Walking to the Beach

Video: Walking to the Beach

Walking affirms, suspects, tries out, transgresses respects, etc., the trajectories it "speaks". All the modalities sing a part in this chorus, changing from step to step, stepping in through proportions, sequences, and intensities which vary according to the time, the path taken and the weather. These enunciatory operations are of an unlimited diversity. They therefore cannot be reduced to their graphic trail. (De Certeau 2006: 99)

Reading the Arcades/Reading the Promenades
This mini-blog is part of the above project. All my seaside schizocartography posts are available here:
Reading the Arcades/Reading the Promenades
Or click here to link to my previous blog on the Norfolk seaside resort of Hunstanton: The Seaside in Winter

Bibliography
De Certeau, Michel. 2006. 'Walking in the City', The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. by Steven Rendall (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press) pp. 91-110

The Seaside in Winter

Anyone who has visited the seaside in the winter knows what a different place it is compared to the height of summer. One of the things that is most noticeable are the local people who live there all year round. In the summer, when these seaside towns are brimming with visitors, it is easy to forget that the space we occupy as tourists is actually the home of many of the people who we do not tend to notice as a visitor. Many old people retire to the seaside. Hunstanton in Norfolk, is one of these coastal towns. Quite a few of the elderly who live there have buggies. Below is a photo of three buggies outside the Union Church, where they have a coffee morning and bring-and-buy on a Wednesday:



In order to get a sense of winter-time at the seaside and to experience what it is like to move about town on a buggy, I decided to take one out on a psychogeographical expedition. These buggies are slightly counter intuitive to use if you are used to driving a car, as there is no break. Instead you release the accelerator when you want to stop and it comes to a gradual standstill in a few feet. Hence you have to plan ahead - there is no emergency stop! Below is a short film of me taking the buggy onto the promenade...



Related seaside blog: Reading the Arcades/Reading the Promenades

Wish You Were Here!

On August 4th 2010 I bought a postcard from the Beach Cafe in Old Hunstanton and sent it to myself at my university address. I chose a 'typical' seaside image: a sunny day with people enjoying themselves on the beach. It turns out the image was from the 1970s at the latest, as the photographer had to have been standing on the pier. The pier was originally built in 1870 and destroyed by a storm in 1978.


The Wish You Were Here Concept
While wikipedia has a whole section on the Pink Floyd album of the same name, it doesn't have a section on the concept. This might be because it is obvious or because it merits its very own thesis. However, Jacques Derrida has written about the postcard in The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond, and other philosophical texts seem to be available on discussions of the postcard, but not much on wish-you-were-here.


The Postcard as Sign
In Britain the seaside postcard is synonymous with the rise of the Victorian seaside resort. According to the OED a postcard is "A card designed to be carried by post without an envelope". However, the holiday postcard is much more than that. Amongst other things it is a sign of remembering and a recognition of absence. While this could also be applied to a letter, I think the holiday postcard has a different kind of significance: it is celebrating the pleasure of the sender in the absence of the receiver.


Reading the Arcades/Reading the Promenades
This mini-blog is part of the above project. All my seaside schizocartography posts are available here:
Reading the Arcades/Reading the Promenades

Or click here to link to my previous blog on the Norfolk seaside resort of Hunstanton:
A Strange Psychogeography