Tourist Agency

https://vimeo.com/293545199

Tourist Agency stands for the second phase of my research. It comes after Pool Slides and Spring-boards that served as a preparation phase, in which the theoretical framework for the future ‘jump’ into a literal journey was defined. After I read a lot and got excited by the voices of Lucy Lippard, Jacques Rancière, Ariella Azoulay, Allan Sekula, and Dean Maccannell, among others, I was ready to embark on a new test.

I booked seven nights at the Hotel Rosamar in Benidorm to spend time among people who spend their holidays there. I was a tourist and a visitor, but also an observer and a reporter of this experience. I took long walks, visited attractions, recorded what I saw, wrote a diary, ate, and slept.
 
In this phase, one of the initial questions was - can I, in the capacity of an artist (photographer/writer), approach the subject usually studied by experts in other disciplines with my artistic tools and methods? Can I bring insights relevant to knowledge production around this subject? Would they be relevant in the context of a specific discipline that deals with the topic more exactly and objectively? These questions arose from my assumption that research performed from a non-expert point of view can bring insights relevant to the subject studied from different angles by different expert positions. In my work, I deliberately take the role of an amateur, a curious amateur, in all these other fields, still being an expert in taking the subjective point of view or switching points of view permitted in arts.

My investigation is twofold. From one side, I take tourism and traveling as a sample for my inquiry on the relation between the written word and photographic images in my work. On the other side, I put the subject of my work in this case - tourism and the tourist, as well as interdisciplinarity and its capacities, on the test. Additionally, I juggle my roles as an observer, participant, and narrator, curious about the mutual relation of these perspectives and the limitations that they propose.

The video title comes from a chapter in “The Ethics of Sightseeing” by Dean Maccannell, who has watched the video, confirmed the use of the term, and took part in an inspiring email exchange around the subject later.