Thinking about the walk, my feet and reality



Walking is good for your feet. What is walking? Let's say that to walk is a wonderful thing. You have to do it. To understand that you have to walk or at least to go with a low speed through streets of cities. There is no minimum or maximum speed.
Not everybody can walk and therefore it is understandable to use wheelchairs or bicycles or whatever else there is. When walking it is important not to know where you are going. Every street, every corner is important. All details are there! Find out a way to discover this. I am the person who walks for the experience of walking. Ordinary walking through streets without any thoughts. Just plain walking.
Sometimes however, I have to stand still to take a photograph. Sometimes however, I just walk and open the shutter of my camera, without seeing what the camera does. I know, of course, what it takes, but the angle is different, because I do not see through the camera at that moment. Other times I look through the lens and I see which photograph I am taking. It is on the film and in my head. Two different things. Or I take my video camera with me and just open the shutter and go for a walk. The movements of my body are visible because of the shaking of the camera. On screen you see the streets and buildings and whatever shaking. Sometimes it does not move, at that moment I am standing still. Or I am sitting and have put my camera next to me.


Going by subway train. Next to "the walk" is to travel by car or train or bus, whatever.
It is great to discover the city through the subway system. Just buy your ticket and go for a ride. Take every train you want and explore the city. There is no need to get off and see what is going on away from the subway system. Just ride around.
Imagine the city above your head and try to figure out where you are by using the map.
Feel the pleasure when the train goes up and changes from an underground into an elevated system. See the city from a kind of distance. Streets are below you and you are able to look into houses, backyards, gardens, schools, factories and offices etc.. Enjoy the view. Hear the sounds of the car and the system itself. Metal on metal, the wind, the engines, and the voices of the people on board. It is all part of the joy of the system.
Normally there is an end of the system, or you decide to change for another train. Or, you go out to eat or to see the streets by yourself. What I normally do is to take several rides like this before I am ready to do "the walk". For me the subway is a kind of institution you can not miss. It is there to give you an emotional connection to the city. It is the entrance of the city's system. It belongs to or is part of the vital organs of the city. It is the blood of the city.

Going by car is a different story. There is always a kind of distance between you and the city. Like in a movie theater. On the screen you see an image which presents a form of reality. It is moving. It is about the outside life. The same is true in a car. As the car rides around the streets you are looking at the outside world. I like to drive around in the car. It provides me a quick and instantly gratifying satisfaction of my desire to be related to the city. I become one with the city. I don't feel like a stranger. It is normal to be there in that car. I love those American movies where people are driving in cars and following each other trying to catch one another.
One of my all time favorite movies is 'the French Connection' with the famous scene where Gene Hackman tries to catch the criminal by following the subway car under the elevated subway system. It is a dangerous ride, full of speed, emotions, and discovery. You can see a very good view of the city, the subway system, and all the variations in-between.I like to be in that car and, at the same time, I like to be the viewer of this sequence.

I am observing the city. Nobody sees me. I am alone. I want to have contact. I look around. I see streets and buildings and a lot of cars. I touch the facades of the city with my eyes. I ask myself what is going on there. What is happening there? What happened there? Which decisions were taken there that influenced my life? Who is working there? Who is living there? What is the possible function of that building? Why was that building built? What is the history of this place? Which meaning does the environment have today? What are the streets telling me?
I am walking through the city, without any reason for walking. I take pictures of the city by making photographs or with my video recorder. I have no single purpose for walking through the city. There is only the walk and my thoughts. While I am walking I am thinking a lot. I think about anything. About my life, my friends, my work, about the city, the news, about walking faster or slower, about travelling, about New York, about people I know or I have met in my life, about what I might say when I am in a discussion, about everything really. The walk is for me a meditation, a cadenza for my brain. But in the meantime, I see everything around me and then suddenly I begin to take pictures! I have the camera (photo's or video) all the time in my hand ready to shoot.
The city is as a labyrinth. Endless walking through the streets of the city. Never ending. The bigger the better. I love to go to the city and to leave it again. I love the "not visible" events. I love the frayed edges of the city.

I live in Amsterdam. And I am conscious of her urban environment. I love to walk and bike in this city. But other cities want to have me. I have to go to other cities because they are larger and taller, different from eachother and unending. So many secrets reamain. I want to return to cities I know to discover new areas, and to go again to the places I already know. So I may experience them again. I want to see the changes of cities. I want to be part of it. Part of its structure. For me, the city is an organic thing. Of course there is a plan made by many people to make the city what it is. In fact: every detail is the work of human brains and hands. But because of their growth, and the scale of their development, and our use machines and computers to structure our environments, we are losing our grip on the city. It begins to live on it’s own. Throughout history when a city was destroyed people often rebuilt a new settlement in the same location. We are evermore dependent on city life. It is like nature.
Cities are structures which decide what I can do, where and how I go. There are so many decisions made for you, that you always think that it is your own choice. A choice made by yourself from the many choices of the structure surrounding you. It becomes again a journey of discovery that is ongoing. These structures, developed in time are made by mankind.
The city is as life. A living thing. There is always that discussion between myself and the city. Sometimes however, it feels like a ballet. A slow ballet, with the sounds of the city as the background. Very often I walk on the streets feeling as if I am walking in a glass cage. Nobody sees me. I see everything. I am going quickly through the city. I make observations. I take pictures away from the city. They are mine from that moment on.
From these images other people are looking through my eyes into the city.

For me, "the office" is a symbol of the skeleton of society. It is the symbol for the city and for the future. When I think about "the office" I think about society and my dependence on society. It is everywhere. Even in the smallest of towns or villages you will see offices. They control our life. We think that they are needed to organize our system, and I certainly believe that without these offices we would not have our organized society. A simple example is: how do we organize a workable city? Without too many traffic problems, or too much crime, or developing new areas with houses and offices? We organize this by putting up a system of rooms with people inside of them that are connected to each other. They are talking, writing, telephoning, surfing on the web, e-mailing, etc. These people are working in a system that is developing throughout time and this system is changing all the time. So we do not know exactly about tomorrow of course. We only can think about it, and let other people know about our thoughts. But tomorrow is the future and the future only exists because of our place in time. The future is not now, but later. The future is always later. But the future is necessary for planning and controlling the systems that organize and control our lives. Therefore we invented the concept of the future. A kind of control panel for dealing with our contemporary society and it’s grip on our lives.
The office is the place where one can be active in the processes of thinking about and planning our complex systems. I live in the city of Amsterdam. I know that the larger a city is, the more offices it has in it. More control is needed to structure the many complex processes involved in running a large city. Offices are difficult to visualize.
What you can see are buildings, rooms, machines, people, paperwork etc. All that constitutes an office. But the real thing you can hardly visualize. Only the after office things are clear: the workouts. The happening things.

Since I began visiting New York in1982, I have concentrated on the question of "what a city is." What is it?s meaning for myself and for others? What is the meaning of the city in general, and what is the meaning of the city in cultural life? What role has the city taken since it is growing so fast? In the beginning my interest was mainly tension, curiosity and interest. I made my artworks with a deep feeling from inside, which I cannot describe. In these works I noted my memories and experiences of my travels to and in New York. In a way, that is still what is happening. The difference now is that I am focussing not only on New York, but also on other cities. I have a better sense of what I am doing because of my interaction with circumstances like exhibitions, talks, experiences, interests of other people, growing older, etc. I am more conscious of what my work is, but still curiosity and interest in urban development is still one of the most important motives for making my artwork.
Central in my work is the idea of recollection and desire in the big city. I see the city as an endless labyrinth and an emotional adventure, and as a great architectural and geometric solidarity. I am interested in how time is frozen in those places of the city that reflect it’s history. Special places with a kind of cultural anonymity. Places whose purpose is not directly evident, places or where you cannot see at a single glance the meaningthe place had or what it’s purpose was. The city is organic. You could say it is a metaphor for life. The structure of the city, with its pipes, organizations, offices, subway systems and all those sort of things.

Observation and powerlessness. My work is to wander through cities such as New York, Berlin and Amsterdam, exploring the streets, neighborhoods and buildings. At certain moments I make photographs of what I see. My point of departure, the spot from which I view and investigate the world, is the Netherlands. I observe those developments taking place in urban districts in which past and future are clearly visible. The particular functions of site, location and building pass away and change. Large cities impress me. They are made by human beings, but they manage to escape our human grip.
The city reflects this powerlessness. It's like a labyrinth, an opaque structure and a beacon for the future. Photography makes it possible for me to record my interaction with this contemporary urban environment. I place the chosen photos in a pre-planned layout -- a cinematic framework; a series of images that refer to urban planning and complexity. My work can best be seen as a large work in progress. Each and every image is part of a single continuous report. But whereas the photo ends, the city is endless.

I am fascinated when there is something that I do not understand. Something not transparent surprises me. Not expecting things. But, at the same time, I love structure. I need this for my work and life. Sometimes I leave this structure and then pick it up again. It is necessary that there is always a kind of dark side left to stimulate me, for desire purposes. Of course I want to know everything. I read as much as possible. I am always looking around me. But I can also see nothing for hours because of my thinking. The city has that challenge. A lonely guy like myself absorbed by the city.
An environment which is evolving more and more, into something opaque.
I love to walk through the city. I have favorite cities. I am exhausted about the bigness, the excitement. While I am walking I sometimes take pictures or I don't shoot at all. I am photographing because I don't want to forget. I want to have the possibility to see the pictures again at home. I want to see this reality in my own house. I am fascinating by inaccessible areas. Suspense. Secrets. I want to know what is happening there. I am touched through the decline and the incomplete, ugliness and empty places. Building places. Unexplored fields. Big cities are impressive. Respect. They are made by human beings, but they manage to escape our human grip. The city reflects this powerlessness.

Looking around. My mission is to explore my walks and relate them to the so called real world; the world we are living in. This reflects my seeing inother eyes. It seems to work like a mirror, but it is different. A mirror reflects what it sees in a very basic way. What is reflected is that which is in front of the mirror. Not more than that. You can check it. I am the only one able to recognize the hidden things in the streets. I can create a story with the things that I see around me, using them as the basis of my knowledge. Through my walks I am a kind of living machine who is picturing the environment we all live in.
I am the only one who, at that moment, who has taken a piece of reality on the memory plate of a photograph or video. I am the only one seeing in that time and in that way that special spot. There may of course be other people who are taking photographs, perhaps at the same moment, perhaps even the same shot, but something is different. How small the difference is. The view is different or the moment in time or a combination of the two. It is almost impossible to see and recognize exactly the same as I do.
Therefore when I finally choose my pictures to show to other people the images are so strange in a way. Understandable, but different. What we can see are streets and houses and other people walking etc, but in my way. Even when I am photographing all the time and make no selection, it is only a fraction of time taken away into the memory of my equipment. In my own memory it is also different. Time is forever. Memory of myself is choosing too in a different way. Memories of other people are different than mine. However there are common things, and relationships between my seeing and that of others. Recognizing of course, that we all learned what a house is, or a street is, or what the meaning of environment is. What is the place that in our hearts we see? What do we really understand? This is partially cultural. There are so many different perceptions of reality. Even for two persons in same society it is different.
John Berger had right. Only when you are born all is equal in a sense. We don't know anything at that moment. Only to look out to the world. A clean look, no language, no culture, no preconceptions when looking around. The view is clear. In my photographs and video's I try to capture around myself such a clean, clear look. It is very difficult to photograph with a clear mind. I am constantly thinking about everything. There is so much in my mind. There is too much in my mind.
Who am I? What is my relation to the outside world? I am a human being far away from home. Like Lucky Luck (the cowboy). He is always on the road and his home is a place we do not know. But he is always too busy to go home after he finishes his job. At the same time, when Lucky Luck has an opportunity to stay, he refuses. He is afraid to stay because he feels that he will loose his independence. Lucky Luck is a very romantic figure. He does not exist. He is famous because someone wrote about him. He was discovered in someone's head. He was just walking around there and was picked up. Now is he is living in our minds. His character reminds us of "the other side". The other side is always somewhere else and hard to reach. When we are there, or when we think we are there it suddenly disappears. It is somewhere else. It is a difficult situation.
I feel comfortable when I am at home. It is cozy and warm there with my wife and child. I am not alone. I must tell you that I have a strange kind of home.
In fact I have two homes. One is the home of my wife and daughter, and the other is my studio, where I can live and work. So I have a split home, but they are close to each other. It’s only a 10 minute walk between them. So my home is defined to a certain area of Amsterdam. More than only the house itself. But there is more in this world then this area. I know it, because I’ve been there. In reality, and in my head. I work on that idea all the time: "to go for a walk and to discover and/or to see Lucky Luck's world. A world
which does not exist, but that I need for my being." It is my drive to live and, through my pictures I can share this idea with other people. But also, to redefine my relation to the outside world.

Evidence. When it is on film it is a kind of evidence. It is there. Everybody can see it. When it is in my mind only I know about it. I am the only one. But people can say: "No, I don't believe it. Show it to me." To see the picture on the photograph is something else. It is there as evidence for everybody. It is real. For me it is real in my head. The photograph is just a picture. A visual friend and a bit of a reminder. For anybody else, just the picture counts, because of seeing it. The picture itself is a reality. This so-called reality is evidence for people. They think they know what they see because it is there in their hands. Pictures don't lie. They are there just as we are there, or the people who look at the pictures are there. It is even more real when it is printed in a newspaper or magazine. "I saw it in the paper today" means it is really true. But true does not mean reality. And reality does not mean true.

To see or not to see. Blind people who cannot see, or cannot see much, do not believe a picture because they don't see. They have to hear the story of the place, they have to listen and then decide if the story of that place is true. They have the picture in their head just like me. I can show them the picture and they can touch it and say it feels okay, but can they tell me what is the subject of the picture? They do not see.
Blind people walk through the streets of the cities. Their experience is different. I think they measure space with sound checks and by the time it takes to walk a distance. By their steps and by hearing the sounds they make space " visible". But they can walk like me, just walking around; it is good for their feet too.

When I am behind my screen and typing words into the computer I think and walk through my brain. Thinking constantly. How it works I don't know. I know what I am thinking off. I hear the sound of the hard wind. It is blowing loud. It tells me about the space outside. Calling me come outside and take a walk.

My work is seen best as a great work in progress. Each single image is part of an ongoing journey. What I show to people, what they can see is real. It is true, because I made the pictures. I was there when the pictures where made. There is no other way to see those pictures other that they are true. I was there. Every picture tells the story that I was there. Therefore my pictures are dealing with reality. "Okay", the viewer can say: "That is easy. Anybody can say I was there when this picture was made and therefore it is true". That's right, Everybody can say that, but in the mean time the picture does not change. It is the same picture, made by myself. It is a visible thing, a form of reality everybody can see. For me it is important to be there where the picture was taken. Any shot belongs to me personally. Therefore it is a very emotional thing.
Every picture is part of a bigger system, lets say a system of pictures. Every picture belongs to this same system of pictures. I call this system: "Photography of nature". Every picture is born out the idea to be part of this bigger system and this system is about truth and reality. It tells about how to deal with our changing reality during our life. It tells about ongoing movements of several complex structures where we live and where we try to survive. Most of those complex structures were made by human beings. We are mankind, and we experience this man made system that we call society. What we believe in and what is for us a reality. In big cities you will find these complex structures easily. They are everywhere. In every single street, building, place, stone, window, under the ground, everywhere and every thing is part of these complex structures. Structures for us to serve and to be part of. Structures with so many meanings and adventures in themselves. And all the time changing. Changing because of itself, changing because of changes nearby or in the distance, changing because of the ticking away of time, changing because of changing politics, changing because of building and rebuilding. Changing because of the season.
There are so many influences changing how we look at and how we understand these complex structures. It is impossible to realize it all. It is it a miracle to think you can understand a picture taken somewhere in a street, in a city, or in a building or whatever, and to say it is true or not true. All that I can say about this "Is please understand these complex structures and learn about them. Try to follow the idea that when I say this picture is true, I tell you that because I was there personally to take the picture at that time in that particular spot. Therefore it is true."

"TV in my eyes." Today I spoke with my daughter and she said: "Hey daddy, I am seeing TV in my eyes." The TV was not on and it was early in the morning. She was in her pajamas and lying on the couch and we were eating breakfast and then she said it. "Daddy I see TV in my eyes." That means she has TV in her thoughts, in her brain. I can't see it but for her it is real because it is there. She is seeing pictures she saw before on the TV screen. Perhaps mixing it with other thoughts into a new memory or reality.

There are many things in life what I do not understand. Like staying in one place. Born in for example Amsterdam and stay there for ever (even when you are dead). Or living in Manhattan and never going to Newark. That is a miracle for me: One place for ever. I think you miss something when you do that. But at the same moment I do realize that so many people stay in one place because of the lack of money. They simpley do not have the money to go somewhere else. Freedom of going to somewhere else is a matter of having money. No money? No travel. Or is it more then the money alone? Is it also about a dream?
A dream about future or distance or other people or just going away? What is going? What does another place mean? Is it behind that hill or is further? Is it over the ocean? Where is that other place in that dream? So in other words does distance count? Is distance important? Does it play a role in these questions? That is though. For myself distance counts. Amsterdam is in Europe and New York is in America. So there is a distance. A big distance between Amsterdam and New York. There is even a big ocean between Europe and America. It is 6000 km. That is far. So distance is important. It gives a feeling of going away. The time that it needs to go to the other place is an important value. Feeling time and distance. The waiting rooms, the airplanes, the trains, the dust, the smell of long hall ways and counter desks, people moving and moving around. Busses everywhere and trains going to cities I never heard off. And at the same time going in Amsterdam to another part of the city, just walking around is also traveling. Do not compare the distances of the city walk in Amsterdam with the distance between Amsterdam and New York! That is not fair. But the most important is the connection of different places all around in the world. There are no limits. A kind of spread out. Looking in those different places and situations to what connects me and the outside world. What is behind my dreams? What is behind that hill? Interesting is to see that things we are used to, are changing a lot. Traveling today is more then moving from one place to another. It is also about recognizing visual elements from movies and tv and so on. It is also about the internet. Internet is the connection where it is not necessary to move with your body from one place to the other. Only moving a little bit with your hands and a lot with your brains.


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