’Walking With’: A Rhythmanalysis of London’s East End

Authors

  • Yi Chen University of Sussex, UK

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3384/cu.2000.1525.135531

Keywords:

Walking, roads, rhythmanalysis, structural film, Docklands

Abstract

In this paper, I will be looking at the practice of walking through the lens of rhythmanalysis. The method is brought to attention by Lefebvre’s last book Rhythmanalysis (2004) in which he suggests a way of interrelating space and time; a phenomenological inquiry hinged on the concrete experience of lived life. My interest in the nuance of walking was initially evoked by the structural film Fergus Walking which was made by the film maker William Raban in 1978. I will explore the potential of using structural films in sensitising us to the temporal-spatial relationship of things. The main body of the paper centres around two themes: Firstly I address the primacy of movement as a mode of engaging with the world. It is through ‘muscular consciousness’ (Bachelard 1964: 11) that walking becomes a form of experiential knowing, feeling, connecting and protesting. Secondly, I examine the practices of walking in relation to the radical transformations of the Docklands’ landscape since the beginning of the 1980s. I propose that the contesting interests of different groups can be explored by analysing the rhythmic interactions of their activities. The transition and recomposition of an economy from locally based industrial activities to globalised financial services were manifested in the syncopation of regeneration rhythms to the living rhythms of the Docklands. The fast changing urban landscapes were negotiated through alternative ways of navigating the streets, hence engendering a different set of rhythms.

References

Bachelard, Gaston (1964): Poetics of Space, Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Carter, Paul (2009): Dark Writing: Geography, Performance, Design,Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Corner, John & Sylvia Harvey (eds) (1991): Enterprise and Heritage, New York: Routledge.

Edensor, Tim (2010): Geographies of Rhythm: Nature, Place, Mobilities and Bodies, Farnham: Ashgate.

Farrar, Max (2002): The Struggle For 'community' in a British Multi-ethnic Inner-city Area,Lewiston & Lampeter: Edwin Mellen.

Foster, Janet (1999): Docklands: Cultures in Conflict, Worlds in Collision, London: University College London Publishing.

Gidal, Peter (1976): Structural Film Anthology,London: BFI Publishing.

Gidal, Peter (1980): 'Technology and Ideology in/through/ and Avant-garde Film: An instance', Teresa de Lauretis and Stephen Heath (eds): The Cinematic Apparatus, London: Macmillan.

Highmore, Ben (2011): Ordinary Lives: Studies in the Everyday, Oxon & New York: Routledge.

Ingold, Tim & Jo Vergunst (eds) (2008): Ways of Walking, England & USA: Ashgate.

Ingold, Tim (2011): Being Alive:Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description, Oxon: Routledge.

Kracauer, Siegfried (1997): Theories of Film,New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Lefebvre, Henri & Régulier, Catherine (1999): ‘The Rhythmanalytical Project’, Rethinking Marxism, 11:1.

Lefebvre, Henri (2004): Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everydaylife, London & New York: Continuum.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1964): Sense and Non-sense,Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

Manning, Erin (2009): Relationscapes: Movement, Art, Philosophy, Cambridge, MA: MIT press.

Rodowick, David (1988): The Crisis of Political Modernism,Urbana: University of Illinois Publishing.

Schneider, Arnd (2011): ‘Expanded Vision: Rethinking Anthropological Research and Representation through Experimental Film, Tim Ingold (ed.): Redrawing Anthropology. Surrey & Burlington: Ashgate, 177-195.

Schwarz, Bill (1991): ‘Where Horses Shit a Hundred Sparrows Feed: Docklands and East London During the Thatcher Years’, John Corner & Sylvia Harvey (eds): Enterprise and Heritage, New York: Routledge, 75-91.

Sève, Lucien. (1947): ‘Cinéma et Méthode’, Revue Internationale de Filmologie, V1: July-Aug: 42-46; V2: (Sept-Oct): 171-174; V3 and V4 (Oct): 351-355.

Online Resources

cSpace: http://www.cspace.org.uk/cspace/archive/docklands/campaigns.htm (accessed 10th March 2012)
Lux: http://www.luxonline.org.uk/artists/william_raban/essay(1).html (accessed 19th January 2012)

List of Other Sources

Who Develops London's Docklands? (Planning Applications and Private Investment 1975-1980), Published by Joint Docklands Action Group. Sept, 1981.

Wapping Parents Action Group Questionnaire, 1983.

Mike Jempson, Wapping's East-West Road. Report on meeting with Tower Hamlets Director of Development and Architects on the Circulation of Roads in Wapping, unknown date.

Wapping Items, ‘What you said’, 1983 June.

Mike Jempson, 'The Shape of Things to Come', East London Advertiser, 6th Jan 1978.

Planning Department of London Borough of Tower Hamlets. 'A Local Plan for Wapping' (Final Report), 1976.

Unpublished record ‘Wapping Plan’ in the possession of journalist Mike Jempson-.

London Docklands Development Corporation (1983), ‘The Future for Wapping’.

Interview with Mike Jempson in Bristol, March, 2012.

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Published

2013-12-12

How to Cite

Chen, Y. (2013) “’Walking With’: A Rhythmanalysis of London’s East End”, Culture Unbound, 5(4), pp. 531–549. doi: 10.3384/cu.2000.1525.135531.

Issue

Section

Theme: Pursuing the Trivial