Presented on May 18 and 19 2023 onsite (waterfront of Merihaka and Sompasaari, Helsinki) and at the Villa Kalvik in Vuosaar, in the framework of the symposium City as a thin line by the sea [city is no contour] within the project City as Space of Rules and Dreams.
The artifact generated in this iteration consists of an aurally informed exploratory essay in two parts. It aims to describe the city as a thin line by the sea at the shores of Merihaka and Sompasaari. It was written between May 3 and 8 at these two places.
The object of research provided by the research project City as Space of Rules and Dreams has been mobilized to realize an initial iteration of a new research project—The Sense of Common Self (a subproject of How to Live Together in Sound? Towards Sonic Democracy). While this exploratory essay intends to contribute to City as Space of Rules and Dreams by providing intuitive insights into a tangential comparison between two neighborhoods—Merihaka and Sompasaari—its function within The Sense of Common Self is to conceive the project’s main research practices—“aurally informed aesthetic research practices”—through practicing them in a specific case. These practices connect two media, in this case aurality—the sonic medium—and the written language. The first medium is activated by practices of listening and hearing, which constitute the basis and background on which writing is performed. Consequently, in this case, the city that is thought through writing as a thin line by the sea is the city that comes to be through listening and hearing.
The above paragraph indicates the phenomenological orientation of this essay and the practices that generated it. The city here is approached as a phenomenon that emerges in the moment of its aural observation through aurally informed writing. The point of departure is neither a predefined concept of the city nor any theory or previous experience of the urban space. “The city as a thin line by the sea” is taken as an empty formulation within the contours of which the city (as a thin line) appears as incipient meaning.
The following excerps of the exploratory essay "City as a Thin Line by the Sea_Meriaka, Sompasaari" were read by Alex Arteaga in the Symposium that was part of the event "City as thin line by the sea [city is no contour]" (Villa Kallwik Vuosaari, Helsinki, May 19 2023):
The sea is absent—a non-notorious, insignificant absence. It is not required. It is not needed.
A chance, maybe, to escape, to leave behind the grey, dirty zone. To resignify. To rethink—to begin anew. To conceive a new city—to think the city anew, alternatively, from its void, from its absence, from a radical otherness.
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An indifferent absence, letting be, letting pass. Almost covered, sometimes. Sometimes, briefly, invaded.
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And in front of me, this other void, a deeper void, a void textured by potential potentialities. A virtually fruitful void. Always far away. Pulling from far away. Inviting me to leave, to leave behind—the dry resonances, even the discreet presences that may recall a certain warmth, even a certain intimacy.
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An empty space. An outside space—outside of activities, of flows taking place somewhere else, not so far away but far enough to not be here, to not belong to this place.
Even those other spaces of activity are partially empty, only active intermittently, allowing the emptiness to extend without limits.
A waiting space? Or rather an abandoned space that gave up any reason for continuing to wait?
A fabulous stage for any tiny event that, suddenly, ends up happening here. A short awakening. A “how would it be if?”—or may be a “how did it use to be?".
Maybe the thinness of this line only allows for transitory events, for memories or hopes, for impermanences and transits.
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The thin line. A question mark. An appeal to decide, to take one side or the other. Instead of coexistence, difference, divergence. A request to make a de-cision.
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A corridor for wind—an open-air wind tunnel. Making the sea more present, sweeping away almost any other presence.
A feeling of being exposed—without danger, without loosing the protection of a diffuse cocoon.
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A place to pass by, to become briefly present and vanish. It is not a place to stage yourself, to play urban games of self-staging
Wind and water, to a lesser extent, are the protagonists.
You might be welcome, but the place is indifferent to your occasional, minimal presence. This place doesn’t need you. It flows, constantly, without you, without anyone.
The possibility of becoming anonymous—an anonymous provisional wanderer.
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Two (main) textures encountering one another but never mixing with each other. The thin line as a non-porous membrane. A thin sheet allowing for contact but not for exchange—this or that, even either this or that.
The city, thus, as two-sided boundary, as a double-sided surface of reciprocally indifferent touch—uninterested, tolerated touch.
Without the need for deciding, for taking a position for the one or the other. Rather, temporarily inhabiting an indissoluble duality. This and that—simply, without any need for development.
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The only presence that really touches, discreetly, this line is the water. Touch, here, not like a caress, but rather like a random knocking at a random door—without intending to call attention, to make someone open the door.
The coexistence of a random and uninterested presence—a presence of and even for this place—and the resonance of completely disengaged mobility—looking somewhere else, going somewhere else, without any reference to this thin line.
The possibility of a here, the potentiality of a place given by the presence of water—of moving, touching, knocking water. And the possibility of an anonymous passing by—without entity, without identity. The possibility of (re)thinking the city, of taking a position, a dis-position—to say, for example “rather this (discreet, small, requiring attention, worthy of my attention, of my sensible thinking).”
