Proposal CITY EXCHANGE no. 1

Moscow/London/Budapest/Berlin

The basis of this project is to conduct a series of psychogeographical
explorations of various cities. Ultimately the goal is to initiate a
network/index of psychgeographical pursuits through a physical city
exchange and symbolic Net exchange.

By inhabiting the cultural/geographical life of another person for a
period of time (1 month,) individuals will be able to construct
parallel/shadow narratives in Chandleresque detective mode. Employing
psychogeographical strategies they will uncover the secret life of the
city, suspect, detective and narrative process itself.

The word 'narrative' is open to interpretation and experimentation as
Net 'narrative' or hypertext demands. The detective genre has particular
resonances for notions about the city and fitting fragments of an
elusive whole together in a way that feels conducive to the hypertextual
World of the Wide Web. The stories of Paul Auster have informed some of
the logic behind this project as has the situationist principles and
techniques of psychogeography. Narratives need not be constructed purely
from text. Concurrent to the Website, material exhibitions of
psychogeographical detective work would be presented to live audiences
at affiliated venues in the various cities.

SOME KEYWORDS: Narrative/ content; detective, investigate, evidence,
clue, city, noir, shadow, accident, parallel, coincidence, trace,
uncover, intimate, fragments, motive…

Form(s); report, notebook, diary, map, list, dictionary, lexicon, index,
encylopaedia…

ACTORS :
*detectives/suspects
*intermediary
*clients

MEDIUMS :
Internet
photography/text
radio
live art space
city
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*DETECTIVES/SUSPECTS;
Would swap cities and homes with each other.

Would conduct investigations of each others individual relation to the city
they live in,and search for evidence of the movement, patterns and traces left
by each individual on the cultural and geographical life of their city.

Evidential material in the form of found objects, photographs, testimonies and
anecdotal statements by friends and associates to be gathered and put together
to form parallel narratives.

Each would investigate each other and guide each other in parallel detective
work around their respective cities using psychogeographical techniques and
methods.

Correspondence would be established via email and entries in a journal.
Journal items (images and text) and reports are dispatched to a website for
public scrutiny.

A good detective is one that notices the accidental.

*INTERMEDIARY;
Would set specific psychogeographical assignments and
edit/maintain/design the web-site and journal. Would arbitrate and
mediate between the investigator/ guides. Set some rules and boundaries.

*CLIENTS;
Interested net browsers/psychogeographers who would like to set specific
assignments/tasks for the investigator/guides via the website. Could
result in establishing ongoing psychogeographical global network and
city exchange.

Rachel Baker <dtp01rb@gold.ac.uk>