the flaneur: 4 questions from Glenn Bach



Glenn Bach:

1) Are there contemporary equivalents to these "modern" tropes, postmodern or post-digital avatars that the neo-flaneur inhabits? I'm thinking of DJ, VJ, blogger, facilitator, curator, webmixer???

2) Can the neo-flaneur still legitimately appropriate the roles of collector, historian, and spectator, while simultaneously inhabiting the roles of critic, sampler, and filter? (I hope to argue that these roles can all exist simultaneously, their borders porous, their spheres of influence overlapping and interpenetrating--Delueze's striated space(?).)

3) Is the role of singular author/auteur still valid? In this age of open source and net.collab (and in a world where there is no place on the earth left untouched by human technology and/or its aftereffects), is there room for a writer or artist to nurture a mature voice and build a body of work from a solitary engagement with the urban, rural, or hybrid landscape? (Tobias, is there any criticism out there on the poetics of the blog?)

4) Is there a term that is being used now for what I'm calling neo-flaneur? The original term refers to one who strolls leisurely through the new city (often under the influence of hashish), a dandy, a ragpicker or chifonnier, a scopophilic voyeur. Is there a French term (or German, or Japanese, etc.) for one who walks more briskly, sober, one who doesn't necessarily try to create stories for all the faces she sees, reserves judgement, humbly directs attention away from herself back onto the landscape, one whose use of technology is a conscious mediation (and who is aware of both its enhancement and perversion of perception), one who works with constrained walks (Oulipo-ish, the .walkers), etc. etc.?

posted. Tue - July 27, 2004 @ 11:31 AM           |

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