Italio Calvino (1972) suggested that histories of cities are written in their streets as ‘scratches and indentations’, as ‘scrolls’ to be read.
Inspired by works such as Christian Marclay’s (1999) ‘Guitar Drag’, and Francis Alys’ (2004) ‘Railings’ I have been using various styli – including a rolling luggage bag – to read the grooves of the street surface, and make audio records as part of this.
I have recently been experimenting with turning the audio patterns into visual scrolls – and printing them out as posters.
From my sound diary:
Sunday 2nd Feb. Wandering around Berlin again. I am on Friedrich Strasse, the street on which Check Point Charlie used to be. Visually there were focused pavement designs using various surfaces with coherent patterns. I remember the close ticking sound of pedestrian road crossing with the sound of passing traffic. I got to the Brandenburg Gate, where a group of people were meditating next to another group of Arabic-looking people who were having some form of a remembrance or protest rally. Also moving around the city, I saw the marker of the position of original Berlin wall, the marker drew a red line across stones, and all across the pavement…I followed it for quite a while, thinking of the older previous borders and boundaries that have gone, with no markers; the city and the streets as palimpsest…