COURSE DIARY

STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURAL THEORY

CONTENTS

01. The City as/and Text

02. The City is a Poem
03. The [ ] Walked Down the Street
04. Wor(l)d Order
05. Public Texts, Public Readings
06. Graphic Space of Writing
07. Graffiti and Place
08. Writing on the Ruins
09. A Methodological Parkour

Muhammad Talha Muftee

S1473672
MSc Architectural and Urban Design
University of Edinburgh
IMAGE ON COVER: Edinburgh Street (Photographed by Talha
Muftee)
 Signs by Eric Sadin, one cannot help but notice these

01 THE CITY AND/AS TEXT glimpses of invisible cyberspaces beyond the already
dynamic saturated surfaces of the modern city. The
social networks, online commercial networks, the forms
of images and fragments of knowledge floating around
To read a city implies that attention is being paid to how
us in such a manner that we are reduced to just a few
elements are arranged, how we understand the visual
pixels of the cursor on the screen. (Sadin, 2007)
elements and how we as a reader, interact with this
text. This is not a very non-conventional approach to
As more and more of these sets of texts are uploaded
understanding cities; in fact, it has been an ongoing to virtual networks, we may end up with a city without
exploration since the adventures of the nineteenth urban texts but cyber texts and images. Hence the
century flneur. What has changed over time is the
mental urban maps of the contemporary flneur now
nature of the text, in a sort of parallel journey to the
containing an unstable layer of imaginary texts and
mobility of knowledge from the invention of the images superimposed on physical urban surfaces. These
printing press to current invisible mists of internet links
new emergent cities now demand an updated lens of
and html based texts. reading that can look into and beyond what is visible
and physical.
So our question should not be focused on whether the
city is still a spatial textual narrative after all these years,
but rather how do we update our methodologies.
Continuing on from the modern metropolis, we have
accumulated many mediums of texts, images and these
feed into our urban landscape. The resulting city of the
last decade is a complex palimpsest of architecture,
built forms, images that are visible and even
texts/images/signs not immediately visible to our naked
eye. In other words, the cyber space. The last few years
have seen electronic devices shrink down to pocket-
able objects having the ability to connect to the
infinitely large network of signs and texts around us. Not
unlike the hitchhikers guide from Douglas Adams A
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Christine Boyer argues that even if the emerging

cyberspace lacks much physical presence around us, it
still affects the built fabric because the imaginary realm
influences our understanding of the real space (Boyer,
1992). Today, we do not necessarily interact with texts
and images around us, but the era of smartphones, GPS
and cloud storage have contemporary readers carrying IMAGE 1.1: You are Here?
Maps on George Street, same maps different locations. This
their own sets of texts and symbols in their pockets,
navigational signage glitch is an outcome of city users increasingly
often in front of eyes helping them navigate the physical relying on other reference systems such as smartphones. No one
by traversing the virtual. We co-exist in two landscapes, realizes that the maps are incorrectly marked and placed at various
one that we see, an emergent structure made of spaces, points. (Photograph taken on George Street by Talha Muftee)
buildings, streets, parks, planes, valleys and surfaces
while the other is a fluid multi-central mist of links,
nodes, networks, signals, coordinates and tags. Our REFERENCES
cognitive images of the cities are now this collision 1. Boyer, M. (1992). The Imaginary Real World of CyberCities.
between what Boyer refers to as the Machine City Assemblage, (18), p.114.
2. Sadin, E. (2007). Times of the signs. Basel: Birkhauser.
and the Computer City. In the film Times of the
 time leave behind new clues in every iteration for the

02 THE CITY IS A POEM mobile reader to absorb, use them to work out a spatial
poem starting from the point of origin. Moving across,
down, and back again.

Barthes essay Semiology and the Urban opens up

A similar series of poems written by Peter Valentine
with a comparison between objective recordings of takes on this approach called The Crossword Poem on
cities as an arrangement of functions, against a chain a
his website:
signifiers, metaphors and meanings as a qualitative
mapping of the city (Barthes, 1997). But the qualitative
and the quantitative images of the city are seen as two
disconnected, sometimes contradictory abstractions of
the city. Abstraction because both methods rely on
various tools and mode to add, subtract, compare,
reduce complex nature (or instances of varying natures)
of the city to something legible. The quantitative
absolutes being limited by functional cartography and
the qualitative being limited by metaphors.

For the problem of metaphorical signification, Barthes

hints at Kevin Lynchs studies of way finding and mental
mapping as a starting point but never really suggests a
solution to the scientific and metaphorical conflicts
addressed in his essay: The real scientific leap will be
realized when we speak of a language of the city
without metaphor (Barthes, 1997) . In his conclusion
however, he hints at the reason why its not simple
enough to propose a semiotic procedure of reading a IMAGE 2.1: Spaces
city in his essay; that is because the reality of the city is These poems are composed by Peter Valentine using only words
far too complex and dynamic to be read by a single found in the New York Times Crossword Puzzle. The poems follow a
strict 3-part form. The "across" part of the poem uses only words
authoritative figure. As soon as we start to reduce the
from the across clues. The "down" part uses words from the down
city to a form of text, metaphor or poem we can see clues. The "answers" part is made from words in the puzzle answer
contradiction arising similar to that of the utilitarian grid. The title is made using words from any part of the puzzle.
cartographers. Who decides on the best suited type of (http://www.hungrybutscared.com/todays_crossword/today.html)
poem a city signifies? Is it a democratic decision with
the majority of votes suggesting that a city is like a haiku
with its functional spatial brevity? If so, does that imply
that every other option in the poll ceases to exist as a
possible mode of reading?

Perhaps, the city is like a metaphorical crossword

puzzle, with multiple readings depending how one
navigates through the spaces. Perhaps with time, as
patterns start to emerge, the city also changes thereby
REFERENCES
going back to square one, the initial Nolli crossword
1. Barthes, R. (1997). Semiology and the Urban. In: N. Leach, ed.,
map not static. Since the readers, simply by living within Rethinking Architecture, 1st ed. London: Routledge.
the cities, are bound to write and modify while 2. Valentine, P. (n.d.). Today's Crossword. [online]
traversing, mapping and reading the city. It would carry Hungrybutscared.com. Available at:
the opposing functional elements (black and white http://www.hungrybutscared.com/todays_crossword/today.h
tml [Accessed 19 Apr. 2015].
blocks) of the utilitarian urban planner and at the same

03 THE [ ] WALKED DOWN THE
STREET
Saussures approach to understanding language and
specifically the structure of language operated on two
axes that can be called the syntagmatic axis and the
paradigmatic axis. Changes along either of these axis
would then significantly alter meaning and context as
highlighted in the Michael Silversteins review of
Saussure (written by John Joseph) which happens to be
the title of the review as well. (Silverstein, 2012)
The [ ] walked through the city
Where the space denoted by brackets highlights any of
the various possibilities along the vertical paradigmatic
axis. The horizontal or syntagmatic axis is the diachronic
signification, which in this case is static. Saussure, by
means of a value or function, suggested that certain
classes of signs can be utilised as long as they satisfy the
syntagmatic sub-structure. Hence replacing the [ ] with
for example, a chair to form the sentence The chair
walked through the city would not result in a
meaningful instance of communication.
However, in certain cases, a specific synchronic sign can
imply a situation where more than one syntagmatic
relationships can arise resulting in a chiasmic narrative.
This type of chiasmic duality can be observed while
closely reading accounts and artworks narrating the
1822 visit of King George IV in Edinburgh. Considering
the context that this was a monumental event as
George IV was the first Hanoverian key figure to visit
Scotland. This demanded at the time, that the Scottish
cities were equally sympathetic of the kings visit.
Thereby forming the chiasmic situation:
[George IV] walked [through] the [city], the [city] walked
[in front] of [George IV].
An urban performance which was orchestrated by Sir
William Scott by not only specifying the route to be
undertaken by the royal convoy but also by issuing
directives to the people on how to present themselves,
and act on arrival of the king. This is how the chiasmic
symmetry was established in the city, by carefully
designing the interface within the urban fabric. The
interface, being a system of framing devices which
followed one after the other after George IV landed at
Leith on 15 August 1822. For example, one of the arches
erected specifically for this occasion not only framed
the city visually but also highlighted the moment of
opening up of the people of Edinburgh to George IV
acknowledging his status, this sited at the boundary
of the royalty and representing the city-gate. Not only
were these arches devices erected for establishing this
relationship between George IV and Edinburgh, but also
the route was designed in a manner that existing
landmarks and monuments of Edinburgh became
interactive elements between the king and the city. As
the convoy turned in full view of monuments, the kings
appreciation of the city would be evident while at the
same time the panoramic scene allowed for the public
to witness this appreciation of Edinburgh by George IV.
(Dorrian, 2015)
The street, the city, the urban fabric then becomes this
delicate boundary line on which we walk. This line,
which is a manifestation of friction between and
juxtaposition of two syntagmatic sequences sometimes
purely symmetric and hence chiasmic in nature.
REFERENCES
1. Silverstein, M. (2012). The [ ] Walked Down the Street,
review of Saussure by John Joseph. London Review of Books,
(8 November 2012), pp.17-18.
2. Dorrian, M. (2015). The King in the City: The Iconology of
George IV in Edinburgh, 1822. In: M. Dorrian, ed., Writing on
the Image: Architecture, the City and the Politics of
Representation, 1st ed. London and New York: I.B.Tauris.

04 WOR(L)D ORDER
In both texts Species of Spaces and Comings and Goings
in rue de lAssomption, Georges Perec establishes the
level of rigorous detailed reading required to study
intimate details in spaces which might begin to establish
an image or series of images describing the space other
than simply naming the space as a street, road, park. For
each walk through and careful observation will reveal
things that might be important but are taken for
granted. The fine print, sub-texts, footnotes, captions of
the city as text. (Perec and Sturrock, 1997), (Perec, G,
and Leak. 2001)
Our mental capacity to process with memories and
ideas spatially in patterns is never fully satisfied by our
limit field of vision. It takes thorough looking, re looking,
glancing over, turning around, moving about to fully
absorb maximum information contained within our
spaces so that we may start to work with the text which
we are a part of. We have to begin by admitting that we
cannot completely rely on first impressions due to this
gap between our ability to see and our cognitive
capabilities.
Nothing strikes you. You dont know how to see.
(Perec and Sturrock, 1997)
From this point onwards, we can start our first attempt
to read, perhaps our first attempt can only be a noting
down of things we come across. In order to prepare an
index that we can come back to in future for a second
reading. And a third. And so on. Similar to how Georges
compares his collections of recordings as part of a time
capsule. One of the simplest forms of initial readings as
he suggests and demonstrates, is to simply list down
things. This listing, may only seem crude to an alien
reader but the very act of listing stars bringing up
questions regarding what we see. A list forgoes the
formal grammatical structure of the language of that
space and institutes a system of omission and inclusion
which consequently demands responsibility for the
observer.
Similar to his exercise of enumeration in Comings and
Goings in rue de lAssomption, we can take up a close
reading of any section of Edinburgh. In this experiment,
West Nicholson Street, a small section connecting
Nicholson Street and Chapel Street. On my first walk
through what I saw was that it was lined with small
similarly sized shops, cafes and pubs. And that how
Georges had a peculiar way of sticking to either mostly
even or odd numbered lots in some of his lists of Rue de
lAssomption, it is not easy to keep crossing the street
for sake of a list with numbered entries corresponding
to the actual numbered addresses on the street. As a
hybrid technique based on text based enumeration of
Georges and photographic framing of Getzler (since
each space, situation and point of view demands a
unique methodology of recording) I prepare a graphical
list of panes and doors, these being the major signs of
punctuation on this street. (Getzler et. al. 2001)
Each pane and door coloured in relation to the space it
belong, and to theses spaces where they opened in to.
I prepare a cropped arrangement of these objects as a
collage dividing the image in two vertical sections, the
dividing line being a panoramic index reference for
when I return to this street in future perhaps. The
bottom and upper sections denoting each side of the
street. This is a mere initial recording whereby to really
start working with this text, this image will only serve as
an initial direction, giving birth to more lists and more
details. Things that might have been missed during the
first walk. Georges experiments lasted over years,
while this took roughly an hour.
Nothing strikes me. I do not know how to see.
IMAGE 4.1: Collage of West Nicholson Street (Next Page)
(Photographs taken and collage by Talha Muftee)
REFERENCES
1. Perec, G. and Sturrock, J. (1997). Species of spaces and other
pieces. London, England: Penguin Books.
2. Perec, G, & Leak, A 2001, 'Comings and Goings in rue de
l'Assomption', AA Files, 45/46, p. 54, JSTOR Journals,
EBSCOhost, viewed 19 April 2015.
3. Depaule, J, Getzler, P, & Barrett, C 2001, 'A City in Words and
Numbers', AA Files, 45/46, p. 117, JSTOR Journals, EBSCOhost,
viewed 19 April 2015.

05 PUBLIC TEXTS, PUBLIC
READINGS
After the popularity of neon signs at the Paris Motor
Show in 1910 and the consequent large scale industrial
manufacture, export, introduction to the United States
in 1923, neon lighting became one of the integral
elements of the image of a modern capitalist city. The
first impression one gets from a saturation or large
collection of neon signs erected is that of Las Vegas and
parallel booms of advertising signage. (Van Dulken and
Phillips, 2000)
But what some post-war East European urban centres
such as Warsaw achieved within the same medium was
a completely different story as it employed neon signs
within a socialist-realist setting, in contrast to capitalist
rationalism of the West in those times. It can be argued
that the neon signs of Poland were more than mere
signage and ads only focused at gaining brand loyal
consumers, they were very much part of the urban
landscape visually as they were functionality wise or
spiritually.
As Jacques Ranciere explores how design, as lead by a
manifesto can lead to cross-platform unification of the
modes of operation and layers within an urban fabric. It
can embody within itself, the spirit of that time and as a
design surface, become a super structure of intellectual
pursuit. It is when the engineer and the design, the form
and function merge into what he calls the forms of life
or types. (Ranciere, 2007)
types outline the image of a certain physical
community. (Ranciere, 2007)
For him, this unification occurs when the products of
our day to day to life, our spaces and our cities do away
with notions of aesthetic pleasure for sake of shallow
visual attraction, and only the streamlined elegance of
design is what lends beauty to the final outcome. He
argues in his text The Surface of Design, that keeping in
mind the basis of the community or underlying spirit
and principles, many genres and artefacts are in fact
similar when they seem disconnected at a glance. He
achieves this by outlining connections of thought and
exposing a shared conceptual core that authorizes
the shifts between the Symbolist arabesque and
functional advertising symbolization. His leading
examples in this text are the French poet Stphane
Mallarm, a symbolist who treated his poems as
choreographed gestural acts of text, each poem thus
containing within itself an identity of its own, and on the
other hand, German engineer/architect/designer Peter
Behrens who throughout his time with AEG (electricity
company in Germany) designed streamlined products
meant to be output through an assembly line in large
batches. They may be seen as completely opposite
approaches to design at a first glance but the
foundation is similar: To return to basic indivisible forms
and alphabets, so that focus is the essential nature of
design without any perversion of commodification (in
Behrens case, it is important to understand that mass
production was the justified outcome of his design
endeavour rather than being his priority) or prettiness.
That design aims to trace its way back to these types as
a form of a unifying truth for the community to stand
for. (Ranciere, 2007)
there therefore exists this singular link: the same idea
of streamlined forms and the same function attributed
to these forms - to define a new texture of communal
existence. No doubt these shared concerns are
expressed in very different ways. (Ranciere, 2007)
To return to the initial investigation of neon signs
between Warsaw and Las Vegas. It is now an obligation
to view them as different types, beyond the illusion that
both are forms of urban signs based on the same
technological components. The former being part of a
larger design surface in a post-socialist setting while the
other being part of the dominant modern Western
capitalist commercial environment. A close reading of
these neon signs begins to bring these differences in
attitude to light, such as framing and displacing these
signs by means of photography. Dr. Ella Chmielewska
undertakes a similar pursuit of in-situ reading of these
neon signs by means of framing (Chmielewska, 2010).
The photographic case studies highlighted in the essay
Material errata: Warsaw neons and socialist modernity,
the act of framing and attempting to isolate these neon
signs expresses how effectively they were integrated in
the urban landscape of that time and place. They were
not just ads or signs, they were important parts of the
public spaces, the boundaries, circulatory networks,
and these signs cease to contain their meaning when
displaced from the surfaces they were erected on.
Partly the reason for this phenomenon was the process
through which all design aspects of the city were
regulated at the time. The state authorities went over
each design proposal, studying ever possible neon light
design in context and comparison to its proposed area,
the adjacent areas and built structures, existing signage
in close proximity and so on. The resulting lights were
not brands or individual isolated works of arts, they
were the parts of the whole, the individual components
of a unified design surface.

Taking them out of context, framing them up close,

displacing them in a way also takes them out of their
fluid chronological sequences and freezes its temporal
state and context. The image, such as the close up of
the neon arrows on the parking structure is an example
of this stillness of timelines. The sign does not represent
a brand, a product but a spatial gesture embedded in
the physical surface of the building. It is a direction
based composition of tubes aimed to complement the
vehicular circulation system, it is part of the function of
the building more than an aesthetic novelty. The
textures, signs of deterioration, on and behind the sign
exaggerate the integrated relationship between the
sign and the surface. Even with the lights no longer on,
they blend into one another.

By interacting with the type of public writing, even the

type of reading i.e. photographic archiving needs to
be precise in order to fully capture the design surface of
Warsaw, the technique of rigorous investigation needs
to under the lens of critical understanding as well,
consequently helping the design surface, as Jacques
Ranciere writes, cross the varying genres, mediums,
classes and even time periods traversing from socialist
post-war Warsaw to the surface of the photograph.

REFERENCES
1. Ranciere, J. (2007). The Surface of Design. In: J. Ranciere, ed.,
The Future of the Image, 1st ed. Michigan: Verso, pp.91-107.
2. Chmielewska, E. (2010). Material errata: Warsaw neons and
socialist modernity. The Journal of Architecture, 15(1), pp.53-
70.

06 GRAPHIC SPACE OF WRITING
in the place of my sign, there was a shapeless scratch,
a bruised, chipped abrasion of space. I had lost
everything: the sign, the point, the thing that caused me
being the one who had made the sign at that point
to be me. (Calvino, 1973)
Qfwfqs frustration of losing a sign made in space of the
undifferentiated galaxy, the very first sign in space, in
Italo Calvinos A Sign in Space is the representational
conflict of power between the body making a mark,
while external bodies deeming the sign as something of
a negative act, and by the subjective positive act of
erasure, attempting to bring back the surface that was
once before it was linked to a body.
Subjective values of what marks are appropriate for a
surface and which ones can be classified as acts of
vandalism have been the core conflict since the rise of
graffiti writers in New York during 1970s. Although in
recent times, graffiti has adapted, matured and even in
many cases gained acceptance whether its domain of
art as in street art or as pop culture commodities when
graffiti stylizations are used as means to sell with an
image of contemporary modern urbanity. However, the
problem of spontaneous public acts of writing as a
rightful legal act of expression by a street or city user
still remains.
As Susan Stewart notes: It is important to remember
that the crime of graffiti is a crime in mode of
production. Unlike pornography, graffiti is not a crime
of content (Stewart, 1991), various graffiti writers
constantly try to experiment with mediums offering
better speed and flexibility of production, in order to
stay one step ahead of waves of authoritarian erasures.
This evolution of graffiti sometimes results in species of
tags which are non-conventional in the sense that they
dont rely on traditional spray paint techniques, or even
borrow semiotic syntax from another language system.
For example the short pedestrian passage leading from
Bristo Square which is frequented by students, street
performers and the occasional graffiti writers. But since
this underground space, even though not visibly
exposed as other streets but due to high frequency of
pedestrian traffic, it sees constant oscillations between
signs and erasures. One of the tags that briefly showed
up was a short chalk written message of political nature.
Chalk may not be the most durable material for such
writing but perhaps far more portable compared to
spray painting utensils.
What this particular text lacks in durability of
materiality, it makes up for it by means of a different
syntax with stronger archival capabilities. On careful
reading one thing that catches attention is the use of
symbols such as # and @, which are native to social
media tagging specifically twitter. A quick capture of the
picture and upload with the digital tag #chalkstorm
transferred this text from physical space to cyberspace,
archived by viewers and sympathisers of this message.
Thereby deeming physical erasure of this message
partially if not completely redundant. Sam Rhodes, who
directs Lawrence Alkin Gallery also commented in an
interview on the effect of digital social media and
accessibility hence the robustness of contemporary
graffiti, as social media allows for quick spreading of
images to much wider audiences.
For the art of making marks and signs on surfaces, it is
not a question of promoting a specific type of message
or any criminal activity but public writing as a means of
urban expression and identity simply by means of fixing
a point like Qfwfq in Italo Calvinos story. An act which
when cornered into legal complications and misguided
interpretations, will simply look into possibilities of
evolving giving rise to new types of writings on surfaces
of the city.
IMAGES 6.1 6.6: Sequences of images documenting the process of
social network tagging of physical chalk tag. (By Talha Muftee)
REFERENCES
1. Calvino, I. (1973). A Sign in Place. In: I. Calvino, ed.,
Cosmicomics, 1st ed. London: Penguin, pp.31-39.
2. Stewart, S. (1991). Ceci Tuera Cela: Graffiti as Crime and Art. In:
S. Stewart, ed., Crimes of Writing: Problems in the Containment
of Representation, 1st ed. New York and Oxford: Oxford
University Press, pp.206-233.

07 GRAFFITI AND PLACE
Much of the graffiti signs popping up around New York
were not content oriented but were simply names and
signs. Identification marks, tags, labels, simply naming
devices. Graffiti as a tool of territorial expression.
Extending the space of communication and forming
new alliances through the collection activity of marking
and acknowledging other marks. In other parts of the
world, graffiti could and did have different content.
Paris for example, had stencilled images and message
often provocative in nature. Both cities and
furthermore, all regions giving birth to graffiti have one
thing in common if not the content, and that it is a
strictly regional and territorial gesture. (Sennett, 1992)
Graffiti can thus be read without the what and the
who but not the where, being a visual mark it conflicting with public and private spaces. Again the
validates itself by being bold and noticeable.
Graffiti here needs to be bold, large, and persistent to
compete with its surroundings, to write over building
details and make itself visibly present. (Chmielewska,
2007)
Because it relies on the process of making physical,
visible, hopefully long lasting marks on surfaces of built
forms within the city, there is always a process of
analysis involved for the graffiti writers. The nature of
the surface, its material, its ease access, degree of
exposure to public, place in hierarchy of the urban
context, possible socio-political implications and
subversion, all these factors are to be taken into
consideration.
But if graffiti is an act of seeking validation by marking,
establishing territorial sub regions overlapping the
existing frames of references, we might even look at a
system of marking beyond what is immediately visible.
Initially known as the Niantic Project by Google,
Ingress was released as an augmented reality role
playing game in 2012. Besides a science fiction back
story and adaptive narrative, its mechanics of play rely
on simple territorial rules.
Ingress, which runs on major smartphone devices using
GPS and internet connectivity divides the player base in
two factions or team. The goal for each team is to take
control over portal spreads throughout the world.
These portals are virtual nodes which are linked to real
world places and signs of interest based on
corresponding geographical coordinates and players in
order to interact with these portals, need to travel and
access them physically in the real world. Players can
further on group their captured portals and link them
to form fields, entire regions belonging to a single
faction. Larger fields mean more points and several
virtual weapons are provided to take down or take over
regions and portals controlled by opposing factions.
Since its inception in 2012, the current player base
contains more than 7 million people, who started with
pre assigned portals but are allowed to suggest new
portals based on signs and texts visible in real life cities.
(Takahashi, 2014)
Ingress has given rise to an invisible landscape with
nodes and territories forming out of these nodes
difference compared to graffiti might be that Ingress
fields and nodes generated are only visible to the
participants, nevertheless it is a collective expression of
space marking, territorial extension of the body through
navigating and cutting through existing spaces. It might
as well be the contemporary form of virtual graffiti.
IMAGE 7.1: Ingress Promotional Image (URL:
http://pocketnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/ingress.jpg)
REFERENCES
1. Chmielewska, E. (2007). Framing [Con]text: Graffiti and Place.
Space and Culture, 10(2), pp.145-169.
2. Sennett, R. (1992). Making Exposed Things: The I and the It. In:
R. Sennett, ed., The Conscience of the Eye: The Design and
Social Life of Cities, 1st ed. New York and London: W.W. Norton
& Company, pp.205-213.
3. Takahashi, D. (2014). Google's mobile game Ingress enables 7M
players to create user-generated missions. [online]
Venturebeat.com. Available at:
http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/25/googles-mobile-game-
ingress-enables-7m-players-to-create-user-generated-
missions/ [Accessed 19 Apr. 2015].
 displeasing qualities but the validation of the historical

08 WRITING ON THE RUINS and spatial context surrounding it. (Mieszkowski, 2010)

A record and identification of the self, from the past

into our present. But like in the case of Reichstag
When a genre such as punk rock or graffiti settles into
restoration project, the erasure or
normative discourse as opposed to being born out of
restoration/conservation of marks, classifying them
the need to deviate from norm, it is in danger of being
either as acts of vulgarity or important layers of history
taken only at face value. Mainstreamed to the extent
hints towards another layer of marks being made over
that it only holds aesthetic value, and can be deployed
the surfaces of collective memory. The scratches which
by anyone for any purpose as an open commodity, to
remove these older scratches to establish an
establish authenticity for another product or idea. Like
equilibrium of conflicting historical narratives.
using graffiti on websites, as fonts, on packaging
materials to appeal to a certain type of audience.
(Chmielewska, 2014)

While graffiti in its true nature, relies on exposure to the

public eye, recent years and over saturation of viewings
make it difficult even for many academic investigations
to look beyond the visual elements of the trace and
conduct a contextual analysis of the act of making the
mark itself. Since comparing different regions and the
various types of graffiti imagery that has emerged
throughout time, the only common denominator for all
these cases is the spatial placement and extension of
the temporal self onto surfaces found around us, blank
canvases which we construct to identify our spaces but
we feel the need to identify our bodies within those
spaces as well.

Graffiti in a sense, does not rely or dictate the type of

content, it is defined as a scratch. A visual scratch on the
surface, but behind it lies the temporal-spatial scratch
in the larger urban landscape. It is a scratch upon the
established rights of spaces and hierarchies of that
specific time period. It can be the scratch inflicted by an
external force upon the collective memory and historic
stability of that place, like words left behind by
conquerors, soldiers passing by or people struggling so
that their voice may outlive them. This scratch upon
history, a trace becoming one of the layers of the
timeline, carries value beyond the aesthetic qualities of
it.
REFERENCES
Based on this understanding of marks on walls being 1. Mieszkowski, J. (2010). The Writing is on the Wall. Postmodern
traces of time, Norman Foster was able to preserve Culture, 21(1).
some of the wall writings during the restoration of the 2. Chmielewska, E. (2014). Writing on the Ruins or graffiti as a
design gesture. 1st ed. [ebook] The University of Edinburgh.
Reichstag in Germany. At such a point of discourse on Available at:
graffiti as the act of making the scratch, the only thing https://sites.eca.ed.ac.uk/ear/files/2014/07/EAR31_EChmiele
that validates a mark is not its visually pleasing or wska_Graffiti.pdf [Accessed 19 Apr. 2015].
 detachment from the contemporary urban context; on

09METHODOLOGICAL PARKOUR the contrary, the speed and fluidity relies on depth of
knowledge regarding the surfaces. It takes very up close
observations and experiments demanding a lot of time
and energy to able to execute parkour sequences.
The shift from the modern metropolis to the complex
Without the time taken to correct all mistakes and
postmodern city with its layers of physical constructs,
overcome fear of falling, it is impossible to conduct
underlying ideas and overlaying info-graphics
flight of the human body.
augmented with invisible networks of media
consumption and information transfer mean that our
This kind of time demanding practice routines of the
cities and spaces that surround us evolve and transform
parkour athlete then adds in the ability to seek further
much faster than us. The speed of communication,
possibilities in the urban landscape. The text of the city
commerce, ideas is no longer dependant on the mode
which has accompanied us in the postmodern era from
of transportation or physical capabilities of the
the existing metropolis now presents new challenges
messenger but simply, they all obey the universal speed
and obstacles. We can now, through a rigorous series of
of light.
configurations, improvising using any medium or lens
we can find, and constantly rebelling against the text,
With the possibility of cities leaving outpacing powers
we can find new ways to read and experience the urban
of reading and comprehension, we can no longer rely
without conforming to it.
on linear representations and distanced viewings of the
urban context. The postmodern flneur needs to adapt
to the fast-as-light changing urban landscape. For that,
the flneur must traverse as freely, yet intricately as the
age of internet and viral media. He or she must be able
to interact with the physical forms as well as the virtual
at the same time, not looking with eyes but sometimes
recording audio and video, playing video games,
participating in spontaneous beatboxing, and even
sometimes perhaps all at once.

The walk of the old flneur is thus replaced by the agile

contemporary free running athlete. Indulging in the
sport of parkour to find new possibilities within the
same infrastructure as before. It tries to look for clues,
breaking apart surfaces, tracing through them,
analysing, deconstructing to the extent that the
surfaces, spaces and objects of the city are reduced to
forms and materials to interact with. The existing
objects and street patterns no longer dictate the free
runner on how and what to read.

The practitioner of parkour is encouraged towards

freedom, to have vast possibilities for movement
before them, from which they may playfully select and
string together new improvisations in a flowing dance
across the urban landscape. (Saville, 2008)

But as Stephen John Savill further narrates in his text

Playing with Fear: Parkour and the Mobility of Emotion, REFERENCES
the fluidity of parkour does not translate into 1. Saville, S. (2008). Playing with fear: parkour and the mobility of
emotion. Social & Cultural Geography, 9(8), pp.891-914.