Before we went to Museum of London, I checked out James Corner Field Operations’ projects. When I saw this picture below, I thought of directions and interactions among people. I wonder on the streets, when people walk past each other, how many of them would ever interact.
However, I was thinking why we needed to interact with strangers? Some people just enjoyed being alone. I talked to Olivia about this concern. She thought socializing benefited people in some way and everyone wanted be connected in some degrees. I agreed. I’m never a really outgoing person, but when I was in Australia, strangers would just greet or help me on the streets sometimes and I did feel nice. It’s hard for some people to find someone they feel like talking to but if they don’t give it a try, they may never find any. Olivia also shared an artist called Olafur Eliasson with me.
At Museum of London, the word “traces” caught my attention. It’s impressive how many traces humans have been leaving in cities. The development of human communities from wildlife reminded me of the movie “into the wild”, a story of a young man tired of false city life exploring wildlife alone and finding out the true happiness was sharing at the end of his life.
Looking down on the road outside of Museum of London, I saw cars follow the directions on the road. I realized there’re all kinds of directions/guides/signs in the city everywhere. They help build the order of the city and help citizens find ways. We’re used to be directed/guided for physical paths and we have also become used to directed/guided social values. We have become more and more like robots following same rules with unified ways of living. The directions/guides/signs also prevent us from wandering or exploring the city on our own pace or routes.
I also took photos of homeless:
Secret places:
And some I found interesting:
I also recorded the sound at Putney Bridge. We’re mostly attracted in a visual way and we may ignore the sound of the city. Olivia suggested me to watch the movie “Victoria”.
I have to think further what I want to focus on and generate at least a point. Then I can share it with Olivia and we could decide on what we want to work on together.
Eva Wang 