Phil Smith (University of Plymouth)
In this presentation I am going to speculate, from the point of view of writing for a situated reader, on how to work around smartness and in the gaps that smartness leaves. I will propose some ways by which multiple narrative lines and different walking trajectories can work to make dispersed fictional and sonic landscapes. Against a background – which wants to be a foreground – of information commerce in our predilections, I want to explore what happens when the “pre” of desire is repeatedly driven back and how to respond to invasions with writerly tactics, enhanced journeys and everyday scores in public spaces in the city. I will be describing the use of multiple identities, adopting conspiracy as an origin myth, and juggling with Edmund Leach’s ‘signal, sign and symbol’ to acknowledge techno-magic in the Zone that already knows us better than we know ourselves. Finally, I will advocate the toning of pilgrim bodies for bit parts in a strategically sketchy writing on cities.
Phil Smith (Crab Man, Mytho, Cecile Oak) is a performance-maker, writer and ambulatory researcher, specialising in creating performances related to walking, site-specificity, mythogeographies and counter-tourism. He is a core member of site-based arts collective Wrights & Sites, presently working on a new publication: ‘The Architect-Walker’. He has recently performed with Jane Mason in ‘Life Forces’, in ‘Calton Hill Constellations’ with Siriol Joyner (Artlink Edinburgh and Lothians), and is developing ‘common dance for threatened subjectivities’ with Melanie Kloetzel of Calgary University. Also working as a Site Artist for Tracing the Pathway’s ‘Groundwork’ project in Milton Keynes and with Threshold Studios on the Digitalis project in the same city. In 2016 he was walking-artist-in-residence at Carleton College, Minnesota. He is an Associate Professor (Reader) at Plymouth University. Phil’s publications include ‘A Footbook of Zombie Walking’ and ‘Walking’s New Movement’ (2015), ‘Enchanted Things’ (2014), ‘Counter-Tourism: The Handbook’ (2012) and ‘Mythogeography’ (2010).