Recently downloaded and installed the new Drift app from the artist group (and Sobey Award long-listers) Broken City Lab. Described as “a tool for getting lost in familiar places” the app simply gives you a random set of instructions for exploring your immediate surroundings, as well as what to document and upload to the collective project database. For example “walk north for two blocks, find a sign of hope and take a picture of it” – which, for a poor neighbourhood like mine, can produce quite a poignant result.
Anyways, each set of instructions is called a “drift” and I must admit it was a lot of fun and a very insighful process to follow. My partner and I set out, with the dog in tow, to complete an entire set of instructions and re-discover our hood. We actually ended up walking down streets we had never been on, though at one point a literal following of the instructions would have resulted in us walking up and down the same stretch several times.
Below is our Drift, in pictures and with the instructions we were following.
Jen and our dog, Chili, at the start of our brave new adventure
“Find the nearest reflection to you and take a picture of it” We hoped our neighbours were not alarmed as to why we were peering into their car and taking a picture.
“walk until you see something inquisitive and take a picture of it” ok, how much is this new price?
“walk east for two blocks and try to take a picture of the wind” We ended up in a park and spotted this bird. Danger was immanent as we were looking up and there was dog poo hidden everywhere in the grass.
“walk south until you see something hidden and take a picture of it” We had never noticed this dirt road alley off of a city parking lot.
“…walk west, adn look for something hidden from the perspective of an adult and take a picture of it” into another alley, and since i am rather tall I could see across a low roof to behold a hockey helmet placed beside a hydro meter. Why is this here?
“walk north until you find something abandoned and take a picture of it” Should not be too much of a problem here in Hamilton, famous for it’s abandoned buildings. but we came across this water bottle first. Poor bottle.
“Walk south for one and take a picture of the strangest thing you see around you” we ended up at a very normal looking corner, but then spotted these two TV satellite dishes pointed at the roof of the house, not at the sky. Strange!
“walk north for one block, look for something sweet and take a picture of it.” we saw a child’s hand scrawl in chalk stating that “Emma hates Charlie”. Children are sweet, though this is kinda bitter as well.
“walk north until you find an example of anarchy at work and take a picture of it” Anarchy! Jen spotted this neglected billboard with various posters that had lost some it’s wording – the key element here is the word “freedom”. Another word for anarchy.
