 |
|
|
UER Store
|
|
order your copy of Access All Areas today!
|
|
|
|
Activity
|
|
722 online
Server Time:
2024-05-15 14:57:09
|
|
|
 desmet
   
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
 |  |  |  | Re: On Urban Exploration, Conquest and Treasure Hunting
<Reply # 20 on 3/8/2007 1:09 AM >
|  | | | Posted by kowalski
My question then is "How are these same people then justified in vilifying taggers and scrappers, in deploring the demolition of favoured locations, in making statements about the preservative or documentary legitimacy of their activity?" You may say "I don't do that," but I'm not pointing fingers. Get outside of your own pursuit for a moment and look at what happens in the community here and the internet-involved community as a whole. These are recurring trends among people who otherwise fit the picture being painted by TDK, Air33, and others above. And once we admit that, maybe we can be honest and admit that they're recurring trends in our own personal pursuits of the hobby as well.
If we're going to act as if our activities have merit or social value or exceptionalized purpose, and be outraged whenever authority or dissonant human activities trample on our aims, we need to earn that status. Alternatively, if we're just a bunch of thrill-seekers and sublime-capturing tourists, then maybe we should all stop pretending we're anything else.
|
I need to tread lightly here, as you're dancing around something important and I don't want to send us off the rails.
The thing is, not everyone thinks they're doing something important, not everyone is looking to make a lasting impact, and, indeed, not everyone has a problem with scrappers and taggers. Please don't make the mistake of thinking that UER = Urban Exploring. There are lots of explorers out there who don't post here, who post elsewhere or don't post anywhere at all. You talk, in context, about needing to earn a status and that is a concept which many people are really against. I'm walking the razor's edge here, but that's exactly why some people are members of multiple exploring communities, or aren't members here at all. For that rejection of the UER standard of being people are judged and harassed as well.
The thing is, man, a lot of times it's you that is putting that status requirement out there, not the rest of us. I don't want to drag us back into the photography argument again, but it was you who was criticizing art photographers, not the art photographers criticizing people like you and guys like Seicer who do such a great job of documenting the history of places. I think what you guys do is AMAZING and intensely interesting. I don't judge your place in the hobby, it's you who is judging mine. I don't make claims as to the worth of my photography (although I am excited to be a part of a project which will give my work some context and hopefully have some lasting historical impact) but that hasn't stopped you from judging me.
Maybe you're coming around to once again saying that everyone does have to do something worthwhile with their exploring or they shouldn't be doing it, but from the above you seem to genuinely think that everyone thinks the same way as you do in that regard. We don't.
I don't know if you'll be able to identify or not, but it's like talking to other photographers about how they take their pictures. Sometimes people tell me stuff and I can't believe their not thinking about technical aspect X, compositional aspect Y, or meaningful aspect Z when they're working on a shot. However, when I look at their work...what do you know...there's something there that I didn't see or wasn't able to capture with my own process. It's hard to see the world through other people's eyes...
|
|
Hi/Po
  
Location: Earth
Gender: Male
| | Re: On Urban Exploration, Conquest and Treasure Hunting
<Reply # 21 on 3/8/2007 2:19 AM >
| | | | Posted by kowalski
If we could lean a bit more towards this sort of relationship with the environments we explore, and feel less of a requirement to intentionally self-identify as capital-U, capital-E "Urban Explorers", meeting in food courts with our flashlights on the table then piling into cars to go "do" some site that half the attendees have already visited once or twice or a dozen times, we'd probably be a step or two closer to forging something of enduring meaning and consequence. Otherwise, all we'll continue to do is labour for new ways of exceptionalizing our tourism as something more than the empty pastime and act of spatial consumption that it usually, lazily, is.
|
The fact is, we are Westerners and the image that exploration creates is indeed that of the conquistadors. Even in this hobby a natural hierarchy exists in the minds of many explorers here that we are above the taggers, vandals and scavengers and that only we ought to have access to the buildings. Anything other than the norm in UE of "doing" locations becomes something else.
Portraying the meeting of explorers in food courts seems to be your example of the emptiest form of the hobby of observing and experiencing abandoned spaces. Is there nothing worthwhile in socializing with some friends for a few hours and putting derelict buildings to some kind of use? This surely isn't some grand experience in appreciating urban space or history, and it's not a better use of a building than putting on a rave. But in our society, it happens literally all the time. It's no different than going to see a hockey game or sharing a coffee with a friend. At least with tourism the people are actually leaving their regular setting and have a chance of having a more passive experience with the environment.
Factories are paradigmatic of consumption. It's where the people went not only so they could eat, but so that they could drive cars and own houses. Drains are rivers buried because they stood in the way of the desire to consume, to build business or a suburbia. Why are is it so bizarre and perverted that a new demographic, urban explorers, sees the same walls that framed a previous generation's desire to consume as an opportunity to consume themselves (consciously or not)?
There are merits to even the lowest form of exploration. The realization that the abandoned factory does indeed have a personality is sparked if merely by a faded sign of the company's name. Many members of this forum don't just give out locations, they encourage finding them. Perhaps some of them don't even remember why they do this, perhaps some are elitists, but that's beside the point. It's this spark that gives the opportunity to behave in a manner that transcends a consumption of space. Meets introduce a lot of people to the consumption of space as you put it, but in doing so these people actually see the abandoned factories in a different light, that having an interest in them is not something absurd.
Personally, I'm finding a desire to experience a location more than just taking pride in finding a POE or seeing some decrepit machinery. I enjoy researching the history of place, the architects. Then appreciating the floor plans, and being stricken in solitude by silence in spaces that where once deafening with noise. I'm not sure if that's what you're going for, but it is moving away from fence hopping for a thrill then spending an hour only with the aim of finding something cool to look at and telling people about. The act of moving away from spatial consumption is only significant if one consumes in the first place as consumption in one form or another is the focal point in the majority of people's lives.
[last edit 3/8/2007 2:22 AM by Hi/Po - edited 1 times]
|
|
kowalski
 
| | Re: On Urban Exploration, Conquest and Treasure Hunting
<Reply # 22 on 3/8/2007 3:16 AM >
| | | | Desmet, I have no interest in berating you. I am going to clear up a couple of misunderstandings and mistaken inferences though.
First, there is no "Kowalski Way." There is much "Kowalski Fumbling in the Dark," "Kowalski Slipping into Bottomless Draft Pits Full of Water Ten Storeys Underground," "Kowalski Looking at Pretty Sunsets from Rooftops" and "Kowalski Dwelling On Just What and How The Fuck He Wants to Publish."
Second, a perpetual issue and an extension of the above: You'll note on review that when making arguments like these I almost always write using "we" and "our," and not "you" or "they." I include myself and my immediate colleagues in a great many of the critical statements I make, because we generally deserve them. What I offer is a critique of what *WE* do, and not simply what you or some other people do. Please take that into account when reading my interventions.
Third, I've never denigrated artistic photography. I try not to be a hypocrite, and that would be a fantastic way to write such a label all over myself and the work that I do. What I've criticized is artistic photography presented without context. It's a key point that I hope you'll take measure of from here on out.
Re: Exploration as Individual Meditation
What you're talking about in regards to people exploring for themselves and it being an internalized, even ascetic experience is generally fairly accurate as far as what's happening now. I would argue that this is a problem, that as a distributed community of people with similar interests we've slipped too far into this sort of solipsistic pursuit of our hobby. By and large we've stopped telling each other stories and we've stopped making any effort to generate observational information and narratives of interest to specialized audiences (ie. those with a serious interest in architecture, history, ecology and/or urban studies) or to the general public.
One of the things that maybe gets neglected when people look over the early history of the contemporary pursuit of urban exploration is that Infiltration (the zine and the site) was written as much for a lay audience as it was for self-identifying urban explorers. Most of the letter writers in each issue (even in the last few issues) never participated in online circles like this one or maintained other forms of web presence associated with the hobby. And my guess, based on the breadth of the zine's distribution, is that most of the readership lay outside of people who formally and regularly explored as part of their lifestyles.
Producing and presenting content of greater interest and usefulness to people both inside and outside of what we formally do is something that I have been working on with mixed success. I'm not trying to earn some title or legitimacy for myself: when I explain what I do to a co-worker or acquaintance I say that I explore things -- abandoned buildings, underground tunnels -- and take pictures of them. That's it. I'm not a historian, I could generally actually care less about architecture as an aesthetic or engineering concern, and I'm not looking to anoint business cards or e-mail signatures with some stand-in for "Expert."
But I want to get back to individualized experiences, and hammer this home so that we consider it properly. When we view urban exploration as something undertaken for the individual experiences it generates, when we make that the end of its ambitions and outcomes, we're squandering the very experiences we're generating. It's fine to say that we're all getting some sort of fantastic personal growth and sense of purpose from kicking around in the dust and sodden ceiling panels (though we could have a separate debate over whether that growth is as real as we'd like to claim it is, or mostly illusory). But at the end of the day, countless fantastic and magical and instructive observations and realizations are lost inside of us.
I think our ambitions in all things should extend beyond simply breathing and eating and gazing slackjawed at the world, and our pursuit of urban exploration should be no exception to this. We're social creatures, despite the best conditioning of late modern techno-individualist consumerism, and great fulfillment can come from sharing and learning with each other and with wider circles of people who know a great many things that we don't.
Examples of Interdisciplinary Urban Exploration and Commentary
One of the best things I've seen to come out of this community of late is Tunnelbug's blog, Bearings. It's written for a broad audience and ties together issues and observations on geography/historiography, urban development, economics, architectural and materials design, and a lot more. If I had two wishes in its regard, they would be 1) that Jonathan would post more often; and 2) that I and a number of other people would start writing with similar frequency on a similar array of ideas and observations originating in what we find while exploring.
Another great example of interdisciplinary urban exploration, this one originating well outside this community, is BLDG BLOG. Since its postings on urban geography and architecture frequently lean towards the speculative and fantastic, there are people here who won't see the appeal or merit of it, but however sensationalist it can sometimes be, everything that Geoff Manaugh and occasional interviewed guests generate points towards real-world situations, contradictions and possibilities worth exploring. It's prolific, educational and mind-expanding commentary and very much worth reading.
If anyone still reading or skimming this is about to reply to some monolithic assertion on my part that we should all write blogs, or we should all write and think like BLDGBLOG, or we should all like ketchup chips, please don't. That's not what I'm saying. I'm offering these two websites up as examples of dialogue, contextualization and interdisciplinary exploration that are paralyzingly absent in most of what the rest of us, myself included, are usually doing.
We Should Be Delving Further, Following Up and then Writing About What We Learn
As I mentioned in a related conversation with Micro this morning, if in the penthouse of a cold storage facility I find an ornate elevator motor built in 1926, maybe I should do more than just take a photo of it (or curse the lack of space in the penthouse and fail to take a photo of it). Maybe I should write down the name of the manufacturer and other lurid details, maybe I should try to find out the story of where it came from, how it ended up on the other side of the ocean (was no one making quality elevator drives in the United States in the 1920s?), maybe I should try to learn what happened to this manufacturer, to the local economy that depended on its motor works after it no doubt got bought and merged and merged again and the factory was obsolesced or consolidated into a more modern site somewhere else.
I'm not saying you have to want to learn about the historiographic trajectory of elevator motors and the people who once made them, all I'm saying is that maybe we should all be investigating things like this. And that, if there are questions we don't have the time or resources to answer, but which we can certainly generate from the riches and wonders we're uncovering in magical asylums and unremarkable warehouses every weekend, then maybe we should at least be making the effort to compile our personal observations of the site and then pose these questions in a public or semi-public fashion, for others to answer or at least ruminate upon.
We Can All Do This
I know someone wants to respond saying "I can't write," or "I don't care about these things," or "I don't think like that," but it shouldn't just be us idiot academics who concern ourselves with the paltry question of where things came from, what they're doing there and where they're going. And what you see and think and learn doesn't have to come out as a thesis or a book or even a definitive, lasting answer (see again: tunnelbug's blog). And if as you say, what we're doing is mostly about adventure, then why aren't we telling each other and broader audiences more stories of these adventures? Past elementary concerns about legal jeopardy, site security and keeping the immature and destructive out of "our" buildings, what has stopped us from retelling our triumphs and tragedies the way our forerunners did in 1998?
We're all capable of analysis, guesswork, conjecture, imagination and dramatic presentation. And we don't have to be exploring Chernobyl or the Most Famous Tailrace in the World to be in an environment worth discussing. Personally, and I've been saying this for at least two years, I would love to read about abandoned houses and the patterns and oddities that surely become apparent when you explore six or ten or thirty of them. I would love to read about formica countertops and root cellars full of indeterminate mason jars and notes written on the walls and the backs of dressers and on envelopes stuck into kitchen drawers. Houses are never going to be something that I'm going to care about ferreting out and exploring myself, but there are a GREAT MANY people who love exploring them, and I wish to gods that they would tell me more about what they find there.
Appendix
Three other mentions of interesting work before I cut this off:
Jason Grant's fantastic "Remnants of Empire" covers the history of the rise and ruin of the Russian Estates (both the social system that produced them and the structures themselves). He actually wrote this article for me a couple years ago when I thought I was about to start an online journal, and it's a travesty that I've yet to put together a venue in which to publish it. I do wish though that it was merely the first act of a longer piece relating not just the history of the estates, but a great many more details about their ruined splendour and his adventures exploring them.
Ecology of Absence is a total immersion into the life of economic and social decay in St. Louis and its environs. The depth and dedication of this project, which has been going on for years, is incredibly compelling, despite its occasionally over-instrumentalized politics. Ecology of Absence offers an understanding of the roots and widening consequences of abandonment that we should all be conscious of, though perhaps not so completely focused on to the detriment of other possible avenues of investigation.
Forgotten Detroit offers context and observation detail in spades regarding buildings that most of us would gush over but otherwise be utterly silent about beyond producing a bunch of predictable photographs of their sublime angles and delicate details. David Kohrman gives us the beauty of Detroit's neglected relics, but he also gives us an idea of what they've been through and where they are going. Even if we all just copied Forgotten Detroit, ignoring along the way so many other possible ways of seeing the places we explore, we'd be leagues ahead of where we are now.
And that's more than enough for now. Desmet, I know you were making a specific point in drawing an extreme caricature of what I was saying, I hope my response has given both you and others a good many alternatives to rending my extremities in subsequent exchanges.
Final Note to Conscientious Objectors:
If all you want is for me to fuck off and let you keep spending your evenings and weekends in whatever fashion you're comfortable with, that's fine, go do it and give me not another thought. If you're secure in what you're doing and how you do it, then don't be insecure about me suggesting you and I should both be doing more. That's fine that you don't think so, one of these days I'll satisfy myself by doing more, and you'll be happy as a clam no matter what the outcome. We'll have a nice win-win, with no defensive reaction necessary. Enjoy your evening, I should really eat and get some work done.
|
|
desmet
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
| | | | Re: On Urban Exploration, Conquest and Treasure Hunting
<Reply # 23 on 3/8/2007 5:05 AM >
| | | | Posted by kowalski
Second, a perpetual issue and an extension of the above: You'll note on review that when making arguments like these I almost always write using "we" and "our," and not "you" or "they." I include myself and my immediate colleagues in a great many of the critical statements I make, because we generally deserve them. What I offer is a critique of what *WE* do, and not simply what you or some other people do. Please take that into account when reading my interventions. |
Fair enough on this count. I have to accept this because I have often been (mistakenly) critisized for hypocrisy myself when, in fact, I am speaking about my own faults as well.
| Posted by kowalskiThird, I've never denigrated artistic photography. I try not to be a hypocrite, and that would be a fantastic way to write such a label all over myself and the work that I do. What I've criticized is artistic photography presented without context. It's a key point that I hope you'll take measure of from here on out. |
This is something that I still disagree with, context as a requirement rather than an option, but I'll let it go for now because I agree with some of what you're saying below.
Posted by kowalskiWhat you're talking about in regards to people exploring for themselves and it being an internalized, even ascetic experience is generally fairly accurate as far as what's happening now. I would argue that this is a problem, that as a distributed community of people with similar interests we've slipped too far into this sort of solipsistic pursuit of our hobby. By and large we've stopped telling each other stories and we've stopped making any effort to generate observational information and narratives of interest to specialized audiences (ie. those with a serious interest in architecture, history, ecology and/or urban studies) or to the general public.
But I want to get back to individualized experiences, and hammer this home so that we consider it properly. When we view urban exploration as something undertaken for the individual experiences it generates, when we make that the end of its ambitions and outcomes, we're squandering the very experiences we're generating. It's fine to say that we're all getting some sort of fantastic personal growth and sense of purpose from kicking around in the dust and sodden ceiling panels (though we could have a separate debate over whether that growth is as real as we'd like to claim it is, or mostly illusory). But at the end of the day, countless fantastic and magical and instructive observations and realizations are lost inside of us. |
I'm doing some cutting and pasting of your paragraphs here.
There's two problems I have with what you say here. When you talk about the worth of individual enrichment, you have to realize that you are encroaching on the ground of philosophical and personal beliefs. People put a differing amount of weight on individual spiritual and intellectual enrichment, and for some this is their primary goal in life. Maybe you don't think that way, but let's not start reigning down ideology on people.
Secondly, some people are fatalistic and just don't really give a shit to enrich the world, or perhaps have extreme doubt that the world will choose to be enriched by their output, regardless of its quality. This assertion is not without evidence, especially for explorers, as the world doesn't seem to be very enriched by the incredible one-of-a-kind architecture of something like Danvers. So if the world chooses to disregard that, how is my crappy photography, photography with context, writings, etc. ever supposed to surpass the real deal...a building of that magnitude?
My point here isn't to convince you of the veracity of these assertions, it's to try and remind you that people think this way, and that these thoughts are based in beliefs that are well, well, WELL beyond your ability to change them. You mention that we could have a separate debate over the value of the individual enrichment one achieves from exploring, and you have said the same in the past, but what you MUST remember is that that worth is not for you to judge. You have neither the background nor the authority to pass judgment on what another person "gets" out of an experience. The reason I make this point is that when you fail to remember this, you put people who are on the edge of this way of thinking (one could say I am on the edge on both counts) off, because you seem to be coming off as telling me how to think. I guess what I mean is that you might want to try framing your suggestions more as suggestions, and less as judgments.
| Posted by kowalskiI think our ambitions in all things should extend beyond simply breathing and eating and gazing slackjawed at the world, and our pursuit of urban exploration should be no exception to this. We're social creatures, despite the best conditioning of late modern techno-individualist consumerism, and great fulfillment can come from sharing and learning with each other and with wider circles of people who know a great many things that we don't. |
This is what I am talking about above. When you go on to say things like, "our ambitions in all things should extend beyond simply breathing and eating and gazing slackjawed at the world" there is an implication there, and it's an implication that pisses people the fuck off. I am not the only one telling you this, and it's not the first time I've told you. I love to argue politics online, and I wholeheartedly enjoy berating people and insulting them personally in the process. It's fun. The thing is, though, I'm not asking them to do something. You are. You're looking for supporters, while at the same time backhanding them by alienating those supporters by reducing their experiences to nothing.
If you just want to cause more debate and anger, keep doing that because it's an excellent troll...the learned appeal for enrichment followed by the smack. If you really do want to change people and have them do more of what you're saying, you're going to have to stop talking like that and accept that not everyone sees it the same way you do.
Posted by kowalski
As I mentioned in a related conversation with Micro this morning, if in the penthouse of a cold storage facility I find an ornate elevator motor built in 1926, maybe I should do more than just take a photo of it (or curse the lack of space in the penthouse and fail to take a photo of it). Maybe I should write down the name of the manufacturer and other lurid details, maybe I should try to find out the story of where it came from, how it ended up on the other side of the ocean (was no one making quality elevator drives in the United States in the 1920s?), maybe I should try to learn what happened to this manufacturer, to the local economy that depended on its motor works after it no doubt got bought and merged and merged again and the factory was obsolesced or consolidated into a more modern site somewhere else.
I'm not saying you have to want to learn about the historiographic trajectory of elevator motors and the people who once made them, all I'm saying is that maybe we should all be investigating things like this. And that, if there are questions we don't have the time or resources to answer, but which we can certainly generate from the riches and wonders we're uncovering in magical asylums and unremarkable warehouses every weekend, then maybe we should at least be making the effort to compile our personal observations of the site and then pose these questions in a public or semi-public fashion, for others to answer or at least ruminate upon. |
I like what you are saying here a lot. I had a question about what a particular piece of machinery was at a factory I go to. I photographed the patent number meaning to look it up, but never got around to it. Fortunately, a friend with some machinist training helped me figure it out (it was a MASSIVE press). I also, in general, enjoy reading people's exploring stories and what they were able to find out about about a site.
I am forced to mention here, that exactly what you are talking about goes on with MUCH greater frequency on sites which are widely denigrated and shit on here, and the posts are being done by individuals who are widely denigrated and shit on here.
The reason I mention that is because it's a very significant part of the problem. Firstly, the people who are doing this have all been chased off this site for one reason or another. Secondly, how can anyone put their story or their context up on a site like this? For all the shit-talking about who's vandalizing what that goes on, its when stuff gets posted on UER that it gets really trashed. You can't write the story or the larger historical context of something without giving away details about it's location and we all know, whether we choose to admit it or not, what happens when you start posting that kind of info here.
Very recently I read a fascinating post about some very fresh abandonments that used to be involved in manufacturing. The poster, whose name I can't even mention without derailing the thread completely, talked all about what was made there, what some of the equipment in his pictures was used for, specific models of certain products that we all know that were made at this particular facility, the larger issues which cause the facility to close, the union issues the place had, I mean....just an incredibly comprehensive "tour" of the place. In fact, I would say that it addressed your concern...getting something more than personal enrichment out of exploring...as it made me think a lot about the circumstances which lead this place to close.
Now, were that post to be put on UER, in particular, or in another public forum there would be 50,000 teenagers there the next day stealing everything that wasn't nailed down, doing dumb shit and attracting security, spray painting the walls, etc.
So, while I agree that what you're asking for is really cool and really interesting, there are practical as well as "UE Political" issues that keep this from being a more permanent fixture here. I think some of what you're talking about can be done, but some of it can't because there are just too many people seeing it here. I have really wanted to start doing this on my own site more often, but have struggled with these same issues.
Posted by kowalski
And if as you say, what we're doing is mostly about adventure, then why aren't we telling each other and broader audiences more stories of these adventures? Past elementary concerns about legal jeopardy, site security and keeping the immature and destructive out of "our" buildings, what has stopped us from retelling our triumphs and tragedies the way our forerunners did in 1998? |
There is no, "Past elementary concers..." that is exactly the reason. We can't even post real NAMES in the photo forums anymore, much less stories of what it took to get in, etc. This kind of thing goes on elsewhere, but it *can't* here. Again, everyone wants to condemn people and groups for being destructive, but the proof is in the pudding: no one gives info publicly here anymore. We all know it's true regardless of what anyone says.
I will say, though, that you're making a good point. I really have to start dedicating myself to doing this, as I have been meaning to. I post to UER because it reaches a wide audience, but I can't say that I am going to be posting any of my textual endeavors here if I can get off my ass and do them, because there are really only negative things that can result from doing that, and very little positive.
Posted by kowalski
We're all capable of analysis, guesswork, conjecture, imagination and dramatic presentation. And we don't have to be exploring Chernobyl or the Most Famous Tailrace in the World to be in an environment worth discussing. Personally, and I've been saying this for at least two years, I would love to read about abandoned houses and the patterns and oddities that surely become apparent when you explore six or ten or thirty of them. I would love to read about formica countertops and root cellars full of indeterminate mason jars and notes written on the walls and the backs of dressers and on envelopes stuck into kitchen drawers. Houses are never going to be something that I'm going to care about ferreting out and exploring myself, but there are a GREAT MANY people who love exploring them, and I wish to gods that they would tell me more about what they find there. |
Can't say I disagree.
|
|
Vivian Thompson
Location: Wisconsin
Gender: Female
| | Re: On Urban Exploration, Conquest and Treasure Hunting
<Reply # 24 on 3/12/2007 3:47 AM >
| | | | A short reply to thank Kowalski for recommending BLDGBLOG. I am really enjoying reading some of his stuff. Thank you!
|
|
|
|
All content and images copyright © 2002-2024 UER.CA and respective creators. Graphical Design by Crossfire.
To contact webmaster, or click to email with problems or other questions about this site:
UER CONTACT
View Terms of Service |
View Privacy Policy |
Server colocation provided by Beanfield
This page was generated for you in 93 milliseconds. Since June 23, 2002, a total of 741828464 pages have been generated.
|
|
