ChoreoSensing Toronto's Residential Neighbourhood Public Spaces by Mushtari Afroz

Whether it’s urban or suburban areas in cities, public spaces in residential areas are fundamental to everyday life experiences(1) which have been linked to well-being and quality of life of residents. Consciously or unconsciously, we connect with them through multi-sensory interactions (2) that create overall impressions of our neighbourhood public spaces(3,4), and help establish meaningful connections with the neighbourhood community. However, the drive for creating ‘functional cities’ (5) in the West through ‘disembodied’ practices (6) has detached public spaces from our bodies(7) , instituting the stage of mutual ‘disengagement’ as a retreat from everyday public spaces (8) and deteriorating the sense of belonging to the residential neighbourhood environment. As a result, residents either tend to avoid connecting with public spaces altogether or resemble an ‘auto-pilot’ state (9) manifested through their lack of sensory attention to public spaces– they see the surroundings but do not look, they hear the surroundings but do not listen. In this research, my aim is to devise a sensory engagement practice, which I call ‘ChoreoSensing’ (10), to (re)’engage’ residents with socio-physical dimensions of their neighbourhood public spaces. Focusing on two most dominant senses – visual and auditory - the practice attempts to establish deeper sensory and embodied engagement of residents with physical/material and social aspects of their neighbourhood public spaces. The research is conducted through interdisciplinary methods including sensory walks/movements, choreographic thinking toward pedestrian movements for sensory engagement score development, pop-up interventions (11), participatory experiments with residents and conversational form feedback (12). The purpose of my research is to empower residents to awaken their sensory engagement with neighbourhood public spaces and subsequently, enhance their sense of belonging to the neighbourhood (13,14), through a series of performative and grassroots initiatives. Works Cited: 1. Certeau, M. D. (1980.). The Practice of Everyday Life (L'invention du quotidien. Vol. 1, Arts de faire'). Paris.: Folio Essais. 2. Dong, Y. (2022.). Designing with Senses: Creating Interactive Multisensory Experiences in Public Space. Pittsburgh. Carnegie Mellon University. 3. Pallasmaa, J. (2016.). The Sixth Sense: The Meaning of Atmosphere and Mood. Archit. Des., 86 (6): 126-133. 4. Hasse, J. (2016.). Traffic architecture- hidden affections. Elements of Architecture: Assembling Archaeology, Atmosphere and the Performance of Building Spaces. Oxon: Routledge. 5. Holston, J. (1989.). The Modernist City - An Anthropological Critique of Brasilia. Chicago.: The University of Chicago Press. 6. The term "disembodied" refers to practices or experiences that are disconnected from the physical body or embodied experience. In the context of public space and city design, disembodied practices refer to approaches that prioritize abstract concepts or ideas over the lived experiences of the people who use those spaces. 7. Pallasmaa, J. (2012.). The Eyes of the Skin -Architecture and the Senses. New York.: John Wiley & Sons. 8. Wacquant, L. a. (2014.). Territorial stigmatization in action. Environment and Planning A., 46: 1270–1280. 9. Middleton, J. (2010.). Sense and the city: exploring the embodied geographies of urban walking. Social and Cultural Geography., 11(6): 575-596. 10. The method and set of tools are inspired by the various past work (see citations) but artistic representation was developed by myself to align with my research objectives. 11. Lydon, M. a. (2015.). Tactical Urbanism: Short-term Action for Long-term Change. Washington, D.C. Island Press. 12. Lerman, L. a. (2022.). Critique Is Creative - The Critical Response Process in Theory and Action. Middletown. Wesleyan University Press. 13. Costanza, R., Fisher, B., & Ali, S. (2007). Quality of life: an approach integrating opportunities, human needs, and subjective well-being. Ecological Economics, 61(2–3), 267–276 14. Di Masso, A., Dixon, J., & Durrheim, K. (2014). Place attachment as discursive practice. In L. C. Manzo, & P. Devine-Wright (Eds.), Place attachment: Advances in theory, methods and applications (pp. 75–86). Routledge.

When: September 29, 2022

Where: Wards Island, Toronto

Here is a documentation of the participatory experiment

Sensory Scores were kept simple for non-dancers. Very minimal instructed movements.

Reflections:

The experiment was left too open-ended in terms of the senses explored. It needs to have a much tighter focus.
From this point on focus on the two most dominant senses identified by the participants here - seeing and hearing.
Conduct theoretical research on these two senses and their relation to the public spaces.
Run such participatory experiments later in the project as opposed to running them at earlier stages since I am still unsure about many aspects of the project.

Movement Score:

Score 1: Embodying Visuals_nondancers

https://youtu.be/OXROcoQx9lU

Walk to the public space that was most visually appealing to you during the walk
Stand quietly
Close your eyes
Take a deep breathe.
Open your eyes
Look to your right
Look to your left
Look up
Look down
Now take two minutes to look from right to left. Scan every minute details
Now take one minute to look from up to down. Scan every minute details
Bend your body as if you are going on forward bend and look through in between your legs. What do you see?
Look to your right. Notice if there is anything interesting/disgusting. Move to express your feeling.
Look to your left. Notice if there is anything interesting/disgusting. Move to express your feeling.

Grenneries and narrow streets

Results:

At a high level (without detailed analysis) the responses suggested that some senses were evoked more than others. Visual and hearing senses dominated most of the responses followed by the sense of smell. The participants were not very keen on touching or tasting anything during the walk. Things that repeatedly came up in their responses were: Greeneries, Coloured houses, Water body nearby, Art pieces on windows and next to street, Library in front of the house, Narrow streets. Almost all of them mentioned that they found the proximity of the houses to the street (private-public boundary blurred) interesting - two found it playful (embodying the playfulness in their bodies through childlike gestures while describing) and one found herself in violation of privacy (embodying 'violation' through a shrinking alerted body while describing).

During the movement sessions guided by scores, their visual senses were heightened as they scanned from right to left, up to down at a very slowed-down speed. They were able to identify details that otherwise they wouldn't have. When their visual perspectives were changed (looking at water and the city skyline through in-between legs), one mentioned he felt the city smaller while others noticed things that they didn't from the regular standing position. The movement responses seemed to mimic the movements of the object - water, dead trees, tall grasses/weeds - that caught their attention during the session and they were very short responses meaning that their bodies do not know how to evolve those movements further while maintaining the quality of the movements of the object that inspired it in the first place.

During the movement session to respond to the sound around, the quality of movements - no matter how elementary they were - changed as the sound changed from the sound of the tree leaves to the sound of insects.

Towards the end of our discussion although participants were unsure if people would consider sensorial experience in their residential public spaces important, they themselves were appreciative of the experience of connecting with the island's public spaces through their bodily senses. They even brought up that if there were some playful coloured light displays in public spaces in their neighbourhoods that would grab their visual attention.

Edited Interviews (Voice only)

1.Why was one street sensorially more interesting than others?

https://youtu.be/4kj_LTpWltA

What is next?

Solo improvisation on the island in November: information from participatory experiments will help in improvisation strategy.
Improvisation on the island with dancers in November: information from participatory experiments will help in improvisation strategy.
Participatory experiment with islanders in November

Period 1: Participatory Experiment with Professionals from civil engineering, urban planning/design

Coloured Houses

P.S. A short solo investigation was done on Wards Island, Toronto in early September 2022. I took a slow walk on different streets of the neighbourhood in order to plan for the live experiment with professionals. For instance, what questions I should ask, how much time should be spent walking, which streets should be visited, what tasks should be assigned etc. were considered during the solo walk.

Edited Interviews (Voice only)

2. Was any memory evoked by things that you saw, heard, smelt, touched or tasted?

https://youtu.be/qHfctnJ8Wl0

Movement Score:

Score 2: Embodying Sounds_nondancers

https://youtu.be/cReqpD0in_Q

Walk to the public space that was most auditorily appealing to you during the walk
Close your eyes
Take a deep breathe
Keep your eyes closed. What do you hear?
Pick two sounds. One that you like and one that you don’t like.
Imagine intensifying the sound that you like. How does the intensified sound make you feel physically? Express through a movement.
Imagine intensifying the sound that you do not like. How does the intensified sound make you feel physically? Express through a movement.
Vocalize a sound from the surrounding first individually and then collectively.

Library in front of the house

This is a summary of the observations (recorded on the map) made by the participants during the walk.tember 29, 2022 on Toronto Island.

Edited Interviews (Voice only)

3. Where did you pause during your walk? Was there anything sensorially enticing/inviting there?

https://youtu.be/vqfMPa2u9UY

Water body nearby

Edited Interviews (Voice only)

4. Considering what you have experienced today through your bodily senses during the walk today on the island's residential streets, how important, in your opinion, is it to consider sensorial experience in the design of public spaces in your residential neighbourhoods?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rgZG_q7uQs

Participatory Experiment with Professional Dancers

Back to Period 1

Table of Contents

Art on windows or in front of the house

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