MAPPING THE RHYTHM

The rhythms observed from an apartment window, seen from the window', to be pedestrian...

Several recurring themes emerge in Henri Lefebvres Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life Continuum (London, 2004): the difference between repetition and rhythm; the nature of cyclical and linear repetition and rhythm; the focus on the body as the source of multiple 'natural' rhythms; and the dialectical play of different rhythms, particularly the tense interplay of rational, industrial, linear time with natural, cyclical variants.

Some people just drift through the place, automatically lead there from Amsterdam Centraal, which is described with the word “derive” by the French artist and Situationist Guy Debord.
(Some of his work is exhibited in “mapping the city” in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam)

By doing this exercise we realized how many cctv cameras from the police are installed in the district and that people are hardly aware of that they are monitored all the time.
We got a high response from civilians, interested in what we are doing, doesn’t seem to bother them to much being captured. Amongst them, an American researcher who lives in Haarlem, the Netherlands and who and was interviewing artist working in Chinatown. He publishes everyday about the perception of art on his website www.ArtAndPerception.com

Standing out on the street at night, at the crossing point between Chinatown and the red-light district, gave a completely different picture than we had during the day. As soon as the light goes down, the audience changes. And surprisingly, you hardly see any Chinese people anymore.
The same cars were passing in every few minutes, with dark windows and men inside looking suspicious at us, and realized that now we became highly monitored ourselves. The rhythm gets definitely faster at night and the redlight district reaches its arms into Chinatown.