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The invalidation of moving to a new place: Thunder Bay
Until recently: I shared a space in a small house off 109th street, Edmonton.
My partner and I traversed lines made familiar by function and repetition. Our
movements had become predictable and premeditated: school, family, friends,
work, work, work, work, home. Everyday life (Lefebvre) became, everyday
life.
In my mind I would often be caught in a moment, riding my bicycle, or walking into a
familiar building, thinking "I know these places, these walls, these lines, this light, these shadows, I want to see more." I imagined that if I were in another city in another space, I would have the contextual ability to see more, to absorb more than that which I have already seen. This does not mean that I am expressing displeasure with comforts of a familiar place. Rather I am expressing an adopted motive of Geographical fixation.
Enter 2, I shall refrain from using names to allow signs and signifiers to be minorly tampered with. 2 came to Edmonton 4 years ago with the express intrest of being there for only one year. Needless to say I and 2 found that they rather enjoyed the company that the other provided them and have continued to fuel each others interests.
The move:
We left Edmonton and drove to my parents to eat a delightful departure breakfast. Two of our small plants had to be left behind for fear that they may not make the journey in the hot car. Seven hours later we arrived in southern Saskatchewan to visit with 2's parents. This stop provided us with a soothing break, away from driving, and the chaos that is packing up possesions and dealing with thier outcomes. Satellite Tv provided us with a much needed brain vacation, V for Vendetta and Spike Lees When the Levees Broke were the standouts amongst a marathon of brain sedation.
Onward to Winnipeg where an old friend nursed a violent hangover. Our accomodations had now moved into the realm of architecture reminiscent of Eastern European cities like Budapest. For this building was completed by the architect in the early 20th century and was also the sight of the architects suicide into an enclosed space on the premesis (imagine a hollow four walled tower with no windows or doors on the ground level, that is where the architect took his own life, presumably from the roof level six flights up).
Three sections of driving, each roughly eight hours a piece later, we arrived in Thunder Bay. A place that 2 had never visited before, only I had been subject to previous experience with this North Western Ontario town. Althouth my previous visits had been under the guise of 'touring with a band.'
This is where the influx of invalidation begins: The fact that I was, am, are a member of a musical collective called Fractal Pattern (www.fractalpattern.com), seems to be entirely usurped by the fact that I have taken on the ambiguos role of a graduate student at Lakehead University.
The identity I claimed when living in Edmonton, has been all but erased now that I have taken up space in a new location. The same goes for 2, she has also undergone this unceremonious loss of a former identity.
Thus my motivation for writing a blog. The possibility that we may attach meanings and symbols to that which we are currently working to produce and that which we have worked on in the past to some net of nominal certainty.
(There comes a point when one can no longer focus under the watchful gaze of the computer monitor, I apologize for this lengthy i
ntro, subsequent posts will be kept more concise).
The invalidation of moving to a new place: Thunder Bay
Until recently: I shared a space in a small house off 109th street, Edmonton.
My partner and I traversed lines made familiar by function and repetition. Our
movements had become predictable and premeditated: school, family, friends,
work, work, work, work, home. Everyday life (Lefebvre) became, everyday
life.
In my mind I would often be caught in a moment, riding my bicycle, or walking into a
familiar building, thinking "I know these places, these walls, these lines, this light, these shadows, I want to see more." I imagined that if I were in another city in another space, I would have the contextual ability to see more, to absorb more than that which I have already seen. This does not mean that I am expressing displeasure with comforts of a familiar place. Rather I am expressing an adopted motive of Geographical fixation.
Enter 2, I shall refrain from using names to allow signs and signifiers to be minorly tampered with. 2 came to Edmonton 4 years ago with the express intrest of being there for only one year. Needless to say I and 2 found that they rather enjoyed the company that the other provided them and have continued to fuel each others interests.
The move:
We left Edmonton and drove to my parents to eat a delightful departure breakfast. Two of our small plants had to be left behind for fear that they may not make the journey in the hot car. Seven hours later we arrived in southern Saskatchewan to visit with 2's parents. This stop provided us with a soothing break, away from driving, and the chaos that is packing up possesions and dealing with thier outcomes. Satellite Tv provided us with a much needed brain vacation, V for Vendetta and Spike Lees When the Levees Broke were the standouts amongst a marathon of brain sedation.
Onward to Winnipeg where an old friend nursed a violent hangover. Our accomodations had now moved into the realm of architecture reminiscent of Eastern European cities like Budapest. For this building was completed by the architect in the early 20th century and was also the sight of the architects suicide into an enclosed space on the premesis (imagine a hollow four walled tower with no windows or doors on the ground level, that is where the architect took his own life, presumably from the roof level six flights up).
Three sections of driving, each roughly eight hours a piece later, we arrived in Thunder Bay. A place that 2 had never visited before, only I had been subject to previous experience with this North Western Ontario town. Althouth my previous visits had been under the guise of 'touring with a band.'
This is where the influx of invalidation begins: The fact that I was, am, are a member of a musical collective called Fractal Pattern (www.fractalpattern.com), seems to be entirely usurped by the fact that I have taken on the ambiguos role of a graduate student at Lakehead University.
The identity I claimed when living in Edmonton, has been all but erased now that I have taken up space in a new location. The same goes for 2, she has also undergone this unceremonious loss of a former identity.
Thus my motivation for writing a blog. The possibility that we may attach meanings and symbols to that which we are currently working to produce and that which we have worked on in the past to some net of nominal certainty.
(There comes a point when one can no longer focus under the watchful gaze of the computer monitor, I apologize for this lengthy i
ntro, subsequent posts will be kept more concise). 
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