Now I know it’s an art project and all, and it may produce some neat stuff. But it’s a ridiculously upper middle class conceit that walking in Los Angeles is special. It’s not special, it’s just painful.
I spent ten years in Los Angeles without a car, riding the buses and burning a lot of shoe leather. While I did learn many things, see sights, get a sense of the city at ground level etc. etc., mostly I just was dirty and tired mostly, late for everything, and often worried for my safety.
Lots of people walk all the time in Los Angeles. We call those people “people without bus money who need to get somewhere”.
But I bet this project does produce some interesting images.
Maybe the emphasis on “walking” isn’t so special, but someone suggesting that people actually stop what they’re doing, purposefully set out to go look at their home with new eyes, and maybe learn something about it (which isn’t always the case with pedestrian natives)… strikes me as sort of cool.
Course, its just the psychogeographer in me seeing an easily subvertible project on the horizon 🙂
-Me
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I sure hope it produces something interesting, yeah. Even with all the implied upper-class arrogance, you might get some good photos out of a project like that.
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admittedly, the only time i have ever walked in los angeles was when i was doing it for either the purposes of charity or losing weight.
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They have something similar in London; they call it tube-walking; i.e., gathering at one tube station and then walking the streets towards the next one, rather than doing the sensible thing and catching a tube train.
From what I gather, downing a few pints at some of the pubs inevitably present along the journey is a big part of it.
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What the
Yeah, maybe they could try this in Houston next.
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Guh
I don’t know what LA is like now; but 10+ years ago, when I lived there, the prosepect of walking around LA was about as enticing an idea as walking the perimeter of an air force base, on your knees.
I mean, it can take the better part of a day to drive across LA.
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