Paper short abstract:

This talk presents the project '12 Hours', visually exploring spatial and temporal movement in the streets of Prague. The project took the form of a twelve-hour investigation, a scripted walk that blurred categories of 'game', 'research', 'photographic documentation' and art'.

Paper long abstract:

On a hot summer day in July 2018, Maruška Svašek and Milah van Zuilen headed to Old Town Square in Prague and rolled a dice. It was 7am. The result, an uneven number, directed them to a street to the right, and for the next twelve-hours they took consecutive turns, walking left-right-left-right through the streets of the Czech capital. Prior to the walk, they had set themselves tasks to be performed in each street, thus blurring the categories of 'game', 'research', and 'photographic documentation'. So far, the resulting materials have led to one 'art' installation, an intervention in the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo. The presentation offers a textual and visual account of the project, asking the following questions: (1) How did the rules of the game create opportunities for ethnographic engagement? (2) What kind of knowledge, affects, and modes of creativity did the method produce? (3) At specific moments during the walk, how did concrete spatial and material settings afford specific interactions with the street environment, resulting in particular visual outcomes?