‘Towards the end of 2003 a ferris wheel from Paris was re-erected in the centre of Birmingham but the French audio commentary had not been removed, and for several weeks the public viewed the English cityscape whilst being told to look out for Parisian landmarks.
What happens if you overlap a map of Moscow on your own city? What do you find where the Kremlin should be? Look for references to Russia. Stop in bars and drink vodka.
What about Baghdad?…
Or fictional spaces? (Narnia, streets in soap operas, etc.)
Take guidebooks from one place and use them in another. Exchange maps with friends from other cities.’
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‘Mis-Guides’ are a devon-ish art meets tour guide meets philosophy meets urban geography project… using ‘walking (and, more generally, touring) as a critical tool to investigate and destabilize essentialized notions of place and landscape.’
A bit different from the surrealist flâneur who wanders about dreaming in the city and thinking about perception, this kind of book (which i haven't read yet) is more grappling with the question, 'how can we creatively inhabit the spaces we live in, in our time'...? which leads to a kind of shared non-linear mapping/navigational tool 'guided by the practice of mytho-geography, which places the fictional, fanciful, fragile and personal on equal terms with 'factual', municipal history. Author and walker become partners in ascribing significance to place.’
I like it.
The book includes suggestions/results of exploring a city with children, pretending the city is underwater/a mountain… ideas for disrupting a mindless commuter route, making the most of opportunities furnished by roadworks… Think there's lots of scope here, for our own wandering, dreaming in our own spaces/places...
Read more on the book's site , or there are a whole array of other interesting projects/experiments here ...