Exquisite Dérive by GYØ Ben, Shia Astoria, Haberley Mead, GYØ Vicki
May 1st, 2009 3:55 PM**Quick note - the first part of this praxis was done back in the heady days of April 2008, whereas the final part was only just done today. Therefore, any notes about times in the first bit should probably totally be ignored, as I'd assume you would anyway, seeing as we very rarely know what we're talking about anyway. Thank you.
Anyway, on with the show!**
(Shia's bit)
As you exit your house, turn left.
At the end of the road, turn right.
Walk 100 metres, then wait for 2
minutes.
Continue to the end of the road and
then turn right.
Ponder at the fauna as you re-tie your
shoelaces.
Cross the road and take the second
left.
Walk 125 metres, then pick up any
object you find there.
Continue 10 feet onwards.
(Haberley's bit)
Take the nearest right turn.
At the end of the road, take a left
turn.
Walk to a crossroads, then take the
turning with the most intriguing view at the end.
Upon reaching what you saw, take the
first turning you see that isn't a road.
At the next junction, turn right.
Take another right, then continue 20
metres.
(Ben's bit)
Continue to the end of this path until
you are relatively out in the open.
Place the object you retrieved earlier
in a centralised location.
Look around and photo the most vibrant
green thing you can see.
Walk in a different direction to the
one you were going in and document something that has changed since
you were last there.
Walk to an ending point of this path
and continue on 150 metres.
Ponder at the flora as you untie your
shoelaces.
Make note of the weather at this point.
(Vicki's bit)
Rest under the nearest tree
Walk straight ahead, and photograph the first bit of graffitti you see
Carry on until you find a place of business
Turn left past the shop/business and follow the road to the end
Left or right? Give reasons
Continue to the end of the road, until you meet a junction/crossroad
Follow the turning with the best view
Walk towards your starting place for 2 minutes, then take the nearest right and walk that road Lincoln style!
Shia
With real life slowing down around me, I decided it was time to add a spark of interest back into my days. And why not into the days of my friends too! So, as I stared out of the window of the train on my spontaneous journey back to my hometown, I pondered what could be done. My camera was in my pocket, fully charged and waiting. But I had things to do back home-
Back home. That would be perfect... So, stepping from the train to platform 2 of Stechford station (the back end of nowhere, I can assure you), armed with my camera in one hand and my mobile phone in the other, I began to document my leisurely stroll home.
The problem with skate shoes is that, even if you don't tie the laces up (as is the trend), they still have a tendancy to loosen themselves. So, as I turned into Lyttleton Road and Gillies Court, I stopped to retie them; noting the beautiful forget-me-nots and poppies as I did so. I didn't want my friends to miss out on such sights either, so I added this into my instructions. (Forgetting that 'fauna' means animals, and it is 'flora' that means plant life).
Turning into my road, the end was in sight. A fairly short journey for me, but I knew that it would end up considerably longer once everyone was done. Apart from the stop to admire the flora and tie shoes, it had also be largely uneventful.
But then, in my own front garden, was an additional point of interest.
Or, to be precise, a piece of rubbish.
Wondering how this would be interpreted by the others, I instructed them to 'pick any object you find there'. For me, it was just a supermarket receipt (helping the environment too, what a good little girl am I)- but who knows what the others would find.
And finally, my destination!
Haberley
I've been meaning to do a lot more Tasks than I have this past couple of weeks, but they've all fallen by the wayside through one reason or another. So when I got a message from Shia, with just the title of this Task and a set of directions, I made sure I wasn't going to miss this. Shoes on, camera out, straight out of the door before I can give myself a second thought about it.
The pictures at the end should tell most of the story, but certain things I feel need to be elaborated on...
Shia's instruction to 'pick up what you find there' really led to some interesting interpretation - I was still in the middle of a (surprisingly clean) street, with nothing directly to hand that I could pick up. That is, until I looked to my left at the houses. The instructions had led me right outside a house that was having construction work done to it, and this was in the front lawn...
Not being one to shirk from the drive for completion, I quickly annexed one of the bricks for the state of SF0. I tell you though, when people say that something's 'as heavy as a housebrick', only now do I realise just how heavy that is! Walking around in the sunshine, which before had been pleasantly warmng, was now another half-hour slog with a brick effectively tied around my neck. Still fun, but a lot more sweaty...
Also, I feel that my epic completions are going to take me places some time in the future - as I walked down a gravel path, by now not even sure I was going the right way, I found a sign left to me that was definitive proof that this was where I was meant to be. On a road I have never before seen, walking and looking at the sights with fresh eyes, I found what appeared to be my own handprint, painted on a wall with my initials right next to it...
And just at eye-level, too! I guess I was going the right way after all!
Ben
So, this is my first dérive.
When I exited my house, it occurred to me how bright things were, even at 6, 7 o'clock in the evening. It was nice to see this, "especially in a hole like Gorleston", I thought. But then I realised that the neighbourhood I live in is, in actuality, quite pleasant.
So, I stepped outside, and into the big world of tasking once again. The instructions were not too long, but this walk wouldn't be too short.
Something that I discovered about myself with this dérive is that a) I cannot take good pictures, and b) the only moderately good shot I can take is the same formula, repeated over and over again (see tree shots one and two, and postbox) with an object in the foreground, blurred in the back.
I noted the following on my journey:
Change
Congruence
Symmetry
Insolence
Life
I followed the instructions very closely, and I got some interesting views of the neighbourhood around me, I think. I saw the sights of the grassy knolls and the azure skies, I smelled the smells of barbeques and acrid smoke, I heard the sounds of cooing doves and whistling wind, I felt the feelings of home.
I think the pictures explain the rest.
Even if a bird pooed RIGHT in front of me at one point.
EVIL PIGEON!
----
Vicki
Ah, the wonders of bank holidays, the weather was great, the perfect excuse to go for a walk (that's what I told my mother anyway...).
Heading out of the house, I started the walk, the sun slowly burning my shoulders. Unfortunately the route took me along University Crescent; it's not really long, just rather boring. So I kept on walking, and ended up somewhere in the Shrublands estate. I walk this way home every day from school, but there are so many roads and alleyways, it was pretty easy to get confused. Finding the empty space I never knew existed was interesting, I thought I knew Gorleston pretty well (and Gorleston is not a hole Ben, that's GY).
I didn't realise until I got back that mine and Ben's paths actually crossed. We live about 25ish minutes from eachother, yet we somehow managed to meet in the middle. Weird huh?
My favourite pictures:
The Final Journey, by Haberley
WELL. It's been pretty much exactly a year since Shia first started this praxis, so I figured it was now or never for this. A lot has changed in a year - Shia has all but left SF0, I've moved house, and Ben and Vicki have probably forgotten completely about this task! But did it I did, and after three years of living in Stafford I can still find bits of it I never knew existed. Oh yeah, and parts of the walk were unnecessarily LONG.
The walk took me nearly two hours, over four miles of completely new terrain (walking slowly, that is), and my feet were starting to majorly blister by the end of it - and I wouldn't give the memories up for anything. The wal was just what I needed to get me out and about after my final deadlines of uni, and it was a nice easy way to get back into SF0. Plus, this was the view I was afforded by the end of it:
It may just be the rugged Brit in me, but that is the sort of thing I live to see - and it's right outside my own town! Thank you guys for a set of fantastic instructions, that led me to such a nice place! I may have to go back there sometime, when I actually know where I was...
Some of my other favourite views from the journey:
Hello again SF0, it's good to be back.
My route
The short journey home
Stechford Station
Where my instructions started!
Flora pt1
Forget-me-nots outside Gillies Court
Pretty poppies
More of the flora outside Gillies Court. My shoes were nicely re-tied by this point.
The offending receipt
'Pick up any object nearby'
Ta-da!
My final destination- the door to my house back home.
Haberley's route.
The path I took to get from A to B. The asterisk is waiting for a couple of minutes, the long line is where Shia's instructions ended and my meandering started, and the cross is where I found a time-travelling message to myself in a children's playground. No, seriously.
Leave the house...
and turn left
End of the road...
Turn right.
Waiting for two minutes...
Nothing happened, apart from me getting some very odd looks.
End of the road?
Okay, it's not the end of my road, but if I had continued it I would've ended up walking down the M6 towards Birmingham. That's not a derive, that's a hike.
Retie my shoelaces...
Seeing as my shoes don't have real laces, I guess that's not happening.
Take the second left
Either a cryptic clue or a literal meaning, both ways led me to Second avenue. Serendipitastic!
A ton of bricks.
That one on the top left corner is mine now.
Not a Road.
An intriguing view
This was at the end of my intriguing view - doubly intriguing because I seem to have ben here before...
Handprint
Yep, it's my hand size and my initials - guess I get a time machine sometime!
At the pub
Cheers!
The End
Yeah, I think I know who this is gonna lead me on to next...
The brick
Aaand now I'm lumped with a house brick in my room...
Ben's route
Starts at the top, Shia's instructions ended at the end of the part where there are two lines parallel, and my instructions start at the bottom, with the irregular pentagon shape (the one with a curved side), in the bottom right hand corner.
Gazing at instructions
They were not confusing, but I was worried about the "Continue to the end of the road" part
Tree shot #1
I quite liked the texture of this tree, it looked rough and hard, but it was quite the opposite
Tree shot #2
Trees' bark is fascinating
Tall
I was having fun. My very hairy planet-sized-headed friends are to the left and right of me
Art is lost on me
So I try obscure angles, and see what happens.
Waiting for 2 minutes
Nothing happened.
Down the road
But I'm not going down here.
EVIL pigeon
Almost pooed on me.
Postbox
Good ol' English post boxes.
It said "WAIT"
So I did.
Shoelaces
Already tied. I was confused.
BIG road to cross
This was more a study in madness than dérive. Fortunately, the road was clear-ish when I ran across all three lanes
Sunlight
Westbrook Avenue
Small alleyway
So many colours!
There was a seed
Westbrook continued
In the middle of a road
Dangerous.
Blossom
Not a road
Reflection
Footprint
Was the same size as my own foot
Heart plant
Gives me love at the end of the instructions I was given
Open space
Seed
Path
Green
Change
That shop used to be a gaming centre
Flora
So little of it
Weather
Alone
Idiocy
Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dickhead
Vicki - Turn Left
My road
My estate is named after various colleges
University Crescent
I tryed to resize it, but Paint screwed it up
Directions
Shadow
The end of the road
Fauna
Not the best, but they do their purpose in hiding the cemetary
Walking
It was even warm enough to walk around in a short skirt and flipflops - not your typical bank holiday weather!
Second left
The random object
An empty Capri-Sun carton, which I begrudgingly put in my bag
Lime Way
Turn left at the end of the road
So I did
And that's what I find!
Hmm...intruiging
This isn't a road
The path leading to the open space
Which I never knew existed!
Open space!
There goes the Capri-Sun
This is the most vibrant green thing I can find, everything else seems to be concrete...
Different direction
But I don't see a change...
Ponder at the flora
Hopefully blossom counts
...as you untie your shoelaces
Well.
Resting
And trying to take a photograph...
How lovely.
*grumble*
Place of business
Hang on a sec...Ben was here earlier...
Hmm...left or right?
(I chose right, there were too many chavs on the playground to the left...)
Crossroads
I think I went straight ahead
Barefoot
Hot pavement = slightly painful
The final route
East to west, my travel today - X1 is the university, X2 is my house (where the dérive started) and X3 is the end. According to Google Maps, this is about 4.5 miles.
The house
The starting point, and a damn fine day to boot!
Just a few steps from my house...
Since when have we had a river there??
Walk 100m, then wait for two minutes.
A bus actually stopped for me while Iwas here - I felt bad shooing him along.
Ponder the local fauna
Both alive...
.
...And less so.
Continue to the end of the road
Not a bad instruction, but I kept finding myself on mile-long main roads...
Finally reached the end of the road!
.
These shoes don't really lend themselves to lace-tying - they're more for comfort, and gliding about the place on little wheels :)
Cross the road, then take the second left.
While not crossing the road per se, this was by far the easiest way to get to t'other side.
Walk 125m, then pick up what you find.
In my travels, I seem to have found the smallest bus stop in Christendom. Tried to lift it, but they sem to have made it extremely heavy to stop persons like myself making off with it. Damn. I'm also getting slightly concerned at how accurate the measurements are for this dérive - I feel as though some of these things are set up...
.
While not a specific part of the route, I felt the empty spire deserved a mention and an image.
Diversion
Guess I'm going left then.
Crossroad Junctions
It took nearly half a mile of walking, and this was as close to a crossroads as I could find. By this point I was starting to regret not wearing walking boots, and thought 'sod it, this'll do.' Not the most dérive-like state of mind, but meh.
The most intriguing junction
This place was gorgeous. It turned out to be nothing more than a few farmhouses' driveways, but the look and feel of it was brilliant. I almost forgot I was in Stafford at all, it just didn't feel like a town.
Regret
I had to botch up two of the instructions to give me a U-Turn, otherwis they would have just ended up with me taking the dérive through somebody's front room - and I didn't really feel like breaking and entering this early in the morning...
.
Like I say, gorgeous.
The greenest thing nearby.
I was in woodland! And it's spring! What other colour would there be??
Take a note of the weather.
Bloody lovely.
Rest against the nearest tree.
I really was spoilt for choice here... (by the way, the headphones are - rather aptly - playing The Zutons: Not A Lot To Do)
The nearest thing to grafitti
I spent ages walking looking for grafitti, and it seems I entered the nice part of Stafford where there was none! Eventually I made do with this mixed media installation, entitled "Can't Pick Up" (unknown creator).
.
Again not an instruction, but interesting nonetheless. I love these walks, they take you to things you would otherwise never know were there...
Nearing the end
Two hours later, and I was still pottering about strange suburbs of Stafford.
However...
The view was AMAZING. I have lived in England for nigh on 22 years now, and the sight of green rolling hills still makes my heart soar. Imagine waking up on this road, with this view to see every day!
The view again
I couldn't do the last instruction, as I honestly didn't know which direction home was by now (although I had the strange feeling I was always getting further from it), but I had to go nearer!
And the journey home
The easiest way to get back home - the drivers always know where they are... At least I hope they do.
11 vote(s)
Flea
4
Sombrero Guy
5
Optical Dave
5
kiri ma
4
Adam
3
Loki
4
Charlie Fish
4
Ben Yamiin
5
rongo rongo
5
Squirmelia
3
Idøntity matrix
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(none yet)5 comment(s)
Man I remember this!
To be more precise, I remember giving up because I underestimated just how un-urban my neighbourhood was and had walked six god damn miles by this point and was only halfway down the list...
But hey, it's nice to finally see the results!
I like the bit about walking Lincoln-style.
And Haberley's route looks particularly pretty.
Interesting how the routes get so long, and how you all found snippets of space that were surprising so near home.
Old praxis is old xD