Flâneur

01/01/1993

The modern hero, able to travel, to arrive, to gaze, to move on, to be anonymous, to be in a liminal zone. The strolling flâneur was the forerunner of the twentieth-century tourist and in particular of the activity which has in a way become emblematic of the tourist: the democratised taking of photographs - of being seen and recorded and seeing others and recording them. The brain is a book - the eye is a camera. Consciousness is going on a trip - a travel into the cities, the heart of ancient Europe and culture - Florence. The human body has to rest. But the brain is corresponding, and the eye is recording. A requiem in slow motion.