1  

The Flâneur in

Contemporary Art and Design by

Louise Steyaert

LCC

Graphic Product Innovation

2012

Tutor: Cathy Gale

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Table of Contents

List of Figures

Acknowledgements

Abstract

Introduction 1

Chapter 1: The Flâneur – a Brief History 5

• The Urban Wanderer 5 • The flâneur lives on 8

Chapter 2: Psychogeography – the Urban Experience 10

• What is Psychogeography? 10 • Psychogeography today 11

Chapter 3: Flânerie in Contemporary Art and Design 15

• Art 15 • Photography 16 • Design 19 • Journalism 21

Conclusion 23

Appendix

• Doc 1. A Psychogeographic Experiment 25 • Doc 2. Are all Designers Flâneurs? Essay written by Julie Fry 27 • Doc 3. Interview with Colette Cavanagh – Time Out Beirut 32 • Doc 4. The Flâneur in Design – Survey Results 36

Bibliography 41

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List of f igures

Cover : Author unknown, Plan de Merian – Paris 1615

F igure 1 : Paul Gavarni , Le Flâneur, 1842, illustration (http://banditfox.com)

F igure 2 : Author unknown, Galerie d’Orleans, illustration, source: The Diamond Guide For

The Stranger in Paris, 1872

F igure 3 : D. Jean Hester, “What is beautiful here?” Poster, Psy.Geo.Conflux 2004

(http://glowlab.blogs.com/psygeocon/)

F igure 4 : D.Jean Hester, “Why do you come here?” Poster, Psy.Geo.Conflux 2004

(http://glowlab.blogs.com/psygeocon/)

F igure 5 : Francis Alys, The Collector, 1991-1992 (http://www.artlies.org/)

F igure 6 : Francis Alys, The Collector, 1991-1992 (http://www.artlies.org/)

F igure 7 : Nicola Twilley, Scratch 'N Sniff NYC, photographer unknown.

F igure 8 : Olivia Robinson, Waste to Work (http://oliviarobinson.com/)

F igure 9 : Sophie Calle, photography in Suite Venitienne, 1979

F igure 10 : Scott Schuman, The Sartorialist Book, Penguin, 2009

F igure 11 : Screenshot from http://www.thesartorialist.com/ (dec 22, 2011)

F igure 12. Screenshot from http://www.thesartorialist.com/ (dec 22, 2011)

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Firstly, I would like to thank Colette Cavanagh and Julie Fry for their essential contribution to this

thesis, as well as the 55 wonderful individuals who participated in my survey.

Thank you Alix and Jemima for your dedicated proofreading and grammar correction, which I could

not have done without. Thank you Florence for being a flan.

And last but certainly not least, I wish to thank my tutor Cathy Gale for introducing me to the

concept of the flâneur in my first year at LCC. Little did she realise the impact it would have on me.

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Abstract

This dissertation discusses the figure of the flâneur and his evolution through the 20th and 21st

centuries in the context of art and design. Of particular interest is the art and design of our current

time – which I refer to here as ‘contemporary’. Being a traditionally literary notion, the aim of this

subject lies in discerning the overlooked presence of the flâneur in the creative sphere, and

identifying his role in that specific environment. The research meeting these aims was collected

through an extensive study of relevant literature and the implementation of practical research. The

latter was conducted through a psychogeographic experiment, a survey of 55 graphic design

students and an interview with Time Out journalist Colette Cavanagh. As a largely uncharted

subject in written theory, a significant part of my research has been sourced online, providing me

with additional prevailing study material. The findings from this research provide evidence that

flânerie is an established approach in the world of art and design. Its function varies amongst

practitioners, as does its value. Yet this dissertation argues that despite its inconveniences, flânerie

will always play an essential role in art and design for those seeking to fully understand the

experience of the modern city.

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Introduction

Have you ever reflected on everything contained in the term “flânerie”, this most

enchanting word which is revered by the poets…? Going on infinite investigations through

the streets and promenades; drifting along, with your nose in the wind, with both hands in

your pockets, and with an umbrella under your arm, as befits any open-minded spirit;

walking along, with serendipity, without pondering where to and without urging to hurry…

stopping in front of stores to regard their images, at street corners to read their signs, by

the bouquinistes stands to touch their old books…giving yourself over, captivated and

enraptured, with all your senses and all your mind, to the spectacle.

(Victor Fournel, 1867)1

Once dubbed by Walter Benjamin as the ‘capital of the nineteenth century’, Victor Fournel here

describes Paris and the phenomenon of flânerie. One of the earliest writers and theorists on the

subject, Fournel’s narrative is able to give us an initial understanding of the term and a certain

itinerary of one of it’s practitioners, the flâneur.

There is no English equivalent for the French verb ‘flâner’. It means to stroll, saunter or drift, but

none of these translations are specific enough. To put it in Charles Baudelaire’s words, a flâneur

“walks the city in order to experience it”. Impressionistically drawn from Baudelaire’s essays, the

flâneur is a bourgeois rambler, the deliberately aimless pedestrian, who, free from any obligation or

sense or urgency, spends his time savouring the city in a detached yet observant manner2.

The flâneur holds its roots in 19th century Paris, when writers like Fournier and Baudelaire

recognised this persona and attitude as a part of the modern urban landscape, giving it official

literary value through their bodies of work. Since then, the flâneur has had a long distinguished

pedigree3 in the world of literature and his mode of perception soon became manifest in a large

number of literary texts by authors such as Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens and poet Edgar Allen

                                                                                                               1 Fournel, V. (1867) Ce qu’on voit dans les rues de Paris, Dentu, Paris, p. 350 2 Ogden, D. (2005) The language of the eyes: science, sexuality, and female vision in English literature and culture, 1690-1927, SUNY Press, p.5. 3  Brand, D. (1991) The spectator and the city in nineteenth-century American literature Cambridge University Press, UK, p.187.

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Poe4. In “infinite investigations” these young authors left their bourgeois interiors in order to

encounter their material of observation in the exterior public sphere, jogging their creativity by

roaming the “streets and promenades” of the city, and “drifting along” with the crowds whilst

pursuing their own trajectory. With a careful gaze, these author-flâneurs consider reality with a

renewed sense of amazement, “stopping [to] regard” their surroundings as if for the first time,

reading the world around them as a series of textual documents which they immerse themselves in

with “all of [their] senses” and “all of [their] minds”.

However, forever referred to as a literary phenomenon “revered by the poets”, flânerie as a tool

for artistic creation has long been overlooked in the history of modern perception. For this reason,

this essay aims to elaborate on the literary theme of the flâneur, but in the context of

contemporary art and design. By ‘contemporary’, I mean current, because my main preoccupation is

to study the position of the flâneur in the present day. By ‘art and design’ I imply the field of visually

creative practitioners grouping artists, designers and photographers alike.

My analysis on the subject seeks to elucidate two things: firstly, I will seek to challenge the

preconception that the flâneur is exclusively a 19th century figure, wedged in the past and therefore

obsolete in the contemporary world. Secondly I aim to investigate the largely uncharted territory of

flânerie as a legitimate approach to the practice of art and design. It is through the medium of past

and present examples that I will give evidence that flânerie has in fact always been a privileged

artistic approach to perceiving the world and gaining inspiration from it.

Chapter out l ines

Chapter One outlines the 19th century literary notion of the flâneur referring to the literary works

of the French poet and essayist Charles Baudelaire (The painter of Modern Life5, A Une Passante6, Les

Fleurs du Mal7), the precursor of flânerie and first hand witness of that particular epoch. Walter

Benjamin (The Arcades Project8) is the more contemporary authoritative figure in the field of this

dissertation topic. Although a certain use of the term ‘flâneur’ might have applied to wealthy

hedonists with plenty of idle time, several writers, anthropologists and theorists have adopted the

                                                                                                               4 Gleber, A. (1999) The Art of Taking a Walk, Princeton University Press, NJ, p3. 5 Baudelaire, C. (1863) The Painter of modern life and other essays. 6 A une Passante (To a Passerby), is a poem by Charles Baudelaire first seen in the 1860 Issue of “L’Artiste” magazine. It was then published in the second edition of Baudelaire’s collection of Poems, Les Fleurs du Mal (1861). 7 Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil), 1861, is a collection of Baudelaire’s poems expressing the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century. 8 Benjamin, W. (2002) The Arcades Project, Ed. Rolf Tiedemann. Trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin, Belknap Press, NY.

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term and credited it with a more complex, intellectual value: that of critical observer and analyst of

his time9. Using this theory with support of Gleber (The Art of Taking a Walk, 1999) and Gilloch

(Myth and Metropolis: Walter Benjamin and the City, 1996) I will argue that the flâneur is the

precursor of a particular sort of inquiry that seeks to “read” history and culture from its public

spaces. Considering Benjamin’s allegations of the ‘death of the flâneur’ I will challenge his opinion by

explaining the natural transition of the historical figure into a timeless concept, adaptable in many

ways. I will argue for the use of the term to be borrowed from its original literary context into the

context of art and design, a way of both investigating metropolitan space and constructing an artistic

representation of it.

In Chapter two I aim to investigate how the flâneur-as-artist has developed in the 20th century with

Psychogeography. This introduces the concept of the Situationist dérive10, a playful take on traditional

flânerie. My understanding of the Situationist International movement, lead by Guy Debord will be

largely fed via historical evidence including Ken Knabb’s Situationist International Anthology (1995)11,

Debord’s own Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography (1955)12 and the Situationist

International Online13. A review of two major contemporary exhibitions, Mapping the City and You

Are Here, as well as the Psy.Geo.Confux annual event, highlight the pertinence of psychogeograpy in

contemporary culture and the importance of experience as opposed to knowledge for the artist-

flâneur.  As primary research, and a means of substantiating the Situationists’ theory, I have carried

out my own personal psychogeographical experiment. The report is attached in the appendix (doc

1).  

Chapter 3 will concentrate on the application of flânerie to individuals belonging to different fields

of art and design, for whom walking the city is the central theme to their practice. In doing so,

biographies, books, exhibitions and online references will be my primary sources of data. To collect

a wide spectrum of research material, I have chosen to categorise these flâneurs into the following

categories: art, photography and design. The individuals I will examine are the artist Sophie Calle,

who revolves her art around her surroundings and real life situations and takes on the new role of

‘flâneuse’14 and street photographer Scott Schuman15 who started The Sartorialist blog. To explore

the field of contemporary design, I have surveyed a group of current design students, asking them to

                                                                                                               9 Gleber, A. (1999) The Art of Taking a Walk, Princeton University Press, NJ, p.3. 10 Guy Debord, (1956) Theory of the Dérive. Les Lèvres Nues #9, Paris. 11  Knabb, Ken, (1995) Situationist International Anthology, Berkley: Bureau of Public Secrets, pg 50  12  Guy Debord, (1955) Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography. Les Lèvres Nues #6, Paris, 1955  13 http:// www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/ 14 http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/ 15 http://www.thesartorialist.com/

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reflect on the role of the flâneur in the context of their work. In parallel, an essay on the designer-

flâneur by student Julie Fry serves to illustrate a more in-depth perspective.

As additional primary research, although this takes us beyond the boundaries of art and design - I

have interviewed a journalist from Time Out Beirut16,17, a listings magazine and a company I

consider as paradigms of the ‘professional flâneur’. With reference to this interview with Colette

Cavanagh, the methodology of the ‘city guide’ and the pros and cons of being a flâneur in a fast-

paced environment are exposed. This is available in the appendix (doc3).

                                                                                                               16 http://www.timeout.com/ 17 http://www.timeoutbeirut.com/  

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Chapter One

The Flâneur – a brief history

The Urban Wanderer

The first flâneur to be acknowledged in the literary world was in the poetry of Charles Baudelaire.

One of the major innovators of French literature, Baudelaire focused a large part of his work on the

analysis of the crowd and the relationship between men and the metropolis. In 1863 his key text

“The Painter of Modern Life and other Essays” describes a man named Constantin Guys, a modern

artist who immerses himself into the bath of the crowd, gathers impressions and jots them down

only once he returns to his studio. For him, an outing into the city is always undirected and

unplanned but continuously enriching. Baudelaire named him the ‘flâneur’.

Figure 1. Le Flâneur (1842) illustration by Paul Gavarni

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Directly translated from French, the verb ‘flâner’ means to saunter, to stroll. Hence, the flâneur is a

stroller, a saunterer, or a drifter. But as the writer Cornelia Otis Skinner18 proclaims in her study of

Paris, “none of these terms seem quite accurate” enough to depict the “deliberately aimless

pedestrian who unencumbered by any obligation or sense of urgency, savours the multiple flavours

of his city”.

That the flâneur in Baudelaire’s own words “walks the city in order to experience it” highlights his

key characteristics: the city is his domain - the flâneur is a product of the modern metropolis19 thus

has not a place in any rural environment. Experience is his purpose – the flâneur seeks to feel and

understand the city rather than just know it.

I say he is a ‘he’ because the stereotypical 19th century flâneur is almost exclusively a male character

for two main reasons. Firstly, if he were a woman he may be forced to address things like violence

or fear or the ubiquitous and unruly male gaze. Such distractions get in the way of the leisurely

meandering of the stroll, and it is the flâneur’s role to languidly observe the quirks and qualities of

the street. Secondly, at that epoch, any woman walking the streets unaccompanied and without

purpose would have been considered nothing less than a streetwalker. This gender-specific

definition however does evolve through time with the emergence of ‘flâneuses’, which will be

discussed in the next chapter.

A common misconception, and one which must be addressed is the idea that flâneur translates to

English as the ‘Dandy’. While many flâneurs at the time were also dandies, it is important to

differentiate the two. The dandy is a man (likewise 19th century born) who places particular

importance upon physical appearance, refined language, leisurely hobbies and the cult of Self.

Charles Baudelaire, during his own phase of dandyism, defined the dandy in The Painter of Modern

Life as “one who elevates aesthetics to a living religion”. Even though the dandy and the flâneur

share similar traits such as plenty of free time and a certain fondness of strolling, unlike him, the

dandy’s intentions are egotistical as his ultimate goal is none but that of cultivating the idea of

beauty in his own person and elevating himself to imitate an aristocratic lifestyle, despite coming

from a middle-class background20. Indeed It was not uncommon of the mid 19th century dandy to

create flamboyant and theatrical scenes like walking turtles on leashes down the streets of Paris,

                                                                                                               18 Otis-Skinner, C. (1962) Elegant Wits and Grand Horizontals, Houghton Mifflin, NY. 19 Benjamin, W. (1935) «Paris: the capital of the nineteenth century», in Charles Baudelaire: a lyric poet in the era of high capitalism. 20 A very accurate depiction of this type of dandy is in the character of Dorian Gray in Oscar Wilde’s 1890’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.

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emphasizing their lack of time constraints and displaying a critical attitude towards the uniformity,

speed, and anonymity of lower-class life in the city.

Contrarily, the flâneur is by definition “endowed with enormous leisure, but it is an excess of the

work ethic which inhibits his browsing, cruising ambition to wed the crowd.” (White, 2001, p.39)

Whilst the dandy will walk, highly self-aware, with the intention of being seen, the flâneur ventures

out into the streets out of curiosity to see.  

This demonstrates that the flâneur is much more than an idle stroller. In short, what essentially

differentiates the flâneur from the lazy drifter, the dandy, the tourist and other walkers, is the

purpose of his walk, which we earlier identified as ‘experience’. Indeed, the flâneur does not walk

simply to move from point A to point B or to pass the time. Flânerie, while it generally involves

ostensibly aimless movement in public space, is primarily about experiencing and perceiving urban

phenomena. “The city is to be called an unfolded book, wandering through its streets means

reading” (Gleber, 1999, p.9). Under this interpretation, the flâneur becomes an active sociologist, a

reader of the environment around him.  

It is scarcely accidental that the flâneur appears for the first time in 19th century Paris. As France

moves through three revolutions in less than a century, through two republics, two empires and

two monarchies, and as Paris experiences the disruptions of urbanisation and urban renewal, the

flâneur takes on the position of one who seeks to make sense of the changing social and cultural

landscape21. According to Benjamin, the flâneur also came to rise due to the creation of the

arcades  (fig.2): a labyrinth of covered passageways used for commercial purposes – the precursor of

our 21st century shopping centre. They were glass roofed, marble-panelled corridors, extending

through whole blocks of buildings, making the arcade into a miniature pedestrian city shielded from

traffic and unpredictable rain-showers. Thus, the arcades became the perfect locale for meandering

and people watching and the preferred site of the flâneur.

                                                                                                               21 Tester, K. (1994) The Flaneur, Routledge Publications, NY, p.23.

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  Figure 1. Galerie d’Orleans, Paris, illustration (1872)

The flâneur lives on

In 1853, under the direction of Baron Haussmann, the ancient, maze-like, cobbled-street Paris was

destroyed by one of the most extreme urban renewal plans in history and replaced by strictly linear

streets, broad avenues and dazzling white facades, a modern sewage system and a fully operating

public transport system. The arcades were demolished and replaced by vast sprawling department

stores. According to Benjamin, as the commercial world slowly deserted the arcades for the

carpeted, artificially lit department stores, the flâneur gradually disappeared.  

Benjamin’s theory on the ‘death of the flâneur’ as a consequence of the ‘death of old Paris’ is

debatable. His statement suggests that the attitude of the flâneur was only possible in the very

exclusive context of 19th century Paris, that the particular time and city alone allowed for such a

persona to take form. But Benjamin does not apply the concept to later times, or later figures who

may have merited the same title, nor does he examine in much detail its manifestation outside of

Paris. Hence I am compelled to oppose his theory on the basis that there is in fact significant

evidence indicating the presence of the flâneur post 19th century, and in a multitude of cities outside

of Paris. Indeed, Graeme Gilloch, author of “Myth and Metropolis, Walter Benjamin and the city22”

declares: “Resurrected and recast, the flâneur-as-historical-figure becomes the flâneur-as-heuristic

fiction” (1999). In short, the flâneur, previously a historical agent of the 19th century, continues to

exist as an icon of pedestrian culture, expounding a vision of the city, as long as there is a city open

to be ‘read’.

                                                                                                               22 Gilloch, G. (1996) Myth and Metropolis: Walter Benjamin and the City, Polity Press, Cambridge.

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One finds in abundance the flâneur in literature. The writer, in order to recount his time, city and

culture turns into a ‘reader of his environment’ and what he reads inspires his creation. However

despite Baudelaire’s original fictional flâneur being a ‘modern artist’, flânerie as a tool for artistic

inspiration seems to have been neglected in the history of modern perception.

Hence, the following chapter takes a closer look at the flâneur from a creative point of view and

tracks his evolution throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Chapter Two

Psychogeography – the Urban Experience

What is Psychogeography?

The first artists who officially acknowledged themselves as types of flâneurs were the Situationist

International. In the mid 20th century these avant-guard artists and social theorists, adopting the

playful agenda of Dadaists and Surrealists, decided to rethink the relationship between people and

their urban landscape. Situationists found contemporary urban design both physically and

ideologically restrictive, forcing its dwellers into a certain system of interaction with their

environment and therefore obstructing other ‘roads less travelled’.

The Situationists' response was to create designs of new urbanized space, in search of a more

liberating metropolitan experience. In the 1950s, French writer Guy Debord officially coined the

term psychogeography to mean "the study of specific effects of the geographical environment,

consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals." 23 Followers in

psychogeography examined the reason for a sudden change of ambiance in a street within the

space of a few meters, or the appealing or repelling character of certain areas. In simpler terms,

psychogeography refers to “a whole toy box full of playful, inventive strategies for exploring cities

which includes just about anything that takes pedestrians off their predictable paths and jolts them

into a new awareness of the urban landscape” (Hart, 2004).

One of these inventive strategies is the dérive meaning drift. A favourite practice of the Dadaists and

Surrealists (for whom automatism24 was an instructive pleasure) the dérive was defined by the

Situationists as a “technique of locomotion without a goal”, meaning an unplanned journey through

a landscape, usually urban, where an individual travels to where the surrounding architecture and

geography subconsciously direct them with the ultimate goal of encountering an entirely new and

authentic experience. However, Debord distinguishes this geographical derive from surrealist

automatism and aimless wandering. Rather than being purely random, a Situationist approach                                                                                                                23 Guy Debord, (1955) Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography. Les Lèvres Nues #6, Paris. 24 Term appropriated by the Surrealists from physiology and psychiatry and later applied to techniques of spontaneous writing, drawing and painting. André Breton defined automatism in his Manifeste du surréalisme (1924) as ‘dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern’. From www.moma.org

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requires a systematic choice of departure point and basic direction25. An example is Algorithmic

Walking, a sort of experimental strategy which consists in the undertaker to follow a fixed system

or algorithm such as “first right, second left, repeat”. Starting off facing any direction, they walk

continually for as long as they please, applying the dictated pattern as their only guideline. The result

allows the drifter to experience a well-known landscape in a new way and forces him/her to see

what would usually be ignored.  

 

Psychogeography today  

An example of the flânerie in contemporary culture is Psy-Geo-Conflux, a modern

psychogeographic event annually held in New York City. It brings together those who are

interested in psychogeography to “explore the physical and psychological landscape of the city”26.

For example, in 2004, a duo of artists led participants on a tour of the city - using a map of

Copenhagen instead of New York. Another artist D. Jean Hester27 from Los Angeles hung posters

and markers in public places soliciting answers to questions like "What smell reminds you of home?"

Another conferee asked his fellows to perform "reverse shoplifting" by placing subtly redesigned

products on the shelves of area grocery stores.

 Figures 2 & 3. Posters pasted in NYC by D.Jean Hester during Psy.Geo.Conflux 2004  

 

 

                                                                                                               25 http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/walk_on_the_wild_side/ 26 http://glowlab.blogs.com/psygeocon/ 27 http://www.divestudio.org/

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In 2007, the Stedelijks Museum of Art28 in Amsterdam curated an exhibition called Mapping the

City, focusing on the relationship between artists and the city from the 1960s to the present day.

The show revolved around urban space, emphasising two central themes: the flâneur and the

dérive. The collection consisted of photography, video art and installation, depicting the city as a

social community full of urban rituals, environment-generated behaviours and emotions. What this

exhibition underlines is the value of the experience of the city rather than just the knowledge of it.

Of the participating two-dozen artists Francis Alys29 uses the dérive as a leitmotiv. His work is

always based on the exploration of the social, cultural and economic conditions of particular places,

which, using psychogeography as a method of research, he exposes publically through the form of

art. Examples of his work are as follows:  

The Collector (1991-2): Alys traversed the city of Mexico City by foot, trailing along behind him a

toy dog with magnetic strips attached to its wheels. This resulted in the dog gathering a heap of

debris – which was then analysed by the artist to deliver a conclusion about the city, all of which is

shown in a film and series of photographs and paintings.

Figure 4 & 6. Francis Alys, The Collector, 1991-1992

 

Loser/Winner (1995): For this performance Alys walked from one end of Stockholm to the other

clad in a blue knitted sweater that gradually unraveled as he walked. In doing so it allowed his whole

journey to be retraced by anyone else, inviting others to also interact with the city.

For Nacroturismo (1996) Alys wrote: "I will walk in the city over the course of seven days, under the

influence of a different drug each day. My trip will be recorded through photographs, notes, or any

other media that become relevant." A piece which left Alys physically and mentally drained but

                                                                                                               28 http://www.stedelijk.nl/ 29 http://www.francisalys.com/  

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resulted in a fascinating collection of objects, text and memorabilia recounting the journey of a

disturbed man confronted with the urban jungle.

3 years after the exhibition in Amsterdam, the Pratt Manhattan Gallery30 presented You Are Here –

Mapping the Psychogeography of New York City31, a collection of work aiming to “map the emotional

terrain of the world’s most famous and influential urban centre, New York City, and explore its

powerful moods on those who live and work there.”32 Contributing artists were invited to create

innovative cartographic concepts reflecting a facet of New York City’s personality. These included

Scratch ‘N Sniff NYC by Nicola Twilley (fig. 7), mapping New Yorkers’ smell preferences and

perceptions by neighborhood; Nina Katchadourian’s New York Soundtrack which offers an audio-

portrait of the city through a series of found cassette tapes, and an anxiety map lit by sweat-

powered batteries by Olivia Robinson (fig. 8). What is interesting about this type of art is that, once

again through experience, it offers its viewer a fresh new perspective on the city, too commonly

discarded as ‘familiar’.  

Figure 7. Scratch 'N Sniff NYC by Nicola Twilley (2010)

                                                                                                               30 http://www.pratt.edu/ 31 The exhibition was curated by Katherine Harmon, author of The Map as Art: Contemporary Artists Explore Cartography (Pronceton Architectural Press, 2009) and You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination (Princeton Architectural Press, 2003). 32http://www.pratt.edu/news/view/pratt_manhattan_gallery_to_present_exhibition_that_maps_the_psychogeography/  

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  Figure 8. Waste to Work by Olivia Robinson (2010)  

  20  

Chapter 3

Flânerie in Contemporary Art and Design

Art

In addition to those previously mentioned, Sophie Calle is an important artist of our time whose

work revolves around the city and its people, drawing many links with the idea of the flâneur.33.

“For months I followed strangers on the street. For the pleasure of following them, not because

they particularly interested me. I photographed them without their knowledge, took note of their

movements, then finally lost sight of them and forgot them.” (Sophie Calle,1979)

In this way Calle (notably the Spanish for ‘street’) adopts the modus operandi similar to that of a

flâneur, underlining the pleasures associated with walking and the experience of the unknown – but

also the thrill of voyeurism. Her piece Suite Venitienne (1979) takes her people-following project to

a new level: having briefly met a man at a party, she learns that he is planning a trip to Venice.

Embarking upon a journey, she searches out, locates and pursues the stranger like a shadow for

fourteen days. Throughout the course of her investigation, she discovers his habits, his taste in

restaurants and hotels, his lifestyle and his reasons for being there. She documents his every move,

photographs him, photographs what he photographs, and maps out their journey together through

the city. What her experiment produces is a collection of black and white photographs

accompanied by a narrative that resembles an itinerary.

Based on the theories and ideas discussed in this chapter we can see that Calle’s work has striking

similarities with that of the flâneur, not in terms of product but process: she lets herself be led

through the city by her oblivious guide, letting him and chance direct the course of her work of art.

As well as being an indirect exploration of Venice itself, Suite Vénitienne is an examination of human

behaviour in an urban environment34.

Furthermore, playing the role of a detective and investigator who follows a man, Calle has inversed

the gender roles in the public sphere. In this case, the female is the flâneur and the male becomes

                                                                                                               33 http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/sophie-calle-talking-to-strangers 34 http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/suite_venitienne/

  21  

the subject of her gaze. Through her work, Calle modernizes the flâneur and becomes his

counterpart: the flâneuse.

Figure 9. Photography from Suite Venitienne, Sophie Calle (1979)

Photography

The flâneur's tendency toward detached but aesthetically attuned observation and his interest in

the city fits in snugly within the context of photography, particularly that of street photography.

When the turn of the century coincided with the emergence of the portable camera, the lens

turned into the tool of the flâneur, which Susan Sontag confirms (1977, p.55)35: “photography first

comes into its own as an extension of the eye of the flâneur.”

Based on this theory, an interesting contemporary photographer to examine is Scott Schuman,

more commonly known as The Sartorialist. In 2005 this fashion salesman began carrying a digital

camera around with him on the streets of New York City, stopping to take snapshots of people

who’s dress sense caught his eye and subsequently uploading the photos onto his blog36,

www.thesartorialist.com. Schuman’s innovative vision on fashion and the accessible platform he used

                                                                                                               35 Sontag, S. (1977) On Photography, Penguin, USA, p.55. 36 A blog (a blend of the term web log) is a personal journal published on the Internet consisting of frequently updated entries. (http://oxforddictionaries.com)

  22  

soon led him to become the pioneer of fashion blogging. Schuman created The Sartorialist with

the idea of creating a two-way dialogue about the world of fashion and its relationship to daily life37.

His explains that his strategy consisted in “hunting for inspiration the way fashion designers do.” He

would spot people on the street, shoot them, and share his findings with the rest of the world.

“From the streets of New York to the parks of Florence, from Paris to Stockholm, from London to

Moscow and Milan…Schuman acts a bit like a historian, marking the feelings of this generation one

photo at a time.38”

The result is a series of photographs exhibiting, or shall I say reflecting the exterior world and

phenomena of its time. In this case, the current fashion trends of ‘real people’ from a pedestrian’s

point of view. What started as a hobby has now become a full time occupation. In addition to his

blog, Shuman has featured his work in dozens of magazines, led campaigns for several major brands

and published a book39. Undoubtedly, Schuman can be classified as a flâneur, as his profession

consists in walking the city streets in search of inspirational material, which he finds in his urban

subjects and captures on film.

Figure 10 .The Sartorialist book, 2009 Figure 11. Screenshot from www.thesartorialist.com

                                                                                                               37 http://www.thesartorialist.com/ 38 http://www.penguin.com/ 39 Schuman, S. (2009) The Sartorialist, Penguin, UK.

  23  

Figure 12. Screenshot from www.thesartorialist.com

  24  

Design

For this section of my research, I have decided to primarily draw on the opinions and working

processes of current design students as my main subjects of investigation, the reason being that

these young individuals will have the most up-to-date opinion on such a subject as the flâneur in

design. That said, my survey (appendix, doc. 4) also comprises a portion of more experienced

designers.

We have seen that artists and photographers can use flânerie as a method of inspiration, but does

this also apply to designers? What Peter Dormer has to say in Design Since 194540 is worthy of

note. “Design, subservient to manufacturing, the market and the consumer is seen as an

evolutionary process rather than a series of inspirations.” Hence, the question I will attempt to

answer here is: Do contemporary designers incorporate flânerie in their design process? And if so,

in what way?

To start with, I have studied an essay written by a 2nd year graphic design student, Julie Fry41. The

topic of the essay raises the question: Are All Designers Flâneurs? Based on her own pragmatic

research, Fry strongly argues that being a good designer implies being a flâneur.

Fry’s area of research was Elephant and Castle, which she explored with the perspective of the

designer-flâneur, aiming to establish the worth of flânerie as part of the design process.

As primary research, she ventured into Newington Causeway, acutely observing her surroundings,

paying attention to her senses, and talking to the inhabitants of the area. She describes this

experience as positively enriching as she confesses to having gained an alternative understanding to

the area that was not visible at first glance, and certainly would not have been available online.

In this study she regards online data as secondary research, “beneficial especially for historical

information and maps”. She stresses that the Internet should not be used as a unique source of

information, because “even if it did give [her] a certain interpretation of the space, it would not

allow one to absorb the character and life in that space”.

I was intrigued by Fry’s conclusion and decided to question a bigger group of people in order to

obtain a more objective overview on the subject. Accordingly, I sent out a survey42 to 55 designers

(students and practitioners) in various fields of design. In doing so, my main objective was to discern

                                                                                                               40 Dormer P., (1993) Design Since 1945, Thames & Hudson, London, p.7 41 Julie Fry is a 2nd year student in BA (Hons) Graphic Product and Innovation at the London College of Communication. The essay was written by Fry on the 20th October 2011 and is available to view in the appendix (doc. 2) 42  Refer to appendix (doc.4)  

  25  

the importance of flânerie as an ingredient of the design process and the value it represents for

current designers.

My results were analysed to conclude the following:

Amongst the 55 individuals surveyed, a significant majority (69%) had heard of the term ‘flâneur’

and had at least a vague idea of what it meant, most of them assimilating it to ‘wandering’. Only

31% had never heard of it or had no idea what it meant. I subsequently asked the group what their

primary sources of creative inspiration were, supplying the following choices: Books and films; the

Internet; brainstorming; discussions; museums and galleries; walking; and observation. Predictably,

the most popular sources of inspiration were books and films, and the Internet at 60%. Closely

followed were brainstorming and discussion with 58%. The least popular of them all, with only 20%,

was walking. In fact, 7 individuals said that they never ‘wander with the hope of finding inspiration’.

Their reasons being chiefly:

- A lack of time

- Inefficiency (the amount of time dedicated to walking is too great considering

unguaranteed results).

- Laziness

That said, the remaining 48 people agreed that going for a walk can be a valuable way to find

inspiration when it comes to their work, and several described it as a vital part of their design

process. The main arguments in favor of walking for the purpose of creative inspiration were as

follows:

- Walking clears the mind; it serves as a kind of meditation.

- The outside world is full of surprises

- A change of scene can trigger new ideas

- The internet is limited in terms of ‘real’ life experience

One answer clarifies the therapeutic quality of walking: “Walking allows the cerebral mind to calm

down. The rational and intellectual part of the brain give way to the creative, imaginative side,

generating irrational thoughts and ‘out of the box’ ideas.”43

This survey suggests that flânerie, although deemed helpful in most cases, is not a priority for

designers and very rarely estimated as a necessity in order to create successfully. Nevertheless, a

considerable majority of the surveyed designers admitted that walking and observing was

                                                                                                               43 Refer to Survey in appendix (doc. 4)

  26  

undeniably a useful way to gain inspiration due to its numerous ‘relaxing’, ‘surprising’, ‘refreshing’ and

‘revealing’ qualities, but that Time and Efficiency were the recurring hurdles in the work

environment. To quote an anonymous candidate: “flânerie is an extreme luxury in a fast-paced

world”.

The analysis of all this data in conjunction with Fry’s outlook affirms the following: The designer is

creative, hence in need of inspiration. Although often conditioned to follow a brief, the way in

which the designer goes about his research and design process is completely free. In this case

flânerie wedges itself into a compartment of the ‘designer’s toolbox’ as an optional instrument for

the design process, using the act of walking as a source of stimulation. What’s more, the designer

can use the dérive as an initial source of inspiration; to roam, drift, observe, and unintentionally

come across something that will provoke a brainwave and be the start of a new project.

While Fry argues for the contrary, the definition of the flâneur as we have established it is too

narrow to apply to all designers. The mere definition of ‘drifting’ as a solely urban activity eradicates

any chance of the term being automatically linked to the profession of design. Being a designer

implies going through a design process, but this process is flexible and personal to each designer.

Some may find flânerie an effective means of inspiration while others will prefer research of various

sorts. In fact, there is no rule stating that an individual cannot leave his own bedroom in order to be

a successful designer.

Journalism:

Time Out Magazine is an internationally renowned magazine about the happenings of a city,

reporting events in film, theatre, fashion, literature and general urban life. Although journalism does

not belong to the sphere of art and design as such, Time Out is a company who holds itself

responsible for finding out about – and sharing to it’s audience - all there is to do in a city, I though

it would be interesting to find out more about this profession which seems to have flâneur written

all over it. In doing so I interviewed Colette Cavanagh44, a student and writer who worked with

Time Out for a year in Beirut. Miss Cavanagh was a writer for several sections of the magazine as

well as a contributor to the Little Black Book of Beirut, Time Out’s comprehensive guidebook to

the city. Having always perceived the Time Out critic as the ultimate flâneur, I was intrigued to

                                                                                                               44 Colette Cavanagh is a MA student and a part time tour guide in London. She worked for Time Out in Beirut for a year. This interview took place on the 10th of October 2011 and is available to view in the appendix (doc. 3)

  27  

discover the methodology of the ‘city guide’ and the pros and cons of being a flâneur in that

particular work environment.

The flâneur is a familiar concept with Cavanagh. She loves flânerie and confirms that working at

Time Out was a brilliant way to discover the city like an insider, spending a fair amount of time

wandering around the city “on the lookout for new things to do and see”. Her main sources of

information were gathered by picking up fliers, noticing event posters and especially talking to

people. “So much revolved around making connections with people who lived and worked in the

city”. In fact, making contacts goes a long way - as people came to know her and her role in editing

events published in the magazine, venues and businesses began to take the initiative to call her at

the start of each month to present her with a schedule of their events for the month.

However on being a journalist with a heavy schedule, she admits that being a critic is not quite as

much about ‘aimless wandering’ as it is made out to be. “The truth of the matter is that constant

deadlines and an overwhelming workload made it difficult to find the time to really lose myself in

the city”. The result of this was that many of the magazine’s articles had to be entirely written from

the confines of the office, some without ever having been tested – quite contradicting for a

magazine boasting their ‘experience’ of the city.

These revelations surprised me because I had always (perhaps naively) been convinced of Time

Out ‘s integrity and authenticity of knowledge. But for Cavanagh this was a frustration more than

anything as it resulted in many articles being left out for the sake of time and low word count (short

articles). She acknowledges that when working under pressure, flânerie becomes a very difficult

thing to do properly. As we know, the flâneur, by definition is free from any obligation or sense of

urgency, which is clearly not the case when working under strict time constraints. In these stressful

conditions, Cavanagh had little time to savour the city and had to “sit down and write, truly inspired

or not.”

In conclusion, what we have learned from Cavanagh’s recollection of her experience at Time Out

Beirut is that as a ‘city guide’, the ideal way of working is indeed in the manner of the flâneur – as it

reveals the city experience with the utmost authenticity. However, flânerie is undeniably a time

consuming activity and Time Out a fast paced environment. Consequentially, flânerie must

sometimes give way to quicker, more abrupt solutions, which is understandable but nonetheless

disappointing to hear from my customer’s perspective. Hence, in this particular work environment,

akin to the designer’s, Time is the foremost obstacle to flânerie.

  28  

Conclusion

Flânerie has evolved considerably in the past centuries. Born as an exclusively masculine figure,

modern flâneuses like Sophie Calle have today asserted their own right to wander. Initially

considered a uniquely Parisian activity, flânerie now evokes a global urban phenomenon.

Predominantly applied to literature, our in-depth study of artistic individuals has established flânerie

as an approach equally recognized and valued by the creative world.

However, despite all of these adjustments, the flâneur can still be defined via Baudelaire’s original

description: someone who “walks the city in order experience it”. Hence, the pedestrian icon has

not crumbled with the ruins of the nineteenth century. He is still an up to date concept and his

presence in the field of contemporary art and design is incontestable, with countless active

individuals adopting flânerie as the focus of their artistic expression or part of the creative process.

Indeed, psychogeography, via its many disciples and ongoing exposure since the 1950’s, has

established flânerie as a certified practice in the history of creativity. From there, the flâneur has

branched out into different domains of the creative sphere, playing an important role inter alia in

art, photography and design. In the sector of fine art, many artists have adopted flânerie as a means

of interpreting the city, using art as the vehicle of their perspective. Occasionally, as shown through

the work of Calle and Alys, the act of flânerie becomes the work of art in its own right. In regards

to photography, the flâneur comes to life as the street photographer, immortalising urban

phenomena and its time through the precision of his lens. In the world of design too, flânerie has its

place: through the testimony of young designers we have learned that the stimulating merits of

walking can be used as a tool for inspiration, while the act of exploring physical space brings depth

to design research.

But the flâneur in the contemporary world also finds him/herself subjected to the demands of the

contemporary workplace. As my survey and interview show, the flâneur’s main obstacle is Time,

resulting in flânerie to often be forsaken for more time-efficient solutions.

What this research has revealed is that the worth of flânerie dwells in its ability to foster

experiential knowledge by revealing local stories and cultivating emotional connections with our

surroundings through the awareness of all our senses. In this way, flânerie will always remain an

unparalleled approach to perceiving and understanding urban phenomena, as long as the flâneur

makes time for it.

  29  

  30  

Appendix

1. A Psychogeographic experiment

In an attempt to experience psychogeographic wandering first hand, I have carried out an

experiment in the style of the Surrealists. Abiding by the rules of the Situationist dérive, I have

interacted with my environment using a “technique of locomotion without a goal” using a

“systematic choice of departure point and basic direction.” Presented via the medium of art, this

experiment tells the story of journeys, the traversing of different cities by various modes of

transportation.

My psychogeographic strategy consisted  of visually recording my day-to-day comings and goings,

opting for the use of only pen and paper, and articulated with the surrealist preoccupation of

unpredictability and non-control. The routine behind these journeys was as follows: once boarded

on my chosen form of transport, not in any way or form planned, I took out my sketchbook and

lightly placed my pen on a point on the blank page. As the vehicle started moving, my pen marked

down what movements my arm felt how it was influenced by the journey. Thus, this research was

conducted via the movements I felt along the ride rather than the visual aspect of the journey

(people, weather, landscape, etc.)

There were two main variable factors that affected my drawings: the terrain and the form of

transport. You can tell the difference between the types of transportation without even looking at

the titles of each piece. For example, when taking the tube, the pen mark is a smooth line going

back and fourth, illustrating the halting and setting off of the tube at the stations. A tram on the

other hand is shaky and abrupt, which creates a compact, fidgety scribble. Secondly, and most

relevant to the actual city itself, the terrain defined the outcome of my drawings. The intensity of

movement I felt will undoubtedly vary depending on if I was driving on the motorway or on a

bumpy country road, whether the landscape was mountainous or smooth, if there was traffic

(shown by the start and stop marks) or a lack of obstacles.

I believe my experiment can indeed be considered as psychogeographic art, meeting the Situationist

definition of the dérive as ‘a technique of locomotion without a goal’ (the route and destination of

my journeys are unplanned), ‘requiring a systematic choice of departure point and basic direction’

(here reflected by my methodical pen on paper procedure). While the process has allowed me to

acquire a new awareness of the urban landscape, the outcome is a fairly interesting work of art in

the visual sense and a vestige of an urban experience.

  31  

 

‘Scribbles’ – Psychogeographic art by Louise Steyaert. (2009 – 2012)

  32  

2. “Are all designers flaneurs?” Essay written by Julie Fry

Julie Fry

20th October 2011

Are All Designers Flaneurs?

The term flaneur was developed by Charles Baudelaire in the nineteenth century. He said that it

“describes a person who walks in the city in order to explore it”. Benjamin, 1997, pp22

Originating in Paris, the flaneur is a figure who explores the modern urban landscape by strolling

(the term flaneur translates to stroller) and making observations, primarily by establishing links

between aspects of the city that might be missed by others. Wilson, 1992, pp40

In my opinion the answer to the question ‘are all designers flaneurs’ is yes. I will prove this in my

primary and secondary research.

For my primary research, I chose to concentrate on a small but diverse area of Southwark that

incorporates Newington Causeway, the Rockingham Estate and the underpass at Elephant and

Castle. I walked slowly through the area, spending time to sketch, photograph, talk to other

users and conduct an observational tally survey of a broad range of people. Observing others

living, working and moving was vital research because I could not get this knowledge from any

other source. I will be including images from this journey to illustrate this argument. Talking to

people gave me valuable information because I learnt a different opinion to my own.

In my secondary research, I will refer to the written work of contemporary designers: Adrian

Shaughnessy, Micheal Bierut and Richard Wentworth. The theories of Guy Debord, Norman

Potter and Corbusier also offer a relevant perspective to this question.

The lectures by Jonathan Barnbrook and Tim Brown (from the design team Ideo) also provided

an insight into the design process and the role of the designer.

Both primary and secondary research are important in the work of a designer because it could

alter your perception of the idea, provide background information and a deeper understanding

you did not previously have.

Designers notice small insignificant things that are not obvious to others. They can become

obsessive in their search for the unobvious and their brains cannot help but make connections,

patterns and collections. Identifying patterns means deciding what elements of information to

  33  

pay attention to.

In Adrian Shaughnessy’s book ‘Graphic Design: A Users manual’ he wrote ‘The only rule in

searching for inspiration is not to look in the obvious places. That way we end up with obvious

solutions’. Shaughnessy, 2009, pp 264

The designers job is to problem solve. Think of solutions in an imaginative, creative way. See

things that are not obvious to everyone yet communicate in a way that everyone understands.

Micheal Bierut wrote the following forward Shaughnessy’s book:

In many ways, the lesson of this book is the same, and it’s a lesson that every great designer has

learned one way or another. Designing is the most important thing, but it’s not the only thing.

All the other things a designer does are important too, and you have to do them with

intelligence, enthusiasm, dedication and love. Together, those things create the background that

makes the work meaningful, and when you do them right, that makes the work good.

(Shaughnessy, 2009, pp 3)

This statement is indicative of the fact that designers can not just sit there and design something

brilliant from the thoughts in their brains, in order to be meaningful they must observe the

world around them, be brave enough to present their emotions and express their feelings.

Drawing on past experiences and their opinions.

This has a parallel in the lecture by Jonathan Barnbrook at LCC on 03.12.10. He spoke about

being true to yourself. He said that it is possible to survive without compromising your

principles. Good ideas are the lifeblood of design but so is subversion. When he was talking

about creating typefaces he said that it is the process of making that is the most important and

satisfying to him. Ideologically, that process is larger than design but at the same time, it’s also all

about design.

He believes that to be a good designer you need to have conviction and be aware of the world

around you. As a designer there needs to be a focus and a point to your work.

I would now like to focus on my own experience of being a flaneur in the city. In order to do

this I concentrated on the way that the space made me feel and move. Investigating how other

people experience the environment emotionally and cognitively.

On Newington Causeway the buildings are as high as the sky. They appear to bend backwards,

away from you. The wide breadth of the causeway and reflective glass that the buildings are

wrapped in exaggerate the feeling of anxiousness and vulnerability of pedestrians.

The space made me feel small and insignificant. A little being in an enormous corridor of steal

  34  

mirror and concrete. The clinical, sterile and corporate landscape seems to make people scuttle

along with their heads down, move quickly to escape from the area and feel human again. Look

up and what you see is a predominantly grey, silver and metal environment. The landscape is

cold and colourless. Colour is introduced with workmen’s signs and their communication

systems. Pedestrian information is jumbled and confusing, yet adding a comforting human

element. Establishing a link between the way each area evolves and changes also recognising the

truths of the area that may have been missed by others, but are instantly obvious when pointed

out are all part of being a good designer. In order to do this, designers must also be flaneurs.

After the trepidation of crossing the wide expanse of the causeway I found myself on The

Rockingham State. A large housing development built in the 1900’s. Although the buildings are

high they have a warm, lived in feel. Built from familiar red London stock bricks the flats have

the same construction yet they all look individual. The residents of this well-established

community look relaxed, walking through the narrow paths going about their business, taking

small children to the nursery, cleaning cars and carrying shopping bags from Tesco.

I spoke to one of the residents. I asked him if he thought the area had changed over the years.

He said ‘ I have lived on the Rockingham Estate for seventy-eight years, all my life, I was born

here. The whole area has changed a lot. We don’t have any local shops anymore. In the 1950’s

we could do all our shopping on Newington Causeway. It had everything you need, a bakery,

butchers and a big family owned dairy. My family knew everyone. Now I have to walk for twenty

minutes to get to Tesco and the queues are getting worse in there.

This was valuable information for my experience as a flaneur because this man gave me an

alternative narrative of this area that is not visible today. His perspective offered me a picture of

Newington Causeway that is no longer evident.

On my walk back to LCC I was forced by the urban planners to go underground to cross the

Elephant and Castle roundabout. The only route is through the underpass. This is a maze of

dimly lit tunnels that are damp and smell of urine. Although there are signs with details in small

type of the surrounding over head landmarks, people are reluctant to stop and read the

directions because this would add to their vulnerability. Looking lost makes you a target for

crime. The user’s of this underpass march through like robots, looking straight ahead, avoiding

eye contact. In order to capture the oppressed gloom of the space I made some rough charcoal

sketches. Drawings can represent the atmosphere more effectively than words or photographs.

With drawings I was giving more of myself, presenting my emotions and feelings. This gave a

more meaningful interpretation of the space.

I also conducted a tally survey of the underpass. This was a useful exercise because in a ten-

  35  

minute time frame I recorded a broad range of user.

My conclusion was that everyone uses this space, probably because like me, they have no

alternative It would have been impossible to research this area without walking through it, and

being part of it. The way each space makes you feel and observing other people around you is

vital to the interpretation. Asking people their opinion is important primary research. It can be

an easy mistake to think that everyone has the same experience as you. They don’t, as we are all

unique and have our own opinions.

Online secondary research of an area could be beneficial, especially for historical information

and maps, but it would not allow you to absorb the character and live in that space. An example

of this is when I goggled Newington Causeway. I was given information about hotels, shopping,

education and even parking but it did not tell me how people move, live and experience the

area. Even if it did give me someone else’s interpretation of this space, I would still need to go

there to experience it myself.

When Guy Debord was writing about urban planning in Paris he said that from the late 1950’s

onwards, urban planners everywhere ruthlessly began to assault older neighbourhoods,

chopping them up into new functional units, purposely mobilizing renewal, bulldozing frayed but

healthy quarters. Cities were marching to Le Corbusier’s infamous battle cry, supprimer ia rue

[eliminate the street]. Streets said Corbusier, symbolized disorder and disharmony; they were

everything that was bad about urbanism, everything that belied a city out of sync with the

machine age. They needed ‘ readjusting ‘ he said. The city needed a new plan, with streets in the

sky and side walks down below. (Merryfield, 2005, pp46).

Corbusier’s opinion on the way neighbourhoods should evolve is also evident in London. This is

evident in the area of Newington Causeway and this community has been brutalised by this

theory.

I attended the lecture at LCC on 11.11.10 by the design team IDEO. Their idea of the design

process is interesting and simple to follow. The message they are trying to convey is that design

thinking is a human process that taps into abilities that we all have but are overlooked by more

conventional problem-solving practices. It relies on our ability to be intuitive, to recognise

patterns, to construct ideas that are emotionally meaningful as well as functional, and to express

ourselves through means beyond words or symbols. This is visual design.

This type of design thinking sits comfortably with the idea that all designers are flaneurs because

it encourages us to form opinions and read emotionally into the information we receive. Design

thinkers must set out like anthropologists or psychologists investigating how we experience the

  36  

world through our feelings. We are more likely to use our emotions and be intuitive when we

have primary research.

Richard Wentworth said ‘ I think there’s a particular dynamism in show when you see

something over there that then makes you cross the space in some specific way’ (Wentworth,

1998, pp 29)

I was particularly interested in the way other people moved through the space’s that I was

observing. The way people act and their mood appears to differ in each of my area’s even

though the area’s flow into each other.

Through research on the written work of designers, the lectures that I have attended and my

own primary research into the idea that all designers are flaneurs I have demonstrated that

being a good designer and being a flaneur are the same thing.

Norman Potter said “every human being is a designer”. (Potter, 2002, pp 10). I agree with this

and also think every human being is a flaneur. Some of us are more inquisitive and observe our

environment more acutely than others, but we all do it – designers or not.

     Bibliography 1. Books Benjamin, W. (1997) Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism. London. Verso Classics. Merryfield, Andy. (2005) Guy Debord. London. Reaktion Books Ltd Potter, Norman. (2002) What is a Designer: things. Places. Messages. London. Hyphen Press. Shaughnessy, Adrian. (2009) Graphic Design: A User’s Manual. London. Laurence King Publishing Ltd. Wentworth, Richard. (1998). Thinking Aloud. London. Hayward Gallery Publishing. 2. Journal and Magazine Articles (Hard Copies) Wilson, E. (1992) ‘The Invisible Flaneur’. The New Left Review. Issue 191, pp140-145 3. Lectures Barnbrook, Jonathan. Lecture. LCC, London. 03.12.10 IDEO Design Team. Lecture. LCC, London. 11.11.10

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3. Interview with Colette Cavanagh - Time Out Beirut

Colette Cavanagh is a History student and a part-time tour guide in London. She worked for Time

Out Magazine in Beirut for a year. This interview took place on the 10th of October, 2011.

How long did you work at TimeOut Beirut for?  

12 months  

 

What area did you specify in?  

Writing and editing articles for the Books, Film, Explorer, Own this City, and Reporter sections of the

magazine. Additional responsibilities include writing and/or editing all of the listings compiled into the first

edition of Time Out’s comprehensive guidebook to Beirut, the ‘Little Black Book of Beirut.’  

 

TO holds itself responsible for finding and suggesting things to do/see in the city – as a critic, how

did you go about doing that? Is there a suggested or required method?  

In Beirut, so much of this revolved around making connections with people who lived and worked in the

city. Not knowing anyone in the city when I first arrived made things more difficult, especially because it’s

not always possible to find information about different events in Beirut, and Lebanon in general, online.

Very few venues actually have functioning web pages, although they often have a Facebook page, as it’s

free and simple to set up. So, to finally come back to your question, when looking for events, at the start

of each month I would typically call venues that had held major events in the past and ask if they had

any upcoming events. I would then list the majority of those events in the magazine and on the website.

As people came to know me and my role in the magazine, they actually began to take the initiative to

call me at the start of each month to present me with a schedule of their events for the month.  

And then, of course, I spent a fair amount of time wandering around the city, actually on the lookout for

new things to do and see. If I went to a café, I always picked up all the fliers and checked out all of the

posters in the windows. If I notice that a new place is opening up for business, I tried to talk to the owner,

to find out the opening dates, and to learn more about what the owner intended or hoped to create. I

was always talking to random people in shops, restaurants, cafes, etc. to ask what was going on in town,

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where everyone was going for the weekend. I would ask for recommendations for day trips, where to get

a good cup of coffee, where to go for a relaxed night out with friends, etc. The goal was to get to know

the city as an insider – which is an admittedly difficult challenge given that I was far from a native, but

ended up becoming a fantastic way to really get to know the city and the people in it.

 

Would you say your approach is that of a flâneur? (i.e. The flâneur is one who looses him/herself in

the city with the intention of discovering something new)

I think that when I am writing for myself or blogging, my approach is definitely that of a flâneur. I like to

observe people – how they interact with one another and with their environment, how they’re dressed,

how they carry themselves, how they eat, the gestures they make when they speak, what they do when

they think no one is looking, what they do when they know they are being watched, how they move their

mouths, etc. etc. etc. I also like to observe the cities themselves – graffiti, styles of buildings, how different

neighborhoods are organised, the character of different areas of the city, traffic patterns, public

transportation, the types of shops and variety of goods available, open air markets, etc. etc. etc. On the

one hand, I just enjoy the beauty of it all – it’s almost like walking around an art gallery in a museum. The

mix of the familiar and the foreign never fails to stimulate my mind. And on the other hand, I feel like all

of my observations give me a great deal of insight into the culture and history of whichever city I’m living

in. I feel like I’m learning – in some ways, when I’m writing, I feel like I’m a cultural anthropologist writing

an ethnography.  

When I was writing for Time Out, I did feel like I approached some of the research for my articles as a

flâneur, but the truth of the matter is that constant deadlines and an overwhelming workload made it

difficult to find the time to really lose myself in the city. Sometimes entire articles had to be written from

the confines of the office - observations and details that I would so liked to have added to the article had

to be left out for the sake of time and low word counts (short articles). I also feel like when I observe and

write as a flâneur, it’s something that’s very difficult for me to do on a schedule. I’m out searching for

inspiration and when inspiration strikes, I write. Working for Time Out, I would go out with a specific

article in mind and given the strict time constraints, as soon as I observed something relating to that

article, I had to sit down and write, truly inspired or not.  

In a lot of ways, it was an amazing job that allowed me to explore the city and get to know all of the

different aspects of it quite quickly and relatively well. But in many ways, I feel that it zapped my

creativity. I HAD to write, inspired or not, and as a result, writing lost it’s cathartic effect for me – when I

was inspired, I no longer wanted to write. I was too exhausted and writing felt like work, not an artistic

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form of expression or a relaxing and entertaining pastime. I know that there are many people who can

have both, but working at Time Out, I realized that I was not one of them, and it’s largely because of that

that I finally decided to leave my job there.  

 

Is this an approach you would like to use more often?  

Yes! Definitely! In fact, even now, studying here in London, I want to try to find more time to go out and

explore the city as a flâneur, taking photos and potentially writing about my observations. It’s exciting,

stimulating, mind-expanding, educational, beautiful – I’m getting cheesy with the adjectives, but the

general gist is, I LOVE IT!

What are the constraints of being a flâneur?  

There is only so much that you can understand of that which you are observing if you don’t interact with it

a bit more. It’s true that once you make yourself, and the fact that you are observing something, known to

others automatically changes the dynamics of whatever it is that you are observing. I hope this is making

sense. Let me think of an example…  

Okay, let’s say I go into a café and I’m sitting there, observing the decorations, the people who come in

and out, the way the baristas prepare the coffee and the food and interact with the customers, the way

people drink their coffee, what people are wearing, how they speak, the expressions they use, etc. I can

observe all this as an outsider, not interfering with them. But without actually talking to them and asking

direct questions about the environment, their interactions with it, and about themselves in general, I will

be forced (consciously or unconsciously) to make a lot of assumptions. It’s like I’m observing them through

glass tinted by my own perspective, and while there is a great deal of value in that, I can enhance my

understanding a thousand times over and avoid a great many misinterpretations, by breaking my role as

a flâneur and interacting more directly with the people and places around me.  

 

Can you name people/companies who never/always work in the mode of the flâneur?  

I don’t know that there’s anyone who is always working as a flâneur. I definitely think that writers come

pretty close to always though. You need to conjure up images through words, so you need to be able to

be able to describe the minutest details and as a result you find yourself constantly observing everything

  40  

around; you become aware of things that most people don’t really even think about. Taking sentences

from a book I just read….You have to be able to write things like “she put her coffee cup back on its

saucer with a slight click.” Or “I was ten minutes early but of course Veronica was already there, head

down, reading, confident that I would find her.” Or “the table looked out over a criss-cross of elevators.”

Or describing someone as “wryly affable in his three-piece suit.” These aren’t the best examples, but the

point is, you have to be aware of sounds; you have to be able to convey what people are feeling and

thinking, their posture; you have to be able to describe exactly what you see, hear, smell, think, and feel in

ways that will resonate with your readers – and being able to describe those things accurately requires a

great deal of observation of random wanderings searching for inspiration.  

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4. The flâneur in Design - Survey Results

This survey was sent to 55 students and practitioners in design. The survey was sent out on the 15th

of January 2012 and responses were collected and analysed on the 23rd of January 2012.

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Bibl iography

Books:

• Baudelaire, C. (1861) Les Fleurs du Mal

• Benjamin, W. «Paris: the capital of the nineteenth century», in Charles Baudelaire: a lyric

poet in the era of high capitalism, 1935

• Benjamin, W. (2002) The Arcades Project, Ed. Rolf Tiedemann. Trans. Howard Eiland and

Kevin McLaughlin, Belknap Press, NY.

• Benjamin, W. (2006) The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles Baudelaire, Michael

Jennings, ed., Howard Eiland, Edmund Jephcott, Rodney Livingstone, and Harry Zohn, trans.  • Brand, D. (1991) The spectator and the city in nineteenth-century American literature

Cambridge University Press.  • Burton, R. (2010) The Flâneur and his City Patterns of Daily Life in Paris 1815-1851,

Durham Modern Languages Series, Manchester University Press.

• Dormer P., (1993) Design Since 1945, Thames & Hudson, London.  • Ford, S. (2004) The Situationist International: A User's Guide, Black Dog, London.  • Fournel, V. (1867) Ce qu’on voit dans les rues de Paris, Dentu, Paris.  • Gilloch, G. (1996) Myth and Metropolis: Walter Benjamin and the City, Polity Press,

Cambridge.

• Gleber, A. (1999) The Art of Taking a Walk, Princeton University Press, NJ.

• Harvey, D. (1985) The Urban Experience, The John Hopkins University Press, USA.

• Knabb, K. (1995) Situationist International Anthology, Berkley: Bureau of Public Secrets.

• McDonogh, T. (2004) Guy Debord and the Situationist International: Texts and

Documents, The MIT Press.

• Ogden, D. (2005) The language of the eyes: science, sexuality, and female vision in English

literature and culture, 1690-1927, SUNY Press, NY.

• Otis-Skinner, C. (1962) Elegant Wits and Grand Horizontals, Houghton Mifflin, NY.  • Schuman, S. (2009) The Sartorialist, Penguin, UK.

• Sontag, S. (1977) On Photography, Penguin, USA.

• Tester, K. (1994) The Flaneur, Routledge Publications, NY.  • White, E. (2001) The Flâneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris, Bloomsbury

Publishing, USA.  

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Articles and Essays

• Baudelaire C., The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays, edited and translated by

Jonathan Mayne. London: Phaidon Press, 13.

• Gluck M., The Flâneur and the Aesthetic Appropriation of Urban Culture in Mid-19th

century, Paris, Theory, Culture and Society, SAGE VOL. 20, London, 2003

• Guy Debord, Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography. Les Lèvres Nues #6, Paris,

1955  • Guy Debord, Theory of the Dérive. Les Lèvres Nues #9, Paris, 1956  • Freize, Issue 91, May 2005

Web:

• http://www.sophiecalle.net/

• http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/

• http://www.stedelijk.nl/

• http://www.pratt.edu/

• http://www.francisalys.com/

• http://www.thelemming.com /

• http://www.frieze.com/

• http://www.glowlab.blogs.com/psygeocon/

• http://www.moma.org/

• http://www.divestudio.org/

• http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/

• http://www.thesartorialist.com/

• http://www.timeout.com/

• http://www.timeoutbeirut.com/