTURES

Castells describes how the current morphological transformation happens in a network that is particularly dynamic, open-ended, flexible, potentially able to expand endlessly, without rupture, and bypassing/disconnecting undesirable components, following instructions of the networks’ dominant nodes (Castells 2007, 15). This logic of the open network, that I will apply to my definition of media urbanism, takes form in a new media paradigm, particularly shaped by the medium of the Internet. Our engagement with the Internet is characterized by openness, flat structure, participation, sharing and transparency. Media takes on a similar democratic and non-hierarchical logic as the Internet and grows from methodologies that accept the fluency and interconnectedness of structures. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s theory of the rhizome takes off in the flat structure of a plant root network that has multiple entrances, no beginning and no end. I am basing my understanding of media urbanism on the nature of the rhizome because, like the Internet, the rhizome frames an infinite amount of circumstances rather than exposing a preconfigured identity (Deleuze and Guattari 2009, xiii). Everything in the rhizome can be connected to anything other (Deleuze and Guattari 2009, 7). The rhizome establishes connection across categories and never isolates objects. The multiplicity of the rhizome consists of dimensions, determinations and magnitudes. When these increase in number, the multiplicity grows. Therefore, the urban analysis of this project cannot be reduced to encounter structural elements or units, which would be a search for ‘roots’. Roots represent the opposite logic than the rhizome, one that is hierarchical, reproducible and fixed. What I will be searching for instead are “lines” or dimensions. A flowspace is therefore not a root but a dimension of impulses and connections.

Morphological transformation; The change of urban forms as it happens within an infinite amount of circumstances in a dy-namic, open-ended and flexible urban network.

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Charles Baudelaire: “The painter of modern life and other essays”, (New York: Garland Pub.), c1964, 1978

Walter Benjamin and Rolf Tiedemann: “The Arcades Project”, (Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press), 1999


Charles V. Bagli: “As a Neighborhood Shifts, the Chain Stores Arrive”, The New York Times, N.Y./Region, page A19, November 13, 2010http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/13/nyregion/13metjournal.html?_r=3

Walter Benjamin; ”The Arcades Project”, Washington: Library Congress Cataloging in Publication Data, 1999



Mike Crang: “Public Space, Urban Space and Electronic Space: Would the Real City Please Stand Up?”, (Ur-ban Studies, VOl. 37, No. 2), 2000

Arie Graafland: “Of Rhizomes, Trees, and the IJ-Oevers, Amsterdam”, (in Assemblage, The MIT Press, No. 38) april, 1999


David Frisby: “The metropolis as text: Otto Wagner and Vienna’s Second Renaissance”, in: Neil Leach, The Hieroglyphics of Space: Reading and Experiencing the Modern Metropolis, (London and New York: Rout-ledge), 2002

Neil Leach: The Hieroglyphics of Space. Reading and experiencing the modern metropolis”, (London and New York: Routledge), 2002

Henri Lefebvre, “The Production of Space”, (Carlton: Donald+Nicholson Smith), (1974) 1991

Scott McQuire; ”The Media City”, (London: SAGE Publications Ltd.), 2008

Georg Simmel: “The Sociology of Space”, in: Georg Simmel, David Frisby, Mike Featherstone: Simmel on Culture: Selected Writings, (London. SAGE Publications Ltd.), 2000

Ignasi de Sola-Morales Rubio: “Terrain Vague”, in: Anyplace, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), 1995

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DIMENSION.What is the form of ‘dimension’, if this is not scale, measurement or proportion? How do you measure a dimension that is not the object but the space that keeps objects in place? Some dimensions are obvious, whereas some dimensions are hidden structures, however, without which our urban environment would fall apart.

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A place is both what you see, the architecture of houses, the people inhabiting it and the character of its nature, as well as the things that you do not see. What you see is only the tip of the iceberg, and underneath are the underlying forces that form and organize the place. To study these forces however, we need to understand and interpret the surface level (Leach 2002, 1). My exploration of the intersection of Grand Avenue and Clifton Place in Clinton Hill was aimed at going beyond documentation of structures and to reach a more complicated reading of the place. Inspired by De Certeau’s perception that “Places are fragmentary and inward-turning histories, pasts that others are not allowed to read, accumulated times that can be unfolded but like stories held in reserve, remaining in an enigmatic state, symbolizations encysted in the pain or pleasure of the body.” (De Certeau 1988, 108), I aimed at exploring these histories of the place, and tie my observations into my documentation. I will refer to my place as a milieu, based on James Corner’s description of the milieu as active rather than passive and geometrically defined. A milieu consist of surroundings, medium, middle, has neither beginning nor end, is surrounded by other middles, is in a field of connections, relationships, extensions and potentials (Corner 1999, 224). A site however, is a static destination. I would have said that I knew my milieu before my documentation exercise, because this is the area in which I live, and I have made my way down to Urban Vintage many times. However, after having visited the site regularly over a couple of days, taking photos and noting observations, it became clear to me that in order for me to get to know and understand the place, I would have to understand the rhythm of the milieu and become ‘one’ with its situations and encounters. Only that way could I force myself to notice things that might not be evident, and that might not be what I expected to find. On Friday, September 9, I went to document the intersection. My intention after the day would be gone was not to reference its features, but to be able to tell

Milieu;A milieu consist of surroundings, medium, middle, has neither be-ginning nor end, is surrounded by other middles, is in a field of connections, relationships, ex-tensions and potentials

3MILIEU DOCUMENTATION

Rhythm of milieu; The situations, encounters and patterns of a milieu as these exist in repeatable and autono-mous movements.

Surface level: The dimension of an urban mi-lieu that is above ground and can be studied through investigative flaneurie or other urban explora-tion methods.

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its story of the day. However, to understand this story, I had to decipher the series of spatial images, or what Neil Leach would refer to as ’hieroglyphics’, to gain access to the deeper, underlying relationships (Leach 2002, 2). My journey was an exercise of combining a form of semiological reading of what I could ‘see’ with phenomenological experience of what I could ‘understand’. My method had to balance systematization and randomness; to be a structured observation however one that would push my attention to look beyond the structure and beyond what I knew was there to find. From eight o’clock in the morning until eight o’clock in the evening, I took one photograph every five minutes. More than just documenting what the time-space in between photos would direct my attention to, I would let my attention be guided by the theories of Kevin Lynch (1960) and Italo Calvino (1974) from whom I borrow two very different ways of reading the urban space. In “The Image of the City”, Lynch is concerned with wayfinding and imageability. These concepts relate to the immediate structures that we navigate according to when guiding ourselves through the cityscape – when trying to find our way without using a map, that is. Lynch introduces concepts as path (street, sidewalk, trails, travel channels), edges (perceived boundaries, walls, buildings, shorelines), districts (section distinguished by identity or character), nodes (focal points, intersections, loci), and landmarks (identifiable objects, external reference points) (Lynch 1960, 46). These are elements dragged out of the built urban environment, and visual points that are obvious to city dwellers. They can be identified across subjective perception and make common ‘signs’ of navigation. However, I wished to allow my documentation to go beyond the obvious, and into the abstract. I therefore turned to Italo Calvino and his beautiful description of utopian cities in “Invisible Cities”. In Calvino’s description of some sort of an anatomy of utopia, he sees the city as an emotional destination that can be evaluated through its human life rather than its features. He emphasizes

Wayfinding; The ways in which people orient themselves in physical space and navigate from place to place.

Imageability; The quality of an urban object’s composition of paths, edges, dis-tricts, nodes and landmarks to enable an easy wayfinding.

Invisible city; A concept of the city as an emo-tional destination that can be evaluated through its human life rather than its features.

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structures that might seem invisible or insignificant at first glance but then turns out to be essential to the emotional life and happiness of the city. Inspired by Calvino’s ‘fictional’ methodology I will bring my observational attention towards links from past to present, signs that represent other things, features vs. life, points of dreaming away, redundancy and repetition of events and practices, repetition of signs, logogriphs/emblems/info, nostalgia, imaginations and could-have-been-futures, differency, connecting threads, inner rules, celesteral (happiness, like a broken umbrella) and infernal (misery, prestige icons) objects, rhythm and adaptation, and rapid patterns (connecting threads between people and moving points) (Calvino 1974). Between photographs, I took notes on overheard conversations which are the bits of speech I overheard on the street, and the spatial stories of situations that occurred.

Overheard conversations: The bits of speak that can be overheard on the street and that reveal bits of stories of people’s lives.

Spatial stories; Situations that occur in urban space.

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Italo Calvino: “Invisible Cities”, (Orlando: Harcourt, Inc.), 1974

James Corner: “The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention”, in Denis Cosgrove [ed], Map-pings, (London: Reaction Books) 1999


Neil Leach: The Hieroglyphics of Space. Reading and experiencing the modern metropolis”, (London and New York: Routledge), 2002

Kevin Lynch: “The Image of the City”, (Massachusetts: The MIT Press), 1960

Sandra Moriarty and Gretchen Barbatsis: “Rhizome Analysis”, in: Kenneth Louis Smith: Handbook of visual communication: theory, methods, and media, (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.), 2005

605 10 15 20 25 308:9:

10:

11:12:1:2:3:4:5:

6:7:

6130 35 40 45 50 55

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SPATIAL STORIES AND OVERHEARD CONVERSATIONS

8:07 The trash is being picked up by a sanitary van. A white couple spend some time on deciding which of their trash bags go into which trash can and manage to sort it out in time before the trash van leaves.

8:23 A car makes a turn-around in the intersection. The previous days I noticed several of these, and it must tell something about the place, that it is a good place for turning around. It is not as hectic as the parallel Lafayette Avenue.

9:02 Pratt students on Grand Avenue: Talking about finding the right program at university and how that can be so difficult. Right before an other Pratt student passed with a big white model in her arms.

9:05 A second trash car drives through and picks up the remaining trash bags except for one in front of the Grand Dakar restaurant. I wonder why this trash bag does not qualify for pickup.

9:47 A man named Thomas, also working at Urban Vintage, blocks the way for a bicyclist biking up Clifton Place with a little dog under his arm. “I owe you one” says Thomas to the biker.

9:48 A black woman and a man who seems to be her son pass by me as the woman asks the man of what he wants and says that she will bring it down. The young man doesn’t seem to care much.

9:49 A woman asks me if I am waiting for the spa to open, which is located right behind the doorstep of Clifton Place 41-43 that I have taken up for my research. She assures me that if so I will have to wait for a long time. She then needs to pass me and emphasizes that I really shouldn’t bother to move. I don’t think she was being sarcastic.

9:59 Some guys hanging out on the street: “What time is he coming?” “Between 9 and 11”.

10:07 Three women and five children between 4-5 years old cross Grand Avenue in the inter section and stops by the community garden. At 10:15 they walk into the garden.

10:12 In front of the community garden, Clifton Place Block Association Garden, the three women and five kids are standing, and one of the women gives the children an assignment: “Collect and remember things that remind you that we are living in a community, that is what you should be looking for in there and everywhere we go today, alright?”

10:15 A man is singing on the street.

10:46 A guy and a girl outside Urban Vintage gossiping about a girl they know. Then the guy starts telling the girl about a time when he left New York City, bought a car and drow out in the country. One if the places he passed by was Montreal.

10:48 Two white guys with beards carry a couch from E Grand Ave up Clifton Place

10:54 Two white women are discussing a location, and what they need for a project later

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today. They are running through the details.

11:07 One man in a loose shirt to an other one, walking west of Grand Avenue: “The advice he is gonna give you pays for the tax in the long run”.

11:27 Black gay guy, which is quite unusual for the location, is speaking on the phone while drinking a coffe that he just bought at the Choice Market. “You can have a little sexy outfit…the thing is, you don’t know who else will be working in the studio… Alright babe, see you later”. He then texts someone from his phone while finishing up his coffee.

11:32 A young woman is parking her bike in front of Urban Vintage and Thomas who works there asks her if she can turn it the other way so that it won’t block the pavement’

11:54 A man in a very relaxed outfit is complaining about a court case. He refers to the client and the judge and says “please just say nothing”. In the same outdoor space outside of Grand Dakar restaurant, the chef has a conversation over his phone. He is ordering some stuff that needs to be there at 3:30.

12:02 Older black man is sitting on the doorstep outside 51 Clifton Place: “You said you fucked up – it was in 1966 and you were going to war in Vietnam, and then you come back… I thought you were… This is True revolution!” The man is talking to somebody who is not present

12:18 A black man wearing a cap walks west on Grand to meet with the people hanging out on the west corner. He is on his cell phone: “Well I don’t have no money or anything. I need my permit man.”

12:56 White man in denim jacket walks west on Grand: “I have been having this problem every time… Ok, bye”. Complaining about something.

1:07 One of the ‘street hangers’ in a yellow shirt compliments two young women passing by. They smile but move on.

1:33 “Hello, hello up there” – “Hello, hello up there, we gotta get going man” A seemingly homeless older guy in a white t-shirt has pushed his shopping carrier down Grand Street and is now trying to get a hold of an other guy who is answering something form an apartment on Clifton Place.

1:37 A homeless guy is coming back from pioneer on Lafayette Avenue with an empty carrier

1:43 An old black man passes by with a newspaper in his right hand.

1:51 A group of latino-lookign guys cross Clifton Place north of the intersection and hang out around a car, They are all wearing bandanas.

2:14 Girl on phone passing by Urban Vintage. She has been going forth and back for a while. “Oh hi, how are you, I just dropped off my original bank statements…”

2:21 White young man with a little girl on his shoulders: “Wow, you are too heavy now that

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you had all that ice cream!”

2: 27 Three men (two black and one white) are speaking an African language together outside Choice Market on Grand. It turns out that tho of them are working at the Choice Market, in the kitchen.

2:28 Two men in a dwindow on Grand Avenue to a man with long dreadlocks, who is getting into his car: “What’s up pal!” They get a response in French or an other language. The rasta guy puts some loud hip hop music on in his car and drives away.

3:19 Kids come out to play on the pavement next to Cleaning Society on Clifton Place.

3:25 Robert introduces himself. He is tall, black, wears a scullcap and a green checkered suit jacket: “What are you doing, writing stories? I saw, you have been writing all day.” He seems very friendly.

3:26 I get a glimpse of a guys’ wallet as he passes by me and see that he has a metro card in it.

3:29 A grandma walks up Clifton Place with her grand child, a girl, and apparently they were playing: “Weee, you caught me!” The grandma says. The girl wants to put a leaf in her pocket and insists that it comes in the right pocket instead of the left one.

3:35 Robert passes by me on Grand Avenue and asks me if I what school I go to and if I am married. I tell him know but that I live with my boyfriend, and he says “Alright, let me know if something goes wrong”. He continues west on Grand and stops briefly to chat with the chef from Grand Dakar: “Chef! What are you cooking, man!”

3:37 A yell across the street from south Clifton Place: “Hey Coward!” No response.

3:40 A little boy is trying to lock up his bike, and as I compliment it, his mother starts to tell me about how well he takes care of it and that he even made his father make a lock so nobody would take it. (With that she reminded me that this is a place where people would definitely take the things that are not locked up).

3:47 Four black boys, around 12 years old, are picking up pizzas from The Three Luigis and running with it, heading towards Clifton Place N.

3:49 Girl on the phone, walking west on Grand Ave: “Negative… positive… so, when you are working on your personality itself…” It sounds like she is evaluating someone over the phone.

4:27 Woman passing a new bench that has been put out on Grand Avenue in front of Urban Vintage:”I will see what I can do – I am gonna take the kids”. She is walking together with my neighbor.

4:31 A female runner crosses the intersection in jeans and sneakers, while a Mexican delivery guy from the Choise Market keeps walking forth and back.

5:45 A white couple who lives in number 11 on Clifton Place. A mother is talking to her baby: “Now we are gonna go inside if anybody is gonna pick you up!” The dad to the baby: “I

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will take this guy; I will take this guy!” He takes the baby and they all go inside.

5:48 A little boy S Clifton Place to his brother, while they are both following their mom: “He is too hairy, that is what I don’t like about him”. The mother: “Who are you talking about?” “A boy in school…”

6:23 I am playing invisible ping pong with a little boy who was locking up his bike before. It frustrates him a little that I cannot understand what “balls” I am supposed to hit and which ones are too hard for me.

6:31 Woman: “Yes I did, I gave him my number!” The woman is having an argument with the man she is walking with, my neighbor.

6:37 Inside of Urban Vintage a young man is skyping from his laptop while looking out over Grand Avenue: “I just want to put you on a plane right now… But what can we do? I don’t want him to hit you… Trust your heart, whatever your heart tells you… I am sorry I am not there right now. I love you”.

6:59 A black 15-year old-looking boy calls a number from his phone that he was given by his brother. That is what he tells the person in the other end. Short after the conversation he leaves his two friends on the street to pick up something. He walks west on Grand Avenue.

7:05 A young man hanging out to a girl in miniskirt passing him and crossing the intersection going south: “Whatever party you are going to, can i come? Why not?” He didn’t get a response but assumed what it would be.

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12-1 Local people start hanging out on N Clifton Place; people hanging out on doorsteps and around their homes, waiving to each other; Grocery shoppers on Grand Avenue; A lot of people carrying drinks and coffees around; the street corner hangers have disappeared – maybe they are home for lunch; a car with both white and black passengers turned in the intersection; men in suits with lunch bags; much less flights at this time, as Thomas had predicted.

RHYTHM OF SPATIAL PRACTICES IN THE AFTERNOON

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2-3 Many families on the street; and handicapped people; it is quiet and there are no business vans and no trucks; many people taking dogs for awalk; a single guy hanging out; a single dry-clean pick-up from Clean Society. The bartender from Urban Vintage told me that all people pick up there is marihuana.

3-4 The big school kids come home from school – and start smoking weed on the pavement N Clifton Place; kids are playing; the school kids hanging out seem more social than the ‘usual hangers’ – they talk together and laugh.

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1-2 The street corner hangers are back, and more black men join them; The flight activity is back to normal; People start eating at the tables outside The Three Luigis pizzeria on Grand Avenue; more grocery shoppers; business vans are driving really fast through the area; elderly women start hanging out on the street and talking too, some of them go together for grocery shopping; Pratt students come for lunch; younger hip hop looking guys are coming out on the street; small school kids are coming back form school; the parked cars are being moved one by one;

4-5 School busses are driving through the area; Kids are playing outside; Older couples are hanging out and chatting on the street; It is quiet; a police helicopter crosses the area heading against Manhattan.

5-6 Girls are bicycling; all the little kids are gone with their parents; older guys are hanging out, checking out people on the street; women do groceries in their trolleys; boys handing out pretend they play basket ball but have no ball;

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MAPPING

The nature of the labyrinth city is one of confusions, dead ends, shortcuts, and sometimes horizontal, vertical and (invisible) multi-dimensional levels for exploration. The labyrinth city is a complex system, organizing and disorganizing uncountable milieus. I am choosing the exercise of mapping because I wish to form a methodology that goes beyond methodologies that are “rooted” in rigorous philosophies of fixed steps of chronological analysis, leading to suggestions of “solutions”. Rather than performing an analysis, mapping takes up a more flexible, continuous nature, and invites for an act of reorganization rather than of interpretation. My mapping of flowspaces is intended as a framework of rediscovering the milieu rather than reproducing it. An optics of rediscovery is open to temporary and contemporary influences and to understanding a milieu from its past as much as from its current relationships, within the aim of finding new relationships of meaning. Whereas an optics of reproduction looks at a milieu with biased assumptions about the nature and potentials of the place. In this case an urban milieu might not be understood form the complex relationships that make up its particular nature, whereby the place is in danger of urban renewal and planning strategies of replacement or enforced identity symbolism. My photo documentation put me in the role of a nomadic gazer and allowed me to take detours around the obvious in order to ‘engage’ the milieu. From this synchronic documentation of a twelve hour ‘slice’ in time and place, I wish to unfold my observed environment, through mapping the literal and complex forces penetrating the milieu. This is to open up a space of abstraction that might enable for re-constellations of imaginations about the urbanization process. My exercise is not about suggesting a ‘better’ version of the territory, but rather about unveiling possible spatial arrangements that have come with the changing nature of spatial and temporal structures in today’s world. Ultimately, this is an exercise of visualizing the abstractions of an urban environment that are born when flowspaces overlap, in the ambiguously overlayered

4 Mapping; An exercise of enablement rather than depiction for “analyzing” an urban terrain that goes beyond beyond documentation and allows for a potential to fold out, as an active agent of cultural intervention.

Optics of rediscovery; A research mindset that is open to take historical as well as contemporary and temporary influences into account within the aim of finding new relationships of meaning.

Nomadic gazer; A mode of urban observation that is liberated from spatial organization.

Synchronic documentation; Documentation of a milieu as it exists in a moment of time performed to capture a “frozen photo” of its flowspaces.

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milieu. This is also an exercise of understanding how conceptual elements are staggering from the meaning and place-specific relationships they once had when their surrounding context changes with the changes in flows. In the optics of media urbanism, it is in these meetings between flowspaces that the urbanization process is being reshaped. Therefore, mapping is an exercise of enablement rather than depiction, and it allows for a potential to unfold. As James Corner puts it: “Through rendering visible multiple and sometimes disparate field conditions, mapping allows for an understanding of terrain as only the surface expression of a complex and dynamic imbroglio of social and natural processes.” (Corner 1999, 214). Corner suggests mapping not only as a creative activity but as an active agent of cultural intervention (Corner 1999, 217). The process of mapping therefore transgresses representation and forms into a creation of space. This is why the practice of mapping differs from the practice of tracing, and where mapping proves its rhizomatic DNA. Tracing is founded on a principle of reproducibility, about describing a de facto state, to maintain balance (Deleuze and Guattari 2009, 12). Mapping is an exercise of experimentation in contact with the real, one that constructs and forms a different situation than what was there before. This is because the map, or the rhizome, allows for connection between all fields in the map. Therefore, my mapping of the intersection of Grand Avenue and Clifton Place should describe flows, fields and dimensions rather than trace elements. In order to find connections between these that can unveil something new. In a way, rhizomatic mapping is an exercise of ripping apart for the purpose of putting back together in new ways and suggest new meanings. Corner suggests three levels of the mapping practice that he refers to as defining the field, identifying the extracts and finally, plotting. Field describes an organization system of a frame; the orientation, coordinates, scale, units of measure and graphic projection. It is the prior system of organization that conditions how

Tracing; An approach to urban research founded on a principle or reproducibility that enables documentation of the pre-existing and maintains balance.

Extract; The things that can be observed in a milieu, including informal quantities, velocities, forces and trajectories.

Field; An organization system of a frame to contain the graphic projection.

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and what observations are made and presented (Corner 1999, 229). Extracts are the things that can be observed in the given milieu. These include informational quantities, velocities, forces and trajectories, and should be selected, isolated, pulled out and deterritorialized (Corner 1999, 229). However, as rhizomes should not be characterized from elements, what I am looking for are dimensions of influential qualities; – influential for the place-experience. My mapping exercise begins with a conceptual brainstorm of observations from my initial photo documentation, and attempt to cluster these into relational groupings. Looking over my notes and photographs, as different in category and kind my observations and associations might be, a pattern forms around ‘movement’ – of people, transportation, and flexible structures in the milieu. Another pattern forms around ‘appearances’ – of forms of urban morphologies; of visual representations within the milieu, and of confusing appearances that have lost or had replaced the context of their establishment. Yet another pattern forms around systems of grids or frameworks that keep the milieu in place and weave it into the more complicated system of greater New York City. These ‘ordering’ observations bind spatial occurances together and structure the three-dimensional nature of the milieu. Finally, I find a pattern of ‘ephemerals’ or impulses, or temporary interferings with the milieu. Placed, unintended or random, these ephemerals form into a flowspace that unveils narratives going on in the milieu, and tells bites of stories. My mapping of extracts into these flowspaces then forms into a more creative part on Corner’s third level of plotting. Plotting is the process of defining relationships among the extracts that can be spatial, geometrical, taxonomic, or genealogical procedures of relating and indexing. Plotting-procedures are strategic and imaginative, drawn out of relational structures, and a procedure of “reterritorializing the milieu” (Corner 1999, 230). In order to identify these relationships however, I will have to organize my extracts in ways that allow for their reinterpretation. Sandra Moriarty and Gretchen Barbatsis propose a methodology of a rhizome analysis (2005) which they propose in an

Reterriatorialization; The replacement of control and order with one that is more meaningful to the occupants of the territory. Reterriatorialization often follows deterriatorialization.

Detour; A mode of urban movement and observation that avoids the obvious.

Plotting procedure; A procedure of plotting that is strategic and imaginative at the same time .

Plotting; The process of defining relationships among the extracts that can be spatial, geometrical, taxonomic, or genealogical procedures of relating and indexing.

Deterriatorialization; To take the pre-established control and order away from a territory and undo what has been done.

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attempt to map the field of visual communication in order to identify the transdisciplinary roots of the field. Their rejection of a common “tree of knowledge metaphor” derives from their attempt to generate terms that constitute a discourse of visual communication. They aim at capturing not only the complexities and dynamics of the field but also the various flows of theoretical activity and research associated with visual sensemaking, in order to re-define the concept of ‘visual communication’ (Moriarty and Barbatsis 2005, xii and xv). Moriarty and Barbatsi look for three types of ‘lines’ for this exercise; molar rigid lines which refer to hierarchies, stratefication and structuration of fixed constructs, and molecular supply lines, referring to movements away from the rigid lines that disturb the linearity and normalcy of molar aggregates (Moriarty and Barbatsis 2005, xiv). I will borrow these two concepts in the mapping of my flowspaces because they invite for an identification of the fixed followed by a methodological movement towards the flexible. The third type of line that Moriarty and Barbatsis generate from Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of the rhizome is the line of flight or escape line. The flight line is the ‘plane of creativity’ and where movements are deterritorialized (Moriarty and Barbatsis 2005, xiv). It is in the practice of ‘plotting’, the final level in my framework, that I will look for ‘flight lines’. As plotting refers to the process of finding relationships, flight lines are the levels where multiplicities are put into relationships and where the rhizome is extended; renewing itself. This is the level of reworking that is constantly going on in urban spaces of the media city and characteristic for the nature of contemporary urban processes. It is in the practice of the plotting and identification of flight lines that Corner talks about the potential of mapping as an active agent of cultural invention (Corner 1999, 217), because this is where the milieu is no longer just being “traced” or reproduced, but rediscovered. Plotting produces a reterriatorialization of milieus (Corner 1999, 230), whereas the flight lines that occurs from plotting deterriatorialize milieus into new orders or potentials. In this methodology of mapping, reterriatorialization would not make sense without deterriatorialization, while deterriatorialization

Supply line; Lines of movement away from rigid lines that disturb the linearity and normalcy of molar aggregates.

Rigid line; Lines of hierarchies, stratification and stucturation of fixed constructs.

Rhizome analysis; An analytical method for capturing various flows, complexities and dynamics of a field in order to re-define the concept of initial investigation.

Line of flight; The ‘plane of creativity’ where extracts can ‘escape’ from their original position and become deterritorialized.

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would not be possible without reterriatorialization. It should be noted that the process of mapping is not as linear as this book format enforce its representation. It is an interweaving process of phases of collecting, mapping, visualizing and renegotiating meaning. There can be no right result, but there can be more or less meaningful progressions. It is impossible to avoid contradictions because of the ambiguous possibilities of grouping, and therefore the art is to map and weave the ambiguity into relationships of multiple meanings.

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MAP.A map is a representation of features showing a spatial arrangement, but the criteria of the represented data might be determined in a way that brings the map far from the conventions of the medium. The field might be a brick wall, the land might be decaying paint, and the points migth be as autonomous and unpredictable as the world that the map serves to portray. Could a map of the difference in character of Manhattan and Brooklyn look like this?

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FRAMEWORK GRIDS

Looking at my photos, quotes and situation descriptions again and again, a patterning of communalities appeared across the examples. A significant part of my findings reminded me of the “fixed” structures of an urban environment, or the structures that keep it in place in time and space. A physical urban environment is never drifting in its own context. It is never independent from urban structures and policies, or from systems of operation that may have been developed hundreds of years ago. Neither is it a drifting parallel to history or the stories of the world. It is always placed in a context; bound and plaited into the bigger structures of the city it is a part of. These strings or grids make a dimensional and contextual framework of the milieu. In the intersection of Grand Avenue and Clifton Place, there are several nets that connect the milieu to New York City, and to the world, and it is as if these nets keep it in place as well as give it nutrition. I characterize these flowspaces as framework grids. These are the straight roads and uni-directional traffic; the network of litter cans serving to organize a clean environment and their functional relationship to the sanitation garage on 465 Hamilton Ave. between 2nd Avenue and 14th Street in South; the fixations of fences and their isolation of areas and pathways; the chains between bikes and bike racks, dogs and bike racks and between dog and human master; the manhole cover on Grand Avenue that is a blocked entrance to an underground sewer network; the placement of lamp posts that lit up the street “light-zones”, placed to meet each other and lit up the street; the 1902 O’Brien-style hydrant linked to a 7000 miles in-city distribution network of tunnels and water mains, reaching 107.000 fire hydrants across the five boroughs of New York City; the pavement that webs a pedestrian walkway and frames a safe zone for the people walking through the intersection; the sound lines and flight routes of aeroplanes on the sky passing by Clinton Hill approximately every minute; the traffic signs indicating direction for moving through the milieu such as “One Way”, “Stop”, and indicating the names of Grand

order

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Avenue and Clifton Place; The various wires hanging over pavements and connecting electrical meters and lamp posts with electricity from hidden sources; a police car driving through with emergency lights warning about the untamed in this milieu and reminding about the past of this neighborhood; the distribution of the shops and cafes on Grand Avenue that follow the land use and zoning plans; and the mixture of Black, White, Hispanic and Asian people with an overweight of white, younger dwellers and café goers, “corner hangers” and women with trolleys.

CONNECTING THREADConnecting Threads’ relate to strings of meanings and directions that keep the urban place or cityscape together. These can be permanent or temporary, evi-dent and invisible. They can be materialistic, connecting elements of the build environment, fragile and carry the energetic nerves of the city; they can be vi-sually connections of definitions of spaces; they can witness about temporary, possibly repeated situations of interactions between people and the physical structures, they can be patterns in surfaces linking elements together, be shad-ows of temporary lines that connect otherwise divided features, they can be threads of links between humans, and animals, and they can be layers of visual significance like leveled lights that connect the cityscape in a sudden transforma-tion from day to night. They can also be moving elements, like bike messengers, or airplanes connecting surrounding destinations in airborne grids.

Connecting thread;String (line, wire, shadow, channel) that connect one element in urban space to the other, in order to either stabilize or nutrition such elements.

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FLIGHTS.The flights fly over the intersection every one to one-and-a-half minute, all heading for La Guardia Airport. They mark a grid order on the sky and frame the vertical dimension of the environment. However, flights also connect the urban gazer to the dimension above, as a reminder of a larger gird of take-offs and landings that connects Brooklyn to the greater United States.

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FLIGHT LIGHTSOnly the sound from the aero plane’s engines fills up the milieu until you look up and wait, patiently, before and aero plane appears from underneath the duvet of clouds. These gigantic fireflies keep on mark-ing a grid on the sky over Clinton Hill all night long.

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grids

framework patterns

the lines that keep things into place

lines in order

order

line-ups and border markersstretches

wiresdestination connections

weaving threads together

structuresconnection points

organization

relational lines

Framework grids;Lines of structure that keep a milieu in place and organize it. There are often grids or organizations of a power relationship.

planned tiesstretching hegemonies

ORGANIZATIONkeeping in place

kept in placeconnection a to bdestination connectionsfinding relationships

marking direction

Planned infrastructures organize traffic flow, helped by signs for direction and practice.

Lines of organization reveil hierarchies, between inhabitants and between the milieu and the greater urban system of New York City.

‘Connecting threads’ of lines and wires bind the environment together, functionally and perceptionally.

Shadows restructure the visible experience of the milieu in different ‘lay-outs’ throughout the day and year and depending on the weather.

grid grid grid grid grid grid grid grid

general observations extracts

Movement

Appearances

Impulses

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polica cargarbage van garbage cans

wires wifi hotspots hydrant lamp post

metermanhole coverwater hose

aeroplanes

one-way sign shadowspavement

fence dog chain

Rigid lines Supply lines

organization of authoritiesfunctionality of the milieu

systems of power connecting information systemslines of aspirationinvisible gridschangeable grid patterns

objects og greater networkselements of organizationdirecting people patternmythical systems of hidden layers

organizational help linesauthority instructions

risttricting bordersincapsulating linesdividing symbols


police car garbage van trash cansphone boothaeroplanes wifi hotspots

manhole cover lamp postone-way sign

dog chain shadows

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FRAMEWORK GRIDS

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AMBIGUOUS MORPHOLOGIES

A description of a milieu’s physical features might be one of the most immediate impulses on the experience of being in it. However, drifting around my intersection for twelve hours made me start paying attention to the “design features” that were less intentional, perhaps. In fact, I noticed how much these “design confused” or unintentional features affected my aesthetic absorption of the milieu. From my photo documentation, I see coherencies between these design elements into forming a flowspace of expressive morphologies. Expressive morphologies can be dominant or almost recessive, like a bent nail in a wooden lamp post what witnesses of a message put there in the past; tags on house facades, traffic signs, lamp posts, once incraved in wet concrete; graffiti painted with kids’ crayons on pavements and walls, just waiting to be washed off by the next rain guilt; shadows interrupting the common appearance of the urban scene, as when the shadow of leaves dot brownstone houses on Clifton Place; when colors and structures collide in an apparent unintentional manner, perhaps because the façade parts have different owners; when a three has been “adopted” by local kids, putting up a sign that states the that the soil around this tree now serves as a private garden (please respect); footprint in pavement witnessing of a person of wit, destructive behavior or simply one that wasn’t paying attention to the pavement construction; a blue print or lit-up sky from the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan, connecting Clinton Hill to the rests of New York City in a collective ceremonial memory; signs changing significance in the urban environment as they lit up in the dark and become apparent signals and guiding posts in the street; Two Senegalese flags, one in a window above Grand Dakar and on in the window of a car parked outside of the African restaurant; a “grass oasis” growing up from a chink between the pavement edge and the paving; wink from a police car driving through the area.

Morphology;The form of things as they appear when studied.

appearances

Urban appearance interruption;When the appearance of an urban structure is appearing differently than it was intended, or, when the a surface carries conflicting design parts.

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APPEARANCE CONFUSION‘Appearance confusion’ relates to urban appearances of structures and facades that “interrupt” the intended design logic of a place. Such inter-ruptions are misleading directions, disorder, incoherent design patterns in flats, visible ‘ghosted’ historic signs, autonomous appropriation of surfaces and elements, confusion in signs and messages, ‘tags’ over-lay-ering architecture,un-interpretative signs, mixed materials, unplanned traces of decay, unplanned traces of becoming, green spots within con-crete spaces, inaccessible ‘arcades’ interrupting the physical levels, and unusual appearances of facades.

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9/11 BLUE PRINTThe week leading up to 9/11, a pillar of light in Manhattan, at the origi-nal site of the 9/11 catastrophe of the World Trade Center, could be spotted above the Urban Vintage Café. It lit up a “blue print” on the sky as a cultural and memorial connection between all areas of New York City, and reminded New Yorkers about the date. The space of the memorial light drags the intersection closer to greater New York and becomes an emotional experiential dimension. I was reminded that it had been there all day, however it was not visible until after dark. The blue light plays with the café light. It marks the dimension of the vertical space above Clinton Hill, as well as its size brings another dimension to the notion of scale.

98The way things appearDesign, or maybe not design

appearances

unintendedintendedvisually out of place

beautifulcolorsdisplacement

immediate impression

the form of somethingre-appropriation

Ambiguous morphologies;The appearance of urban facades, structures and signs as intended or unintended throughout the milieu’s design and historic development.

intendedcolors

immediate impression

MORPHOLOGYcolors

how it looks

wrong patterncolor composit

displacementlost meaning

The architecture witnesses of different periods in time.

unusual design elements

messages on urban facades

CULTURAL MARKS

Order

Movement

Impulses


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architecture colliding colorsfire stairs footprint in pavement bended nail street signs tags/graffiti stamp on lamppost Senegalese flag

lamp post neon sign shadow pattern wires grass oasis


appropriationRe-apropriationrandom compositionsdecayregulated and unregulated restaurationthe built environment

messagesorganization - interruptionorganizing space - disorganizing spacesigns of culture and identity

circular lightning, overlappingambiance variationsafetyout of coverageprojection

marks on pathspattern in structure

wiresfire stairs

street light

street signs footprint in pavementlamp post

neon sign Senegalese flag grass oasis


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AMBIGUOUS MORPHOLOGIES

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LOCOMOTIVE ASSEMBLIES

Assemblies are social patterns in a milieu. The rhythm of a milieu depends a lot on assemblies, because the rhythm is also the formations of people and the communalities of practices. The nature of assemblies is significant because they are never without a value, and they never leave the spot of their gathering without having changed its symbolic value a little for those who live in the area. From my findings, I have identified a number of signs of movement and social usage of parts of the milieu that were not necessarily encouraged by design, so these had to be motivated by different forces. The morning visit of two garbage vans collecting different types of garbage; cars following the One Way-sign, however some of them turning around in the intersection when traffic was low; bikers biking in all directions, from delivery men to students and exercise riders; bike racks create a space for bikers to park; benches outside of Urban Vintage Café and Choice Market a little further up Grand on Lafayette Avenue provide sitting/working/chatting-space and make a popular destination for locals or passersbys’ enjoying their morning coffee; Children playing on selected pavements – between Choice Market and Urban Vintage and on the pavement left to Clean Society and up to the first brownstone house on Clifton Place, bringing the mothers together and forming a hindering for pedestrians; a single boy with a scooter playing around on the pavement in front of Grand Dakar; social spots outside of Choice Market, outside of 3 Luigis pizzeria where the outdoor tables and chairs make a popular lunch hub, outside of Clean Sotiety and on the corner across the street – this crowd seems a little suspicious and can hang out for hours without seemingly doing anything; people walking north of Grand Avenue in the morning - probably to reach the subway on Lafayette Avenue, and walking south in the early evening – probably on their way home from work; people grouping on two different staircases on Clifton Place, in front of number; search for wifi-signal for cell phone signals which leads many inhabitants west on Clifton Place to reach the

Assemblies;Socia patterns in a milieu.

movement

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hotspot of Grand Dakar; women with trolleys making their way to the Pioneer Grocery shop on Lafayette, mostly in the morning around 10 and again in the early afternoon around 3-4; school kids coming home from school, the little ones around 1-2 accompanied by grown’ups and grand parents, and the bigger ones around 5-6, taking up the pavements around Grand Dakar forming circles and smoking marihuana.

Traffic patterns

Gathering spots

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morning trails

CIRCLEStimed gatheringstraffic patterns MEDIA MOVEMENT

movement

urban elements inviting for resttrails

clusteringdriven by destinationrhythms of dayrhythm of people

swirls

clusteringMOVEMENT

Locomotive assemblies;Social patterns that forms in modes of movement.

circular directionscontinuous temporary swirlsmedia movement patterns

path formation

formations in spacecontinuous re-organizing formations in place

driven by purpose

trajectories

Grid organization stimulate movement patters of traffic and transportation.

Businesses organize movement, and Pioneer attract a number of trolleys.

Urban interactive elements like benches and cafe tables have centripedal forces.

In the afternoon, the school kids come home.

mooooooooove

order

Appearances

Impulses

Rigid general observations extracts

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police car scootersgarbage van

kids with school bags playing kidslaptops

trolleys bikers

cafe chairs and tablesbike racksstreet names

subway stations re-scheduled trains

internet cables wifi hotspotsphone booth cell phones


street namesbenches, chairs and tablesgarbage vanphone booth wifi hotspots

street names

wifi hotspots

traffic directionrhythmic movementsrandom compositions

movement in demographycomformity clusteringpatterns of workchanging physical location

equipment and vehicles for whereaboutsa to b trailsmoving in stagestimed gatherings

directions for movementorganization

arrival and departuredefecation

space-time movementjourney of voicestatic movementtechnological development


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WIFI SPOTFor this research initiaitve, I wanted to to map the free wifi in the intersection. I noticed from my initial photo documentation that especially the corner in front of Grand Dakar had a lot of temporary visitors walking down there from East Clifton Place, standing there for a few minutes playing with their phone, and shortly after leaving again, the same way from which they came. That made me think about how the urban space is arranged according to people’s media use, which is increasingly turning into wifi-use. North Grand Dakar, the busiest of the streets, if furthermore full of mobile phone users and people walking with their phone in front of them while looking at the screen. I brought an iPhone with me and moved slowly around in the intersection. When the wifi updated itself, I would note down what came up. The iPhone allowed me to also note the strength of the signal, rated one for the weakest and three for the strongest. I went around in the same path twice to make my result more accurate (the iPhone signal is not necessarily representative of the signals of wifi out there), and I found that it mapped almost the same spots as for the first round. The found that the free wifi is particularly strong in the north end of Grand Avenue, and practically non-existing on east Clifton Place, whereas west Clifton Place had a number of hotspots, particularly around the Pratt area. The wifi from Grand Avenue is accessible from the Urban Vintage cafe, which is heavily used as a working space for locals, and as the wifi does not come form Urban Vintage’s own network, it is interesting to think about how wifi hotspots “support” certain practices and places.

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WIFI HOTSPOTS

A Grand Dakar 3, WatchOutforth-eBigGirl 2B Netgear 2, Grand Dakar 3C Linksys 2, Grand Dakar 3, Netgear 2, Womtbg 2D Netgear 3, Linksys 3, Grand Da-kar 2, htsetup 2E Netgear 3, Linksys 3, GD 2F Linksys 2, GD 3, NG 2G GD 2, Linksys 2, NG 1, Womtbg 2H GD 1I GD 1J GD 1L Linksys 2M GD 2N GD 2, WO4TBG 2O GD 2P Cliftonplace 2, DD 1Q Apple Network627161 2R Airpathron 2, Pratt Institute 2S P! 3, Airpathron 2T Sophie 2, PI 3U PI 3V Airpathron 2 PI 2X Airpathron 2Y Womtbg 2Z Womtbg 3

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LOCOMOTIVE ASSEMBLIES

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TEMPORARY LANDINGS

Exchangeable elements belong to a more flexible dimension of the urban milieu. Those are elements that come and go, that exist briefly and that can sometimes be characterized as random. I will refer to this flowspace dimension as temporary landings, because of its volatile and rapid nature. I found an impressive amount of advertisement flyers for broadway musicals, real estate agents and established theaters and artist groups, reminding of systematized influences. These are not only reminders of local activities but also discursive signifiers of the symbolic value of Clinton Hill, as this is produced in the neighborhood and consumed and reproduced by local inhabitants and as the neighborhood is being interpreted by surrounding neighborhoods and boroughs in New York City. These notes and small papers however swirl in the space as a form of ephemeral media circulation, together wirh unsystematized notices from autonomous advertisers. Perhaps, the inconsistent messages serve rip apart the system of circulation and mix the professional messages with disruptive ones. Some printed media ephemerals however were produced by locals, like the “No Parking Sunday”-flyer reminding of the weekend’s upcoming festival, however the rigidness is apparant in that the flyer reminds of a returning, annual and cyclic event, contributing to the order of the milieu. Impulses of trash and freely flying empty plastic bags however has a non-cyclic nature. This symbol reminds about the qualitative aspects of human life, of life being lived, and leaving a trace of it behind. The sound of the place made impulsive impressions as well, as the returning sound form an aeroplane’s engine kept the aural atmosphere in place, whereas a yell of anger, a comment to a stranger or a glimpse of a conversation on a mobile phone break up the soundscape in less rigid compositions. Situations that occur in a second and disappears soon after are likewise brief and rapid impulses.

impulses

114compulsions

incentivescelesteral elements

overheard concersations

impulses

reminders of urban life

mixed messagesno coordinates of locationone-time eventtendencies oftemporary events

a finite change of monmentum

spreading out signs

Temporary landings;Randon, briefly existimg events that of a volatole and rapid nature.

aeroplanesswirs of symbols

identified human traces

sudden occurencesaeroplanes appearances

unplanned events

formations in place

happened to be theretrash

pulses

found

Order

Appearances

Movement


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Professional advertisement autonomous services conversationssound from aeroplane engines situations yell of anger

urban decoration waste‘No Parking Sunday’-flyer plastic bags annual events impulsive events


street namesbenches, chairs and tablesgarbage vanphone booth wifi hotspots

street namesurban decoration

wifi hotspots

Rigid general observations extracts lasting for a very short timeshort life cycle

transotory and momentary eventstemporary livesimpulsive reactions

travelling objectsreminders of past situationsstabile impulsesimpulses of no coordinates

happenings inside or outside of fixed urban structures...

116ENTERTAINMENTPeripheral Productions: A Soap in HaitiUnion Square Theatre: Through The NightEugene O’Neill Theatre: FELA!The Theatre at Madison Square Garden: Madea’s NIG Happy FamilyThe Tank: loop 2.4.3 in ResidencERub A Dub Stylee rap music at Grand DakarWildseed Cultural Group: Slum Beautyful – Music from the gut of Black AmericaThe NY Musical Theatre Festival: Trav’lin – The New 1930s Harlem MusicalStorytelling by Catherine WhiteThe New York International Fringe Festival: Did You Do Your Homework?Samah Productions at The Medicine Show Theatre: Broke Wide OpenThe New School: Women Writers of the DIaspora, reading and discussion with Tiphanie YaniqueBrooklyn Soul Survivors at Rose Live Music

EDUCATIONInternational School of BrooklynFort Greene Music Scene: piano Lessons, rip-off-noteMath/Physics Tutor Christine GrenierClinton Hill Guitar Lessons with Bryan WadeA Needle Pulling Thread, sewing classesMusic Together of Fort Greene Clinton Hill, rip-off-noteJen Herman Violin and Viola, rip-off-note

FOR CHILDRENThe Green Toys Directory online sale promotion

REAL ESTATEBrooklyn Real Estate Guide to Home FinderInterior Lifestyles Real Estate LLC: Marcia BrownJamie Federko Licensed Real Estate Salesperson

SERVICESStudio D The New Makeup StudioJust Because Hair SalonVYPHUISDESIGNS, Marylin Ng-a-qui home sewing and craftingDoggy Walk and StuffRuben ConstructionKenneys’ Iron WorksGreen Hill Food Co-opNanny Nurse With Experience

POLITICSKevin Powell for Congress

MEDIAThe Hill: Journal of Clinton Hill, Fort Green and WallaboutOur Time Press: The Local Paper With The Global View

ARTIfetayo: African arts and culture classes and programsRE:FORMSCHOOLANNIKMicah Bowie Gallery OpeningBrooklyn Childrens MuseumThe Market at Bedford Village, showcase of boutique merchants and artTribeca Arts Center: Randy Weston Uhuru Africa

BOOK PROMOTIONDeviant Damnation by R. H. PeronneauWinter Blahs and Yah Yahs by Jonita G. Saint-LegerYolele! Recipes From The Heart of Senegal by Pierre Thiam

CAUSESMaking Strides againts Breast Cancer Walk

WELLNESSWellness Consulting with Rebecca CascianoPersonal Trainer, Mat Pilates Instructor, Dance InstructorBija Yoga KidsRebirthing with Marcia Brown, alternative treatmentSvadhisthana yogaSound Therapy

LOCAL INITIATIVESRub A Dub Stylee rap music at Grand DakarWhat’s on Grand Ave , collective local business promotionWellness Consulting with Rebecca CascianoAnnik (no info)Micah Bowie Gallery OpeningLafayette Youthmarket with fresh produceDoggy Walk and StuffRebirthing with Marcia Brown, alternative treatmentSvadhisthana yogaGreen Hill Food Co-opNanny Nurse With ExperienceFort Greene Music Scene: piano Lessons, rip-off-noteMath/Physics Tutor Christine GrenierClinton Hill Guitar Lessons with Bryan WadeA Needle Pulling Thread, sewing classesMusic Together of Fort Greene Clinton Hill, rip-off-noteJen Herman Violin and Viola, rip-off-noteThe Hill: Journal of Clinton Hill, Fort Green and WallaboutOur Time Press: The Local Paper With The Global View

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PRINT MEDIA EPHEMERALS

The circulation of media in Clinton Hill shows not only what local events, initiatives and businesses that are active in the area, but also what kinds of entertainment and event options from around Brooklyn and Manhattan that consider Clinton Hill for a target area. Elizabeth Ellsworth describes media’s role in place-making with how they repeat conventions of language, storytelling, identity, and ways of knowing, deliver cultural significations to the spaces and times of inhabitation, which are still in process as emerging events (Ellsworth 2005, 127). I collected all publicly distributed media I could find in the cafes around my milieu area and divided them into categories that seemed evident: entertainment, education, for children, real estate, services, politics, print media, art, book promotion, causes, wellness, and local initiaitves. The pluralism of the milieu shines through the print media ephemerals with a strong promotion of African American cultural entertainment, which particularly characterizes the attention from Manhattan. Among these are flyers from the FELA! musical on broadway, an ad from the Slum Beautiful performance by Wildseed Cultural Group, comedy shows by African-American stand-up comedians and advertisement from tv shows with an African-American cast. Most attention from Manhattan is further characterized by entertainment flyers and educational programs. The media ephemerals that reveil a well-established musical and educational-musical scene of Clinton Hill are also noticeable, found in flyers for musical performances and in several autonomous ads for piano and guitar lessons. The amount of wellness offerings is also significant, with yoga classes, ‘wellness consulting’, ‘rebirthing’ and ’sound therapy’. These reveil a local interest in spiritual and health activities. The overwhelming number of local initiatives and services reveil a cultural and educational system operating invisibly in to the visitor in the milieu. These events guide ‘educate’ local inhabitants, guide people’s pathways and witness about supported cultural interests. In a collected mixed appeal to fans of black music, children, wellness enthusiasts and health oriented consumers, these print media ephemerals tell the story of the social life and cultural influences prelocating the intersection. Of course, the selection of print media ephemerals will vary throughout the year, and my collection represents a synchrone space in time.

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you can have a little sexy outfit…the thing is, you don’t know who else will be working in the studio… Alright babe, see you later

he said he would be here between 10 and 11

hey coward!

yes, I did, I gave hom my number

whatever party you are going to, can I come?

negative...positive...sowhen you are working on your personality itself...

I will see what I can do, I am gonna take the kids

now we are gonna go inside and see if anybody is gonna pick you up

I just want to put you on a plane right now… But what can we do? I don’t want him to hit you… Trust your heart, whatever your heart tells you… I am sorry I am not there right now. I love you

he is too hairy, that is why I don’t like him

what are you doing, writing stories? i saw you writing all day

what’s up pal?

weee... you caught me!

chef, what are you cooking, man?

you said you fucked up – it was in 1966 and you were going to war in Vietnam, and then you come back… I thought you were… this is True revolution

well I don’t have no money or anything. I need my permit man

I have been having this problem every time… ok, bye

hello, hello up there, we gotta get going manTEMPORARY LANDINGS

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you can have a little sexy outfit…the thing is, you don’t know who else will be working in the studio… Alright babe, see you later

he said he would be here between 10 and 11

hey coward!

yes, I did, I gave hom my number

whatever party you are going to, can I come?

negative...positive...sowhen you are working on your personality itself...

I will see what I can do, I am gonna take the kids

now we are gonna go inside and see if anybody is gonna pick you up

I just want to put you on a plane right now… But what can we do? I don’t want him to hit you… Trust your heart, whatever your heart tells you… I am sorry I am not there right now. I love you

he is too hairy, that is why I don’t like him

what are you doing, writing stories? i saw you writing all day

what’s up pal?

weee... you caught me!

chef, what are you cooking, man?

you said you fucked up – it was in 1966 and you were going to war in Vietnam, and then you come back… I thought you were… this is True revolution

well I don’t have no money or anything. I need my permit man

I have been having this problem every time… ok, bye

hello, hello up there, we gotta get going man

1225FINAL MAP

The final map of my project is a composition of these flowspaces. They are plotted on to one another based on my reflections on dynamics and relationships between them. This is done with reflections on the nature and inner ‘unrest’ of each flowspace, depicted as the relationship between rigid lines and supply lines, in which the language of the milieu can be interpreted. Read from an optics of media urbanism, these relationships regard stability and flexibility in organization, repetitive and autonomous movements, functional and disfunctional appearances and rational and emotional impulses. It is not about a a replacement of one or the other, the molar (rigid) or the molecular (supply), rather, these findings should be considered for an open database of flexible dynamics in between. This is what causes the milieu to renew itself, that makes it interesting to its inhabitants, that provides it with a special character and that combines its past and present in the experiencs of a contemporary plural environment. These relationships characterize the multi-dimensional spatiality and urbanization processes of the urban milieu. The project of this book of mapping flowspaces is a concurrent project of mapping the ‘discipline’ of media urbanism. This is my suggestion of a contemporary optics and methodological framework for understanding the urbanization processes of urban milieus in the media city. It is an exploration of various methodologies and a journey of finding concepts through methodological and theoretical practice. These are all collected in a ‘Media Urbanism Dictionary’ as a final conclusion of this book.

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LG

5

125

LG

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CREATIVE POWERA believe in abruption of repetition, which can happen when orders are flexible and allow for re-composition of paths and purposes. A place needs to be designed and preserved to inspire its inhabitants, and therefore in can only be organized halfway by authorities - the rest needs to be done by its inhabitants. Media urbanism believes that detours, self-decoration and inspiration grow creative power, which is the fuel for local publications and distribution of information, establishment of local services, galleries and cultural events.

PLACES OF THE UNEXPECTEDThe random elements in an urban milieu of traces of waste left over from past situations, neglected properties and interruptions of movement not only witness about the daily life of the milieu but also stimulate for re-appropriation of the milieu. Urban milieus should be appreciated for their degree of ‘unexpectedness’ because the unexpected happens in structures that are fairly organized so that the unexpected can be noticed, but also open to interruptions so that the unexpected is possible. Places where the unexpected can occur are places that invite for local dedication and investment, through re-appropriation of the place.

URBAN OPEN SYSTEMUrban milieus should be considered for spaces of conversation and dialogue; between people and between civics and authorities. Appreciation of the urban milieu as an open system invites for a democratic environment of discussion and negotiation, and for a participatory neighborhood.

IDEAS OF MEDIA URBANISM

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PLURAL COMPLEXITYThe mix of print media ephemerals of mixed corporate, private, local and greater Manhattan announcements existing within an equally shared distribution network of tables in the local cafés represent an ideal distribution of space between plural cultures and a plural group of inhabitants. Although divisional lines of physical and metaphorical character will always create distinction in a social urban complex, that very distinction creates energy and prevents the environment from falling asleep. Urban spaces must welcome complexity and structured around a welcoming of the new, as well as the old, which is different.

MIXED TIME-SPACESThe co-existence of historical symbols and contemporary impulses should be embraced. While historical marks might loose their functional meaning, what they don’t loose is their significance as signs from the past that remind the urban explorer that although the moment of now is an isolated unity of impressions and direction, it is also a moment in a long term development process and builds upon a history of struggles, victories and lessons. The arrival of digital spaces through multiple entrance points builds into the time-spaces of the past and present and should be regarded as a vital component of the time-spatial composition.

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Borderland;The zone that surrounds a territory and witnesses struggles of identity, power and symbolism.Bricolage; The jumbled effect produced by the close proximity of influences from past and present of multiple cultural characteristics.

City as labyrinth; The anatomy of a complex irregular network system of urban structures plaiting milieus, flowspaces and paths into each other. This figurative arrangement is dynamic, like a web of flows, and it has a nature of random encounters.

Connecting thread; A string (line, wire, shadow, channel) that connects one element in urban space to the other, in order to stabilize and nutrition such elements.

Dérivé; Moving through an environment within the rhythm of flows, impressions and encounters.

Deterriatorialization; To take the pre-established control and order away from a territory and undo what has been done.

Detour; A mode of urban movement and observation that avoids the obvious.

Experience of place-based space; The urban experience of a place that is informed by a web of flowspaces that fold into it.

Experiencing space; A framework for approaching urban space based on the premise that space is dependent on social practices and relational systems of flows, and it should therefore be explored through experience rather than representation or observation.

MEDIA URBANISM DICTIONARY

Extract; The things that can be observed in a milieu, including informal quantities, velocities, forces and trajectories.

Field; An organization system of a frame to contain the graphic projection.

Flaneurie; Moving through space s an urban observer in order to experience and it.

Flowspace; A dimension of impulses and connections that move through urban milieus in flows of currents and interconnects an urban milieu in circulation within a bigger and global urban system. A particular flowspace is characterized by a mode of relationship between inhabitants, the milieu and the broader urban and global context.

Geophilosophy; how the earth moves in folds and flows. All things assemble with other things in heterogenous composites. The ‘double articulation’ of micro and macro (molar and molecular) (ref. Diane Chrisholm). Combining the place-making that is native to the transfer and the philosophy-making that is immanent to place (Bobby George)

Imageability; The quality of an urban object’s composition of paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks to enable an easy wayfinding.

Investigative flaneurie; a method of moving through space according to its spatial rhythm while collecting empirical data for spatial mapping. An analytical tool based on the objective of investigation must be defined and structure the flaneurie.

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Invisible city; A concept of the city as an emotional destination that can be evaluated through its human life rather than its features.

Labyrinth; A complicated and irregular network interweaving milieus and structures into a complicated, many-dimensional rhizome.

Labyrinthic structures; The constant movement, flow of matter and energy that builds the structure of the labyrinth.

Line; a dimension of multiplicities in a rhizome.

Line of flight; The ‘plane of creativity’ where extracts can ‘escape’ from their original position and become deterritorialized.

Media city; The city as a media-architecture complex where media is considered an integral part in the urban system and for the condition of city formation.

Media urbanism; A focus on cities and urban areas that recognizes the complex processes of urbanization that have developed particularly in the digital paradigm. Media urbanism understands the logics and nature of the urban environment from cultural concepts characteristic for the digital media paradigm, like connection, multiplicity, transparency, collaboration, interactivity etc.

Media-urban relationship; How media is changing urbanization processes and engaging with the perceptual - and physical - formation of the city.

Milieu; A milieu consist of surroundings, medium, middle, has neither

beginning nor end,, is surrounded by other middles, is in a field of connections, relationships, extensions and potentials

Mapping; An exercise of enablement rather than depiction for “analyzing” an urban terrain that goes beyond beyond documentation and allows for a potential to fold out, as an active agent of cultural intervention.

Morphological transformation; The change of urban forms as it happens within an infinite amount of circumstances in a dynamic, open-ended and flexible urban network.

Nomadism; A way of life that exists outside of organization, characterized by movement across space

Nomad cartography; can be composed by mapping dreamlines across landscapes.

Nomadic gazer; A mode of urban observation that is liberated from spatial organization.

Optics of rediscovery; A research mindset that is open to take historical as well as contemporary and temporary influences into account within the aim of finding new relationships of meaning.

Overheard conversations: The bits of speak that can be overheard on the street and that reveal bits of stories of people’s lives.

Place; the location where urban elements coexist in s particular order, from where we experience an urban space.

Place-based space experience; The experience of the potential of a place’s distinct characteristics in a given

130complexities and dynamics of a field in order to re-define the concept of initial investigation.

Rhizomatic body; the urban condition (Graafland)

Rhizomatic mapping; An exercise of ripping apart for the purpose of putting back together in new ways and suggest new meanings.

Rhythm of milieu; The situations, encounters and patterns of a milieu as they exist in repeatable and autonomous movements.

Rigid line; Lines of hierarchies, stratification and stucturation of fixed constructs.

Spatial stories; Situations that occur in urban space.

Supply line;Lines of movement away from rigid lines that disturb the linearity and normalcy of molar aggregates.

Surface level: The dimension of an urban milieu that is above ground and can be studied through investigative flaneurie or other urban exploration methods.

Symbolic value;The meaning of the flows that runs through an urban environment.

Synchronic documentation; Documentation of a milieu as it exists in a moment of time performed to capture a “frozen photo” of its flowspaces.

Tracing; An approach to urban research founded on a principle or reproducibility that enables documentation of the pre-existing and maintains balance.

Transitional place; Urban places characterized by rapid changes, in states of rapid transition, of mixed social uses and compound symbolic

time lapse, informed by the flowspaces that engage with the place.

Place of thought; A platform of reflection and imagination from where dominating perceptions can be reflected on and reconfigured.

Plotting; The process of defining relationships among the extracts that can be spatial, geometrical, taxonomic, or genealogical procedures of relating and indexing.

Plotting procedure; A procedure of plotting that is strategic and imaginative at the same time and drawn out of relational structures. It is a procedure of re-territorializing a milieu.

Pluralism; A condition where multiple groups, principles, traditions and religions coexist.

Plural places; when transitional places are characterized by multiplicity of use and a pluralistic population of users. Informs a pluralistic place-experience.

Process of urban transformation; The continuous transformation of urban logics, perceptions and interactions that is stimulated by urban inhabitant’s ideas on and practices in the city.

Reterriatorialization; The replacement of control and order with one that is more meaningful to the occupants of the territory. Reterriatorialization often follows deterriatorialization.

Rhizome; a virtual ecology of mind; a network that establishes connections across categories and consists of a multiplicity of dimensions, determinations and magnitudes.

Rhizome analysis; An analytical method for capturing various flows,

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identities with a confused thematic place identity.

Urban observer; the person performing the urban flaneurie.

Urban practices; (de Ceteau)

Urban space; a multiple-dimensional sphere of flowspaces that folds into an urban milieu and informs the urban experience.

Urban stories; Tales of the milieu that can be told from singular or collective memories, or they can be echoed in the urban structures right under the current appropriation of space.

Wayfinding; The manner by which people orient themselves in physical space and navigate from place to place.

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REFERENCES

Layla Al-Zubaidi, “Urban Anthropology,” at http://www.indiana.edu/~wanthro/URBAN.htm

Charles V. Bagli: “As a Neighborhood Shifts, the Chain Stores Arrive”, The New York Times, N.Y./Region, page A19, November 13, 2010http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/13/nyregion/13metjournal.html?_r=3

Charles Baudelaire: “The painter of modern life and other essays”, (New York: Garland Pub.), c1964, 1978

Roland Barthes: “Semiology and the Urban.” in: Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory. Neil Leach. (London: Routledge), 1997.

Walter Benjamin; ”The Arcades Project”, Washington: Library Congress Cataloging in Publication Data, 1999

Italo Calvino: “Invisible Cities”, (Orlando: Harcourt, Inc.), 1974



James Corner: “The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention”, in Denis Cosgrove [ed], Mappings, (London: Reaction Books) 1999

Mike Crang: “Public Space, Urban Space and Electronic Space: Would the Real City Please Stand Up?”, (Urban Studies, VOl. 37, No. 2), 2000

Gilles Deleuze and Feliz Guattari: “A THousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia”, (Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press), (1987) 2009

Arie Graafland: “Of Rhizomes, Trees, and the IJ-Oevers, Amsterdam”, (in Assemblage, The MIT Press, No. 38) april, 1999


David Frisby: “The metropolis as text: Otto Wagner and Vienna’s Second Renaissance”, in: Neil Leach, The Hieroglyphics of Space: Reading and Experiencing the Modern Metropolis, (London and New York: Routledge), 2002

Kenneth T. Jackson: “The neighborhoods of Brooklyn”, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press), 1998

Jane Jacobs: “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”, (New York: Vintage Books), (1961) 1992

Mei-Po Kwan and G. Ding: “Geo-Narrative: Extending geographic information systems for narrative analysis in qualitative and mixed-method research” (The Professional Geographer 60 (4)), 2008

Neil Leach: “The Hieroglyphics of Space: Reading and Experiencing the Modern Metropolis”, (London and New York: Routledge), 2002

Henri Lefebvre, “The Production of Space”, (Carlton: Donald+Nicholson Smith), (1974) 1991

Kevin Lynch: “The Image of the City”, (Massachusetts: The MIT Press), 1960

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Maria Miranda: “Uncertain Spaces: Exploration of New Socialities in Mediated Public Space” (SCAN Journal of media arts culture, Vol 4 Number 3), December, 2007

Sandra Moriarty and Gretchen Barbatsis: “Rhizome Analysis”, in: Kenneth Louis Smith: Handbook of visual communication: theory, methods, and media, (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.), 2005

Scott McQuire; ”The Media City”, (London: SAGE Publications Ltd.), 2008

David Morley: “Place, Space and Identity in a Mediated World”, (European Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 4 No. 4, November), 2001

Francis Morrone: “An Architectural Guidebook to Brooklyn”, (Layont: Gibbs Smith, Publisker), 2001

Francis Morrone: “Fort Greene Clinton Hill, Neighborhood and architectural history guide”, (Brooklyn: Brooklyn Historical Society), 2010

Benjamin Noys: “Georges Bataille: a critical introduction”, (London: Pluto Press), 2000


Kristine Samson: “The Becoming of Urban Spaces: From Design object to design process”, IN: Conference: Perspectives on practice-riented design science 15th of May 2008 : proceedings. ed. Jørgen Ole Bærenholdt; Jesper Simonsen; John Damm Scheuer (Roskilde University), 2008

Soren Schobel: ”Qualitative Research as a Perspective for Urban Open Space Planning”, JoLA – Journal of Landscape Architecture, Vol. 1, spring, 200

Georg Simmel: “The Sociology of Space”, in: Georg Simmel, David Frisby, Mike Featherstone: Simmel on Culture: Selected Writings, (London. SAGE Publications Ltd.), 2000

Ignasi de Sola-Morales Rubio: “Terrain Vague”, in: Anyplace, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), 1995

Clinton Hill Historic District Designation Report, New York City’s Landmark Preservation Commission, November 10, 1981

a project of mapping flowspace in an urban milieu

Documents

urban experience

urban site

urban policy

urban contextchapter

urban milieus

urban design

qualitative of urban

fields of urban planning