errant bodies | e+l | active circulation

In response to recognizing such relations and systems, we decided to engage this feature of the city. This initially was done by constructing a wooden cart (working with a local bicycle maker in the city, who built an axel for us from bicycle parts) similar but different to those of the street collectors. The cart for us literally operated as a vehicle to come into contact with the city through the movements of the unofficial collectors: embodying their experience of the city, following in their tracks, we sought to get to know their situation while at the same time obviously ‘standing out’, making a slight spectacle out of the action of wielding such an object through the city (our cart was slightly larger than the usual ones, and appeared quite different). To provide ourselves with further impetus, we gave ourselves the task of searching for recyclable materials, yet for us this came about by collecting discarded wood. (We recognized that our actions may be viewed as a form of class tourism, and we wanted to unsettle this reading by respecting the collector’s situation, avoiding taking objects off the street they would be looking for…)