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689 online
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 AnAppleSnail
   
Location: Charlotte, NC
Gender: Male
ALL the flashlights!
 |  |  |  | Re: Do you know what you are doing?
<Reply # 20 on 3/10/2009 2:20 AM >
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I think this points out that G_Race might be talking about changing the meaning of the place. To a person, there is NO storm drain, abandoned buildings don't really exist, and even industrial sites are only real to the people that work there. Going there and making it a place to explore, document, and goof off in *meta's guitar pic* changes its purpose and therefore, its nature.
Achievement Unlocked
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micro
  
Gender: Male
Slowly I turned
| | Re: Do you know what you are doing?
<Reply # 21 on 3/10/2009 3:06 AM >
| | | | Posted by AnAppleSnail
I think this points out that G_Race might be talking about changing the meaning of the place. To a person, there is NO storm drain, abandoned buildings don't really exist, and even industrial sites are only real to the people that work there. Going there and making it a place to explore, document, and goof off in *meta's guitar pic* changes its purpose and therefore, its nature.
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Maybe it's because of the types of buildings I go to which tend to be semi-active, mothballed, idle, etc. I don't think of them as being invisible or dead or forgotten or whatever UE cliche you want to use. I'm pretty sure lots of people are familiar with the places I go, especially the communities surrounding them. It would be a bit presumptuous for me to say I'm changing its function let alone its nature. I'm just there taking pictures of how it is at that given moment. I don't change its nature by being there. If anything, its nature changes me.
(Do you see what I did there?)
Maybe it would be different if it involved places that have been abandoned for decades and left to rot. I'm not really into ruins and decay though so there's a bit less wiggle room involved when it comes to defining the purpose of a place.
As for drains, you're in a place that was never even intended to be walked through in the first place. A lot of these places haven't seen human presence since the final inspection took place. It's an entirely different thing, imo. The fact that you're even inside one to begin with redefines its purpose entirely.
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Jade Margery
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
Gender: Female
| | Re: Do you know what you are doing?
<Reply # 22 on 3/10/2009 3:39 AM >
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Damn, I would love to get into a place like that. I'm decent at getting into buildings by now, but don't know the first thing about draining. Wish I knew someone who had done it before who could help me for a couple drains until I got the hang of it. Reading about it online isn't really enough to get me comfortable with the idea of trying it out myself.
Anyway, I never thought about it like I was changing the site before. If you're just observing, taking pictures and wandering about, I think the change is not in the space, but in yourself. Unless I leave some mark, the building is just as abandoned when I leave as it was when I arrived. Yet my head is filled with empty rooms and broken chairs, twisted cables and blankets of crawling ivy. I mean nothing to the building, but it will mean a lot to me. Little details, like a cryptic graffitied scrawl or a half-filled log book haunt me long after I am gone.
"All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness."
John Ruskin |
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metawaffle
   
King of Puns
Location: Brisbane!
Gender: Male
Purveyor of Fine Lampshades
| | | Re: Do you know what you are doing?
<Reply # 23 on 3/10/2009 4:01 AM >
| | | | My humble inner self wants to declare that any idea that my activities are grandly repurposing anything are pure onanism.
A thought - say you've visited your location, enacted your grand vision photographically, and then left. Other than yourself, what's changed? It's the solipsism someone mentioned earlier.
That said, you could argue that publishing photos extends the experience to others, and that it isn't just a personal thing after all.
So, to distill things further, assume you visited, absorbed the experience, left, told nobody about it, and resisted the urge to bolster your UER post count with tales of wonder. It's hard to argue that any change of nature or purpose is present anywhere but in one's noggin.
And anyway, I'm just in it for the inflated sense of self-importance, and that works either way 
http://www.longexposure.net |
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earthworm
Location: General Area
Gender: Male
| | Re: Do you know what you are doing?
<Reply # 24 on 3/10/2009 5:43 AM >
| | | | [ render this post useless ]
Tourism, human circulation considered as consumption is fundamentally nothing more than the leisure of going to see what has become banal. |
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\/adder
Location: DunkarooLand
Gender: Male
I'm the worst of the best but I'm in this race.
| | | Re: Do you know what you are doing?
<Reply # 25 on 3/10/2009 5:45 AM >
| | | | Hey guys this isn't like illegal is it?
"No risk, no reward, no fun."
"Go all the way or walk away"
escensi omnis... |
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ActionSatisfaction Esq.
 
Location: Newark, NJ
Gender: Male
Action always satisfies
| | Re: Do you know what you are doing?
<Reply # 26 on 3/10/2009 12:53 PM >
| | | | Posted by earthworm
[ render this post useless ]
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Too late! You've already changed the space of this page!
"The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life." - T.R. |
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G to the Race
Hi!
| | Re: Do you know what you are doing?
<Reply # 27 on 3/10/2009 1:09 PM >
| | | | I guess what I'm ultimately arguing for is a different definition of "space;" not just they physical surroundings but the social relations that caused the physical surroundings to come about. The school wouldn't be there if not for the community's desire to have its children educated (or institutionalized?); and, it wouldn't be abandoned if something didn't change (maybe the relations between the community and its largest employer who figured it didn't need the community anymore?). So, when entering the abandoned school the explorer changes the relation the school had to the community once again; it goes from abandoned eyesore to site of potential beauty. I just want to write about this stuff as a way of understanding both the theoretical basis for the claim "space is social relations" and the practical application of that idea."
You betcha |
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Assistance
"Run Away! It's an... um... Run away!"
| | Re: Do you know what you are doing?
<Reply # 28 on 3/11/2009 12:53 AM >
| | | | ...
Apparently, I don't.
But seriously, just because you are the first human to see a place doesn't make the place any more significant that it already was.
Sometimes I wonder if my obsession with flashlights led to my interest in Urban Exploration, or conversely, if my
interest in exploration led to my flashlight obsession |
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Insitor
Location: above and below the midwest
Gender: Male
a firm believer in brawn over brains
| | Re: Do you know what you are doing?
<Reply # 29 on 3/11/2009 4:56 AM >
| | | | When I visit a site, I think of my actions as merely those of a tourist. I go there, see the sights, maybe take a few pictures, and then leave. I try not to alter it or damage the site, but nonetheless I am changed and influenced by what I have seen and where I have been. I am not giving it a new purpose, and I do not believe that I am bringing life to it in a general sense. It comes to life, however, in my imagination as I walk through and glimpse the ruins of what once was.
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Explorer Zero
| | | Re: Do you know what you are doing?
<Reply # 30 on 3/11/2009 12:04 PM >
| | | | uhh is this like, going to be on the test?
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G to the Race
Hi!
| | Re: Do you know what you are doing?
<Reply # 31 on 3/11/2009 1:14 PM >
| | | | Posted by 2Xplorations
uhh is this like, going to be on the test?
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LOL! Exactly! Sorry about the bone-headedness, but really I think folks are doing something pretty important in a mean-making sense w/UE, but I think many of us don't see it as such. If we did we would never, ever stop.
You betcha |
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R.e.t
Location: Oakville/Burlington
| | Re: Do you know what you are doing?
<Reply # 32 on 3/11/2009 1:33 PM >
| | | | I think i like the bored kid in playground idea.
Im not a photographer, so to me its the pure excitiment of being there, verus capturing the site forever in film.
I mean i like to think i dont destroy or steal stuff because i choose not too, not because im an explorer and/or in some book it told me its bad. I have no idea what im doing or why im there, but im attracted to it, and everytime i do it, or meet someone else who does and go on epic adventures in volkswagens with strangers.. i learn alittle more. And hopefully i dont change it too much with my presence, who am i to take away from the experience of the next person there, weather its an explorer or a democrew. Maybe one day ill be an explorer, but for now im just a kid in this urban jungle gym. ;)
-R.e.t.
- "There Is No Tommow!!!"
-Trudge-
- "Take only pictures Leave only shell casings" -"Rant, rant, don't do it, etc, rant, rant" |
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Banditt
Location: T.
Gender: Male
| | Re: Do you know what you are doing?
<Reply # 33 on 3/13/2009 11:44 PM >
| | | | I always feel humbled and privileged to be given the opportunity to experience the magic of a location. I do try to get the history behind the place and show it the respect which it deserves. I like to imagine the 'ghosts' of the past and how they have carried over to the present. Guess thats what keeps me coming back and going ahead. I like to think I know what I'm doing. Im sure everyone has their own different perspective...
FLICKR
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don_corleyone
Location: F/RoX
Gender: Male
I have abandonment issues
| | Re: Do you know what you are doing?
<Reply # 34 on 3/13/2009 11:47 PM >
| | | | dear G to the RACE,
lay off the weed.
kthx
uncle steve.
leave the gun. take the cannoli.
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Wilk
Location: NYC
Gender: Male
| | | Re: Do you know what you are doing?
<Reply # 35 on 3/14/2009 12:22 AM >
| | | | Yes, I know what I'm doing.
and keep smoking the weed, your on the cusp of some really ground breaking stuff here.
[last edit 3/14/2009 12:22 AM by Wilk - edited 1 times]
Ready for liftoff
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desmet
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
| | | | Re: Do you know what you are doing?
<Reply # 36 on 3/14/2009 1:03 AM >
| | | | I'll take a hit of that...
Haven't thought much along those lines before but it's definitely true. I'm not sure our repurposing of the space in that way matters much though.
[last edit 3/14/2009 1:04 AM by desmet - edited 1 times]
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don_corleyone
Location: F/RoX
Gender: Male
I have abandonment issues
| | Re: Do you know what you are doing?
<Reply # 37 on 3/14/2009 1:13 AM >
| | | | anybody here remember jokes?
leave the gun. take the cannoli.
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Paranoid?
Gender: Male
F/RoX FTMFW
| | | Re: Do you know what you are doing?
<Reply # 38 on 3/14/2009 4:16 AM >
| | | | Posted by don_corleyone
YES. I know what im doing..... most likely im pooping.
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Qft, he is most likely pooping.
yes, we remember jokes 
"Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives... stop thinking and go in."
- Napoleon Bonaparte |
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don_corleyone
Location: F/RoX
Gender: Male
I have abandonment issues
| | Re: Do you know what you are doing?
<Reply # 39 on 3/14/2009 4:55 AM >
| | | | Posted by Paranoid?
Qft, he is most likely pooping.
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well, you do know me well, brother.
leave the gun. take the cannoli.
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