Reading the City, Writing the City

The city suggests itself as a book, to be read. Its things are presented as correct meanings – street is a street: a thing for advancing, to be used to get into other places. Shop is a shop: it questions whether I need anything, is there something missing, something that this shop could provide me? Bench is a bench: it asks if I would want to sit here, spend time in this area designated for rest?

A curious thing about these “words” of the city is that they’re only partially written in the city itself. Mostly they’re written within ourselves. Knowing the street, the shop, the cafe etc. is something we have accumulated, through the years, creating the necessary, additional layer of implications into ourselves.

So, much like the books, the city makes us read ourselves. But for some reason, we read the city as a perpetual lecture of correct behavior. the theme of the city’s book seems to be: how should its things be used appropriately?

But could you write in the city, or rather with the city? Yes – the essential step is to take the attitude of the writer, the author. This opens an infinity of ways… One of these ways of writing would imply the city as material. How would you use the materials offered? What experiences, actions would you like to create with them? Take the store, with all its images, implied desires, worlds, packaged results of of human intentions: perhaps this richness, underneath the poverty of property, becomes a source for storytelling, a game of symbols, a speculation of implied faiths or the reflection of the possible cultures suggested by its products.

Or, you could write by creating perspectives: Look at the scenes, environments of the city as theatrical stages and you will see plays unfurl themselves within the everyday activity. Look at it as memories and recall the building blocks of your mind: How do you remember the cars, the trash cans? What do those memories look like, as you recall them?

Or, look at the book of the city as a book, to be written as you read it: stop (improperly), wait (without reason), and let the words that describe the things you see to conjure themselves from your mind, filling the endless pages the city has to offer… nested amongst its other, equally endless pages.

Pekko

The city of Oldenburg – as well as many other cities – is made out of two things: walking together and sitting around a fire.

Long ago when there was no spoken language nor words we met each other in places that would today be called Coffee Houses, Bierstuben or Wine Bars. In those days we shared our stories communicating through sounds and bodily sensations, by gestures and movements, with clothes and accessories.

Long ago when there was no spoken language people were able to sense the different realities, the changing atmospheres, echoes and colors, lights and shadows.

When we remember how the city is made out of walking, we realize that we still have those abilities of communication. Then we turn back to the fireplaces sharing our stories about the grass amidst the pavement, about the faces in the concrete wall, about people coming alive in the eyes of each other.

And as a manifest of a utopic change the city of Oldenburg is also made by biking together. In many other places such biking is still a pure utopia. That is why utopic thinking itself is a paradoxical impossibility: a realized utopia is just a part of our daily lives.

Risto

The city of Oldenburg – like all the cities I have heard about – is a utopia covered with a layer of conventional behavior. This hides the utopic potential of the city, making it invisible.

However, this was not the case in the early days when time was young. In that past there were no two similar days: in the morning you didn’t who you were and what you could do. Another day Pekko was making pancakes and Thomas was walking around dressed like Santa Claus; in the performances fishermen were selling their catches and the priest was cleaning the toilettes.

Since those days time has grown old and all kinds of conventional patterns of everyday life have been created. Every morning seems the same, every yard repeats the same patterns.

Of course conventions make us feel safe; it is practical to have a predictable life. However, this is an illusion and the conventions are only a cover. There still exists this subworld of invisible agreements, rules, thinking, habits and manners that are not based on anything else but on our mutual playing. That is why a utopia isn’t only an order behind the future horizon but an ongoing stream of possible worlds just behind our perceptions, in our sensitivity towards each other.

Risto