Aside from the act of getting somewhere, it is a game.

When I walk somewhere, I like to make up "mini-games" for myself as a sort of anti-activity that serves only one purpose: to keep me entertained on the way. Small things like finding cats on the streets and in the windows, greeting strangers, looking for small, hidden details on buildings or on the asphalt, looking upwards while walking, and so on.

Many of these games were inspired by my childhood, when I used to play strange challenges with my father as he walked me to kindergarten and, later, primary school. (plate number poker, finding people on the road who look the most like my godfather, etc.)

Video games also affected me especially the open-world GTA series in which I was always busier exploring the cities, hunting for easter eggs, and finding hidden details instead of playing the storyline.

Expodium

City as a playground (side mission)

My first project idea is to make these games more accessible to more people. Make easter eggs and mini games available in the city for those who look for them.

We came across a young mourning couple while walking through the cemetery with the group. They were squatting above the grave, arranging flowers.

Aside from the tragedy of the scene, I was struck by its tribal quality for a split second. I saw not only the human, but also the primate in them.

The scene reminded me of another time when I felt the same way. I was walking down the Pluvierstraat in Duindorp, where I live, when I noticed some of the residents setting fire to a large pile of trash in the middle of the street. People of all ages gathered around it to celebrate the fire, from young children to the elderly. An old lady was holding her grandchildren's hands and explained to me: "That's our real Duindorp," in a festive tone.

What does walking in the city mean to me?

Walk 01

These small scenes inspired me to conduct further research into the tribal aspects of city life as an interesting research project.

Expodium 2

Through out our walk in Utrecht`s Lombok district, we were looking for signs of gentrification on the streets.

I focused on the typography and design used in the branding of local businesses.

I was comparing how businesses that provide similar services use branding to target and attract their customers.

Night walk industrial . . . . .

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Letter to a ghost video.

Letter inspired by the pictures I made on our location. Relation to automatic writing

idea:: Series of short stories

Walk 02

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''It's time to settle the ...

The Walking Composer (Composium)

Composium is a project plan in which one person or a group of people can compose a music piece while walking in a specific area or district of a city. In this case, in the city of Utrecht.

Their walking path is being tracked by a mobile application and will be used as a musical note.

Example:

The colors red, green, purple, and blue on the map represent four different people. A mobile application is used to track their movements. The route's outline is extracted and used as a music note. This note can be performed by using a synthesizer that creates sound from pixels. The lower lines will sound deeper, while the upper lines will sound higher.

Example:

As a result, the participant(s) would be able to compose their musical piece while walking around the city.

To keep it more playful and game-like, I make certain rules for how the composing takes place.

I hand out a map of the chosen area of a city. It is the Lombok district and the city center of Utrecht in this case.

The map shows the length of the musical piece (x-axis) in this case 8 minutes.

On the y axis, it shows the frequency of the sound. The most southern area of the map is 27 Hz the northern 20000 kHz.

It allows the participant to make route plans which makes the composing process more conscious. Also, when a group of people works together, there is more room for cooperation. (Each person can decide when and on what tone they will join the piece by starting the walk from a specific point in the city.)

The composers can stop tracking their route in order to create silence in their part.

Sound test with the red, green, purple and green example routes

Each participant can choose the tone they want to join in by starting their walk on either the eastern or western street of the city-map. They can also decide on the time in which they join the musical piece by starting their route tracking at a certain point on the y-axis.
By stopping the tracker, participants can create silence or sharp tonal changes.
Each participant can work as long on the composition as necessary to finish their piece but can only listen to it when it is entirely finished.

the score

other ideas:

recorded sound can be used later as a sound map.

one can re-walk others routes by following only their sound pieces (when high pitch turn right, when low left, when steady straight)

I can make a whole album from my weekly walks with super exciting song titles such as: ''I'm going to the Hoogvliet'' or ''I'm jogging in the dunes'' even ''I visit my mother in law''

In Composium, a person or a group of people together create a piece of music by walking in the city center of Utrecht. The walking route is tracked with a mobile application and the visual data serves as a musical note.

The map on the right page shows the walkable area of Utrecht. The length of the musical piece is shown on the y-axis (10mins) The x-axis shows the frequency of the sound. The most eastern area of the map is 20 Hz, the western - 2 kHz.