Tasks / Laboritoire De Tourisme Expérimental
Finish every single travel experiment found here.
750 points suggested
1 to 8 players
0 points
Level 0
In the zone of: BART Psychogeographical Association
Created by Lincøln
0 completed :: 0 in progress
Interested in collaborating on this: (no one yet!)
this task is pretired
Comments
Given that all of those are possible, I'm inclined to think it's too easy. I mean, "Time Machine" is only level seven...
Sure, they're all possible. But it's going to take a very very long time to do it.
I think all tasks should be possible.
All tasks are possible.
Pentagon trampoline coming right up!
Perhaps this should be a level one task, where you complete one of the travel experiments.
That, or have it be both! Like the high score task and the low score task!
Well, I wrote this when I saw this Myrna Minx suggestion, and thought all of them were possible. I encourage all of these being small level one tasks, sure. But if you do them all, it should be worth a lot.
hear, hear!
oh, and... please approve?
Ah, I get it.
How about 500 points?
I'd take it for any amount of points, really. But this feels like an equivalent to the trampoline task.
With a brief glance, it requires you to get married... and that's just one of them.
damn damn DAMN past completions! I did 'Alternating Travel' in Iraq!
If you didn't post it to SFØ, you didn't actually do it.
I think there shouldn't be a minimum limit to how many experiments you have to do before submitting a praxis. Let people submit praxis of however many experiments they want, give the task a relatively low level, and let the votes do the talking.
Be still my little BARTPA heart. This is fantastic.
Reading these praxes is going to feel a lot like watching someone dress a snow leopard in a clown costume. The appropriate response is not, What a cool clown costume! Rather, one ought to say, Wow, that's a snow leopard! Why did you put that dumb costume on it?
You see, tasking serves to enliven the ordinary. It adds a little punch to every-day life. Or, perhaps, it adds a flask full of life to every-day punch. However you want to phrase it, the reason we task is that it makes the world around us a little bit more fun than when we're not tasking. Well, either that, or because we're crazy narcissists who've managed to convince ourselves the world cares what we think our desires smell like.
And yet, the best tasking in the world can't remove you from the ordinary in the way that travel can. When you've swapped your world for brand new one, invoking elaborate rules and games to encourage you to explore your environment just doesn't feel necessary. In fact, it seems contrary to the very spirit of psychogeography. If you're going to bother with plane tickets and visa paperwork and booster shots and phrase-books and all the rest of it in order to get to some place, then for sart's sake, BE in that place. Don't waste your time trying to force the place to cooperate in some gimmick you brought along with you.
I realize the global tourist industry struggles to make travel as dull and boring as most people's real lives. We've all seen its victims. Shared lodging and buses and airplanes with them. Pitied them. Laughed at them when they weren't looking. Caught ourselves on the cusp of turning into them perhaps, and leap back from that abyss. I'm talking about the middle aged American businessman sitting in a country-and-western themed bar in Poland, watching English language movies and sipping a whisky and coke. The Dutch college kid who spends three weeks in Bangkok eating McDonald's and surfing the web from a hostel common room, occasionally venturing out to a downtown tourist dance club when prompted by a more adventurous friend. The Japanese newlyweds who film all of New York through a charter bus window and never get more than three arms length away from their guide. I'll admit, those people would benefit from this kind of thing. The emphasis here is on would, since none of them will. But, for the rest of us, this seems pointless. Beyond pointless: counterproductive. I can't imagine being on a trip and being so bored that I'd spend my time doing any of these, much less all of these. My advice? If this seems like a good idea, you'd do well to find somewhere else to travel. Some place that actually interests you. Go. See. Do. Then, when you've run out of time and money, come home and task.
The first thing I have to say when reading this is 'man what' and then I think 'Burn Unit?' and then I think you must have posted that comment under the wrong task. A lot of things I am thinking right now. But mostly I'm thinking you didn't read the tasks on that page. Because I agree whole-heartedly with everything you wrote, but it has nothing to do with this task.
How does letting a dog take you for a walk have anything to do with going to Bangkok and eating McDonald's? Most every task on that list can be done in your home town. But if one of these tasks gets you out of your home for whatever reason, and maybe takes you on a trip to someplace you've never been, then consider that a good thing.
If you're the type of traveler that goes to New York and stays at the Ritz and orders room service for every meal and only goes out to see a few Broadway shows and takes a cab there and back, then this task will help that person, this task will help that person very much. Although I doubt that anybody that read this task is one of those people, just because this task is only viewable to members of SFØ, and as a rule, we aren't that kind of person. And being the kind of people we are, do you really think throwing more adventure and exploration rules onto a trip will make us somehow clam up or have an inferior trip? I am in San Francisco right now. I came to San Francisco to task. Which I did. But when I was done tasking, I didn't clam up and go home. I went out and explored. I went for bike rides, I explored parts of town I had never seen. The tasking was an excuse to get out of bed.
I really don't see anybody going to Poland and then sitting in the American themed restaurants because of this task. I don't see how having a spa day at a friend's house can be considered a bad thing. Really, I don't know what you mean by that post. Maybe an explanation would help?
I think I know what BU is saying here. Stop me if I'm wrong.
The tasks at the Latourex make travel more like a game. But the strictures they put on that travel end up becoming just another kind of leash. Sure, there's a difference: the pups who are mentioned in that post use "familiarity" or "stick with the guides" as their leash, and it's certainly worse than anything Latourex will get you doing. However, even the Latourex tasks are designed to put you on rails, and interact with your destination according to some rules that will keep you from experiencing the destination as a whole, simply because they tell you what you will do when you arrive instead of letting you explore. You've dropped your usual motives for movement and action, but picked up new ones that are just as big of busybodies, that are still baggage from the place you left to get there.
Now, I'm not sure if I agree with this. I think Latourex would help people to get over that initial hesitancy to interact with their destination outside of the "usual" rails, and force them to see the parts of the city that a Derivé might also censor due to personal bias and prejudices coming through on a subconscious level - providing some of the benefits of an RPD without most of the drawbacks. But, I guess it's debatable if an RPD is ever what we ought to be doing.
Did I catch the meaning of your post, Burnunit? I'm still not 100% sure and I don't want to talk out of my hat about another guy's opinion.
I think Latourex is designed for people who want rails to at least be available to them. It's comforting. But it isn't my favorite way to travel. I consult guide books, find the gems they mention that appeal - but then I leave them in my hotel, or even at home. Some people like the suggested "if you have three days in Paris here is how to spend the morning and afternoon of each one and where to eat lunch in between" type things many guidebooks include, and some people even follow them to the letter.
Others like a different sort of leash. Some will go on trips themed around a favorite mystery novel set in a far-off city, visiting all the places mentioned in it. Or there are websites suggesting how to do such a thing with one of my favorite novels, set in Barcelona, right down to eating ham sandwiches at Els Quatre Gats because that's what the characters do - never mind that the establishment has changed since the days when the book takes place, in the aftermath of the civil war. Or some people go spend a month walking a pilgrimage route that has been in use by travelers for a thousand years. (Actually, I'd like to do that one some day.) Some people try to break free of more traditional leashes, and end up substituting another sort of leash. For instance, my mother used to be pretty much a guidebook person but has learned that when traveling with me she'd rather ask me what I feel like doing. And some people like to lean on the locals for guidance as much as possible, taking in the sights, sounds, and flavors the locals recommend over those of the guidebook authors.
But the truth is, when you're in an unfamiliar place, many people need a leash of some sort. If you don't know the place, you can't travel there without guidance and expect to fully experience it. The trick is to have the leash do its job without being stifling, and many tourists have not mastered that trick. Trying a brand new leash, such as by using the Latourex ideas, is a great way to help you with that part, so it's a cool thing that I think a lot of people stand to gain from.
And honestly I don't think SF0 is all that likely to be populated by more skillful tourists than the rest of the world. Sure, I'm sure we have some (I'd say I'm better than average at avoiding being either stifled or overwhelmed when I travel, but I know I could stand to get better) - but for those of us who could benefit from something like this, I like how Latourex is a more SF0esque way of trying to develop that skill than is traditional.
I won't be completing this task, but I don't think it's a bad one. And I just might try a few of the experiments in there, though I'll stick to the less constraining ones.
Excellent, Peter. I'd say that you've captured my point perfectly; however, the truth is you've formulated my point. My original post was much more of a gut-reaction thing. Something about the idea just rubbed me the wrong way.
Lincoln, dude, you know me. I'm the guy who shows up for a business trip with a suitcase full of spimes and a crafts kit, then spends the evening in a mall elevator. I'm the guy who travels to a new city and sees the sights by installing papercraft and handing out gifs to subway passengers. I task while I travel, and sometimes I travel solely in order to task. And there's nothing wrong with that. Tasking is fun. And collaboration is the currency of friendship when you have friends like us.
When I read the list of Latourex tasks, and imagine undertaking them while visiting a foreign place, they just feel wholely inorganic and likely to get in the way of actually experiencing the place. Most of them, at least. Why? I'm not sure. Even the most exciting trip includes down-time: hours spent at bus stations, day trips to places that turn out to be thoroughly disappointing, etc. A lot of that time could be effectively filled with some of the tasks described here. And adding a little randomness can be a great way to break out of habits and experience things you might never have thought of doing. None the less, when I imagine actually doing these tasks when traveling, I'd almost certainly prefer to be doing something else. And thus, I *would* be doing something else. The aside on boring travelers was just that - an aside.
OK, BU, that makes much more sense. I know you and the way you work, so I just couldn't figure out where that first comment came from.
If I was in the middle of doing this task, and I somehow got a trip to Bangladesh, I can guarantee you I would not even think of doing any of these tasks while there. I would complete every single one of these tasks (as much as they allow me to using the rules) in Los Angeles. All of these tasks can be completed (pretty much) in your home town. I think it is a great way to get out and experience your town in a way you hadn't thought of before.
That's an interesting point, Lincoln. Treating the whole thing as an extended psychogeographical exercise by doing it in your own city certainly makes a lot of sense.
Personally there are some of these I would do in a foreign city I was visiting. I really like the very first one (Aesthetic Travel), for instance, and might well do that the next place I go on vacation - wherever that may be.
And while I haven't done a real Barman's Knock, I'd much rather ask locals who ought to know where to go drink rather than pick something touristy enough to get a writeup in a guidebook. Hell, my favorite bar in the world is one I've only been fortunate enough to go to once - a little place in Dublin called Cobblestones that our guidebooks had never heard of. Three of my friends and I were staying in a hostel with a staff person who was about our age and shared some of our fondness for traditional Irish music. We told him we thought the famous pubs would be too full of other tourists, and he certainly guided us well.
Lyrical Tourism also sounds like a pretty good one, though it shouldn't be the whole trip. A Nostalgia Trip after you get back is an interesting way to remind yourself that the exotic places you've been aren't quite as different as they first seem - but they are still different.
Most, though, I like BU wouldn't make part of travel - though like Lincoln I'd consider doing a lot of them in my own city.
Well, that's what I was planning on doing. Completing these experiments in my neck of the woods.
So many opinions, so little time to write exhaustively about them!!!
First to reply to Burn Unit's ideas and Peter's paraphrase of them. There just isn't any way to "experience a destination as a whole". The constraints of time and space are such that you could have 40 YEARS in the same place and still only scratch the surface. Any choice that you make will have an opportunity cost, it's just a matter of which choice you plump for. I fail to see why tasking stops you from "going, seeing or doing" - You're there, you're seeing SOMETHING, and you're obviously DOING something. Why would the things you do be any less a reflection of that location than any other things you could do. You're still interacting with the specific people and geography of the place.
Of course that's true even of those in "tourist hell". I live in one of THE worldwide tourist destinations. I grew up here. I RUN a tourist store for gnu's sake. I'm PART of the local colour that others come here to experience ;-> Tourists are actually kind of neat. When I travel round New Zealand myself it's not so much my contact with other New Zealanders I enjoy (although that's cool too) it's the contact with the VAST variety of tourists I encounter. Israelis just finished national service, Brits traveling the length of the country picking fruit, Chinese language students, Finnish hitchhikers we squeeze into the backseat on the way to see some whales. They're all good people, all fun to meet, and as much a part of the "special nature of New Zealand" as the Maoris in the Marae down the road, or the drunken uni students, dressed in drag, racing around in shopping trolleys.
I also think Doc Harmon hits the nail on the head when he says "If you don't know a place you can't travel there without guidance and expect to experience it". Random wandering is an EXTREMELY inefficient way to "get to know the real nature" of a place. It's also a strain to intergrate the experiences you DO have this way. To my mind the most important part of ANY trip is the "mission" that gives it it's narrative framework. If you don't have some sort of narrative framework to a trip then you can't treat yourself as a protagonist in any useful way.
Now, this narrative framework can consist of anything. It COULD even consist of "I'm just going to wander in a random manner until I find something cool", although that would be a sub-par narrative, with none of the structural causation that makes for truly epic holiday stories. Of course you don't need to SUCCEED in the stated mission. In fact the narrative of failure is often even more epic that the narrative of success, but you can't fail spectacularly if you don't have a mission in the first place.
And guidebooks. You shouldn't knock guidebooks. Thanks to specific entries in guidebooks I have -
Spent 8 days completing the first 13 stations of a 88 temple pilgrimage, encountering many adventures along the way (can't wait til I can free up 3 months to do the whole thing some day). And this was following EXACTLY the route given in the 48 issue magazine series I had collected the year before (well, allowing for getting lost a few times anyway).
Been to a 4 story public baths, where you have to ride the elevator naked from the 1st story changing rooms to the 4th story where you enter the bath complex. NO eye contact, and ESPECIALLY no looking below shoulder height. At the same baths I almost drowned in the electro-shock-treatment bath, and had the opportunity to study ALL the tattoos on a local Yakuza leader (with helpful explanations as to meaning).
Found the coolest bar in the world, down a stinking alleyway, where I ate raw whale with freshly minced horseradish (It's MUCH nicer raw than cooked) with a vegetarian and a paid-up founder member of the NZ green Party, Drank with a member of the Japanese IOC and the highest ranking UN delegate in Japan, and spent an hour teaching 2 transvestite prostitutes bar tricks.
Got stuck at the top of a mountain in monkey infested forests, at night, and had to use a similarly lost girl's cellphone (after convincing said girl I wasn't a mad rapist) to walk the 3 hours back down, on narrow dirt paths, with 200 meter drops to our left.
Cool tourist spots listed in guidebooks are listed BECAUSE THEY ARE COOL!!! Travel snobs often manage to forget this somehow in their quest for some "untouched" ideal that probably hasn't existed for 100 years or so, and quite frankly probably sucked when it did - or at least was no better than the places the guidebooks tell you about.
Anyway. My rant, such as it is is over. The "missions" described on the linked page actually look pretty fun, and I probably will do at least some of them. Certainly I intend to do (at least) two SF0 tasks over the next wee bit while I'm in Japan (though to be fair I'll be in "home territory" when I'm there again this time). I will enjoy the tasks.
Cool tourist spots listed in guidebooks are listed BECAUSE THEY ARE COOL!!! Travel snobs often manage to forget this somehow in their quest for some "untouched" ideal that probably hasn't existed for 100 years or so, and quite frankly probably sucked when it did - or at least was no better than the places the guidebooks tell you about.
Oh, yeah. The ones you hear the most about tend to turn kitschy from overexposure, but the guidebook authors keep finding the good ones. I'd never let myself be constrained by a guidebook - but I'd also never travel someplace new without consulting one.
BART needs a level 8 task.