Elastic City Art Walks Unveil A Multi-Sensory City Landscape
Todd Shalom wants you to walk down Carroll Street with your eyes closed. He wants you to write poems in the sand at Brighton Beach. He wants to stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge with you, marveling at the worn planks and angled wires. He wants you to experience this great city in a whole new way. Living in New York City, it's easy to take our everyday surroundings — the size of a city block, the copious amounts of public art, the glean of the skyscrapers — for granted, which is why Shalom, a Brooklyn artist, founded Elastic City. Elastic City is an organization of artists that lead walks around the city, encouraging participants to experience New York with all of their senses. Through each artist's individual frame, the city morphs into a new, unfamiliar, and fascinating terrain. We caught up with Shalom to talk about the different walks, how they can open our minds, and why they're unlike any other guided tour.
What does the name “Elastic City” mean and how does it reflect your mission?
Elastic City artists lead walks through the city. I named this project Elastic City because the city expands and contracts depending on one's focus. It's a play on the word elasticity, as the name is *doing* the thing (stretching out the word), not just talking about it. Further, I didn't want to put "walks" in the name so that there was flexibility to move beyond walks in the future.
How can walks like these open us up to new ways of experiencing people and the city in which we live?
It's up to the participants since they choose their level of interaction. On my walks, for example, we listen to things that we don't generally pay attention to and use different techniques to help us feel the surrounding soundscape. We also create poetry, both visually and sonically. This creates a group dynamic among the walk participants, the greater public and public space.
You came up with the idea for the tours because you wanted to keep up the heightened awareness you felt when you were traveling. Essentially, you wanted to “travel at home.” How do these tours do that?
Well, I call them walks, not tours; tours are often fact-based, and these walks are experiential. For instance, on Niegel Smith's "Monumental Walk", we don't bog ourselves down with the history of a given monument (though we are aware of it), rather we create monuments with our bodies in response to these objects that speak to our own history and experience. During Niegel's walk, we mimic to find our way into pre-existing monuments and at the end of the walk, we create a new group monument on the steps on the New York Supreme Court.
You’ve worked in a variety of mediums – installations, performance, photography, audio — how does your other work influence the walks?
I started out in poetry, and I see these walks as an extension of that. And installation work has helped me see objects on the street more sculpturally. Performance has helped bring out the ritualistic quality and self-consciousness in the walks. Photography helps me frame. Audio work has helped me listen with a heightened sense of metaphor and also the ability to listen to sound as sonic matter (as opposed to judging the sounds that we hear). Further. as opposed to sitting somewhere and writing, I take walks and make the work while moving. Right now, I see my walks as found poems, where a right turn is a line break; movie marquees are poems; shadows are moving sculptures, etc. I try not to be too precious about it though.
Where do you get ideas for different walks?
I have lists of walks that I want to give. I think of things or places or ways I want to explore and then email the ideas to myself for later (i.e. Rain Walk). The urgent ones come back. Ideas are the easy part.
How do you choose the artists who participate?
I ask artists based on their particular/peculiar sensitivity/ability and versatility. Usually, they have something that I want to investigate but I don't have their talent. For example, I'm fascinated by fonts and urban signage but I couldn't lead that walk. I can only provide a point of departure. So, through friends, I found Ksenya Samarskaya, who is a type designer with superstar firm, Hoefler & Frere-Jones. Ksenya's also a visual artist, so the conversation has been smooth in how to take her interests, what's urgent to her, and bring it to the street. None of the artists thus far have been 'walk artists,' they've adapted to the form.
What kind of new walks are you planning for the future?
We have three new walks that will debut before the season ends in October. There will be a walk on homesickness by urban designer Einat Manoff. "Are we sick because we are missing home or because our home, our city, is sick?" Font designer Ksenya Samarskaya, "Swashbuckler Sashay", on how type design and signage affects our experience. Finally, there will be a "Lucky Walk" where we rid places of bad luck and make places lucky with ritualist Juan Betancurth and me.
Which walk is your favorite to do?
"Brighton Zaum" is the walk I'm leading right now. It's my favorite because there are a bunch of vulnerable moments in it, both for me and the participants. At moments, we make sound poetry (vocally), which is a new exercise to try out. It's terrifying at times because the people on the walk can just say no, leaving me a schmuck to figure out what's next.
All image via Elastic City's Flickr photostream
