The Art of Flânerie
Essay by Prof. Dr. Holger Rust, Economic Sociologist, Pragmatist and publicist, known as a critic of management methods
Once an intelligent algorithm will have identified the representative iconography of our time by means of randomly recorded photos of the public scene, the result will be the following: lowered head, focused gaze, contextual ignorance, isolated in the mass of those who isolate themselves in this way, and at the centre of all this: the smartphone, the gateway to all that is coined “social media” by way of this inept euphemism. The state of being connected to anything and anyone in the world, in real-time, in the now. Apparently, however, not in the here.
We are controlled by the mathematical fashioning of each and every occurring moment as a logical replica of a previous one. Virtual navigational tools are reproducing the mass movement of all those that incessantly stare at their devices. Apps, which lead us to where others have been already, which seem similar because they follow information on where we have already been and so on. This leads us – following this abstract introduction – to the small but chafing question as to how creativity can be fostered to shape the future in an innovative way. This current system has to someday come to a frenzied standstill. We are threatened by a complete gridlock of innovation, because we stop receiving any input which hasn’t been influenced by previously archived data.
What would one see if the gaze would untie itself from the glistening rectangle and roam freely, while just walking around? I want to precede my answer with an example: a billboard advertising lingerie appeared in Vienna in the mid-80s, designed as a triptych display. On each of its three boards, Cindy Crawford encouraged her customers with another word: “Trau. Dich. Doch.” (Just dare to do it). Crawford’s pose – arms crossed behind her head, wearing expression of confidence, her body not on full display – was an enactment of unmistakable eroticism. The campaign was highly successful, because it threw people off balance and changed our view of what is regarded as public.
People were thrown off balance not because of the public display of femininity, but because of a vague feeling of familiarity. That was its stroke of genius: the advertisers had integrated an ancient iconography into their display of the luxurious underneath, which became visible only when – strolling through the city – one directed one’s gaze to the top floors of the facades, where – in the exact pose the billboard reproduced – caryatides and atlases appeared in all their lithic eroticism. Naturally, this could only be seen by those, who, as Franz Hessel, the famous protagonist of the lost “art of flânerie” wrote in his inspiring collection of texts (“Ermunterung zum Genuss”): let themselves go. As Hessel did in “A school of seeing”, and upon “Walking in Berlin“, during his time in Vienna, or in the famous “Paris Diaries“, which materialised only because he went out for a stroll solely to be distracted from the task of writing an article.
This art will become visibly more important in the years to come in order to wrest from those megatons of big data, not just the rigid frame of yesterday, but the new and the peculiar. In the same way as the eye for the erotic motive of the caryatides was the prelude to the advertisements of the 20th century. So put your chin up. Raise your gaze so that new ideas might be created – all except one: an ankle bracelet that counts your flaneuring miles!