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Paper short abstract:

I present how walking is connected to the aesthetic experience we receive from our surroundings. Walking is action with rhythm. Daily life follows a rhythm. Rhythm is necessary in a research process as well, but breaks and changes in it provoke thought and generate interest.

Paper long abstract:

I present how walking is connected to the aesthetic experience we receive from our surroundings. Walking is a theme in my doctoral dissertation research, focusing on the aesthetic experience of residential areas. My central method is photo-elicitation; in which the photos were taken by participants. In different stages of my work, I have walked in selected residential areas both alone and with the participators.

Walking is action with rhythm. Daily life follows a rhythm. Furthermore, the visual form of the urban environment contains rhythm. My presentation observes our aesthetic experience of the urban environment, considering the merging of different types of rhythm; visual, temporal and the rhythm of physical movement. For theoretical reflection, I use Henri Lefebvre's Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life, for example.

Dérive walking has a starting point and ending point. The walker often returns to the starting point. Repetitive rounds make yet another form of rhythm. The knowledge gained of an unknown area increases effectively with each round. I want to explore how a researcher can combine methodical purposefulness with the flaneur’s attitude, which remains open to chance and free movement. Rhythm is necessary, but breaks and changes in it provoke thought and generate interest.