TranslatedbyStevenRendall

UNIVERSITYOFCALIFORNIAPRESS

BerkeleyLosAngelesLondon

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EEINGManhattanfromthe110thflooroftheWorldTradeCenter.Beneaththehazestirredupbythewinds,theurbanisland,aseainthemiddleofthesea,liftsuptheskyscrapersoverWallStreet,sinksdownatGreenwich, then rises again to the crests ofMidtown,quietly passes overCentral Park and finally undulatesoff into the distance beyond Harlem. A wave ofverticals.Itsagitationismomentarilyarrestedbyvision.Thegiganticmassisimmobilizedbeforetheeyes.Itistransformed into a texturology in which extremescoincide-extremes of ambition and degradation, brutaloppositions of races and styles, contrasts betweenyesterday's buildings, already transformed into trashcans, and today's urban irruptions that block out itsspace.UnlikeRome,NewYork has never learned theartofgrowingoldbyplayingonallitspasts.Itspresentinventsitself,fromhourtohour,intheactofthrowingawayitspreviousaccomplishmentsandchallengingthefuture. A city composed of paroxysmal places inmonumental reliefs. The spectator can read in it auniversethatisconstantlyexploding.Initareinscribedthearchitecturalfiguresofthecoincidatiooppositorumformerlydrawninminiaturesandmysticaltextures.Onthis stageofconcrete, steelandglass,cutoutbetween

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twooceans(theAtlanticandtheAmerican)byafrigidbodyofwater,thetallestlettersintheworldcomposeagigantic rhetoric of excess in both expenditure andproduction.'

Voyeursorwalkers

To what erotics of knowledge does the ecstasy ofreading such a cosmos belong? Having taken avoluptuouspleasureinit,Iwonderwhatisthesourceofthispleasureof"seeingthewhole,"oflookingdownon,totalizingthemostimmoderateofhumantexts.

TobeliftedtothesummitoftheWorldTradeCenteris tobe liftedoutof thecity'sgrasp.One'sbody isnolonger clasped by the streets that turn and return itaccording to an anonymous law; nor is it possessed,whetherasplayerorplayed,bytherumbleofsomanydifferencesandbythenervousnessofNewYorktraffic.Whenonegoesupthere,heleavesbehindthemassthatcarriesoffandmixesupinitselfanyidentityofauthorsor spectators.An Icarus flying above thesewaters, hecan ignore the devices of Daedalus in mobile andendlesslabyrinthsfarbelow.Hiselevationtransfigureshim into a voyeur. It puts him at a distance. Ittransforms the bewitching world by which one was"possessed" into a text that lies before one's eyes. Itallowsone to read it, tobea solarEye, lookingdownlikeagod.Theexaltationofascopicandgnosticdrive:the fiction of knowledge is related to this lust to be a

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viewpointandnothingmore.

Mustonefinallyfallbackintothedarkspacewherecrowds move back and forth, crowds that, thoughvisiblefromonhigh,arethemselvesunabletoseedownbelow?An Icarian fall. On the 1 10th floor, a poster,sphinx-like, addresses an enigmatic message to thepedestrian who is for an instant transformed into avisionary:It'shardtobedownwhenyou'reup.

The desire to see the city preceded the means ofsatisfying it. Medieval or Renaissance paintersrepresentedthecityasseeninaperspectivethatnoeyehad yet enjoyed.' This fiction already made themedievalspectatorintoacelestialeye.Itcreatedgods.Have things changed since technical procedures haveorganized an "all-seeing power"?3 The totalizing eyeimaginedbythepaintersofearliertimeslivesoninourachievements. The same scopic drive haunts users ofarchitectural productions by materializing today theutopia that yesterdaywasonlypainted.The1370 foothigh tower that serves as a prow for Manhattancontinues to construct the fiction that creates readers,makes the complexity of the city readable, andimmobilizesitsopaquemobilityinatransparenttext.

Is the immense texturology spread out before one'seyes anything more than a representation, an opticalartifact? It is the analogue of the facsimile produced,throughaprojectionthatisawayofkeepingaloof,by

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thespaceplannerurbanist,cityplannerorcartographer.The panorama-city is a "theoretical" (that is, visual)simulacrum, in short a picture, whose condition ofpossibility is an oblivion and a misunderstanding ofpractices.Thevoyeur-godcreatedbythisfiction,who,like Schreber's God, knows only cadavers,4 mustdisentangle himself from themurky intertwining dailybehaviorsandmakehimselfalientothem.

The ordinary practitioners of the city live "downbelow,"belowthethresholdsatwhichvisibilitybegins.Theywalk-anelementaryformofthisexperienceofthecity; they are walkers,Wandersmanner, whose bodiesfollowthethicksandthinsofanurban"text"theywritewithoutbeingable toreadit.Thesepractitionersmakeuse of spaces that cannot be seen; their knowledge ofthem isasblindas thatof lovers ineachother'sarms.The paths that correspond in this intertwining,unrecognizedpoemsinwhicheachbodyisanelementsignedbymanyothers,elude legibility. It isas thoughthe practices organizing a bustling city werecharacterizedbytheirblindness.5Thenetworksofthesemoving,intersectingwritingscomposeamanifoldstorythat has neither author nor spectator, shaped out offragments of trajectories and alterations of spaces: inrelation to representations, it remains daily andindefinitelyother.

Escapingtheimaginarytotalizationsproducedbytheeye,theeverydayhasacertainstrangenessthatdoesnot

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surface, or whose surface is only its upper limit, outlining itself against the visible. Within this ensemble, I shall try to locate the practices that are foreigntothe"geometrical"or"geographical"spaceof visual, panoptic, or theoretical constructions. These practicesofspacerefertoaspecificformofoperations ("ways of operating", to "another spatiality ,6 (an "anthropological," poetic and mythic experience of space, and to an opaque and blind mobility characteristic of the bustling city. A migrational, or metaphorical, city thus slips into the clear text of the plannedandreadablecity.

[...]

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2. Thechorusofidlefootsteps

"Thegoddesscanberecognizedbyherstep"

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Virgil,Aeneid,I,405

Theirstorybeginsongroundlevel,withfootsteps.Theyaremyriad,butdonotcomposeaseries.Theycannotbecountedbecauseeachunithasaqualitativecharacter:astyle of tactile apprehension and kinestheticappropriation.Their swarmingmass is an innumerablecollectionofsingularities.Their intertwinedpathsgivetheir shape to spaces. Theyweave places together. Inthat respect, pedestrian movements form one of these"real systems whose existence in fact makes up thecity."" They are not localized; it is rather they thatspatialize.Theyarenomoreinsertedwithinacontainerthan those Chinese characters speakers sketch out ontheirhandswiththeirfingertips.

It is true that the operations of walking on can betracedoncitymapsinsuchawayastotranscribetheirpaths (here well-trodden, there very faint) and theirtrajectories (going this way and not that). But thesethick or thin curves only refer, like words, to theabsenceofwhathaspassedby.Surveysofroutesmisswhatwas:theactitselfofpassingby.Theoperationofwalking,wandering,or"windowshopping,"thatis,theactivity of passers-by, is transformed into points thatdrawa totalizingand reversible lineon themap.Theyallow us to grasp only a relic set in the nowhen of asurfaceofprojection. Itselfvisible, it has theeffectofmaking invisible the operation that made it possible.These fixations constitute procedures for forgetting.

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The trace left behind is substituted for the practice. It exhibits the (voracious property that the geographical system has of being able to transform action into legibility,butindoingsoitcausesawayofbeinginthe worldtobeforgotten.

[...]

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3. Myths:what"makesthingsgo"

[...]

From this point of view, after having compared pedestrian processes to linguistic formations, wecan bring them back down in the direction ofoneiric figuration, or at least discover on that otherside what, in a spatial practice, is inseparable fromthe dreamed

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place. To walk is to lack a place. It is the indefiniteprocessofbeingabsentandinsearchofaproper.Themoving about that the citymultiplies and concentratesmakes the city itself an immense social experience oflackingaplace-anexperiencethatis,tobesure,brokenup into countless tiny deportations (displacements andwalks), compensated for by the relationships andintersections of these exoduses that intertwine andcreate an urban fabric, and placed under the sign ofwhat ought to be, ultimately, the place but is only aname, theCity.The identity furnishedby thisplace isall themoresymbolic(named)because, inspiteof theinequalityof its citizens' positions andprofits, there isonlyapullulationofpasser-by,anetworkofresidencestemporarily appropriated by pedestrian traffic, ashufflingamongpretensesof theproper, auniverseofrented spaceshauntedbyanowhereorbydreamed-ofplaces.

Namesandsymbols

An indication of the relationship that spatial practicesentertain with that absence is furnished precisely bytheir manipulations of and with "proper" names. Therelationshipsbetweenthedirectionofawalk(lesensdelamarche)andthemeaningofwords(lelensdesmots)situatetwosortsofapparentlycontrarymovements,oneextrovert (towalk is togooutside), theother introvert(amobilityunderthestabilityofthesignifier).Walkingis in fact determined by semantic tropisms; it is

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attractedandrepelledbynominationswhosemeaningisnot clear,whereas the city, for its part, is transformedfor many people into a "desert" in which themeaningless, indeed the terrifying, no longer takes theformof shadowsbut becomes, as inGenet's plays, animplacable light that produces this urban text withoutobscurities, which is created by a technocratic powereverywhere and which puts the city-dweller undercontrol (under the control of what? No one knows):"The city keeps us under its gaze, which one cannotbearwithoutfeelingdizzy,"saysaresidentofRouen.36In the spaces brutally lit by an alien reason, propernames carve out pockets of hidden and familiarmeanings.They"makesense";inotherwords,theyaretheimpetusofmovements,likevocationsandcallsthatturnordivertan itinerarybygiving itameaning(oradirection)(sens)thatwaspreviouslyunforeseen.Thesenames create a nowhere in places; they change themintopassages.

AfriendwholivesinthecityofSevresdrifts,whenhe is inParis, toward the ruedesSaints-Peres and theruedeSevres,eventhoughheisgoingtoseehismotherin another part of town: these names articulate asentencethathisstepscomposewithouthisknowingit.Numbered streets and street numbers (I 12th St., or 9rue Saint-Charles) orient the magnetic field oftrajectories just as they can haunt dreams. Anotherfriend unconsciously represses the streets which havenamesand,bythisfact,transmither-ordersoridentities

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inthesamewayassummonsesandclassifications;shegoesinsteadalongpathsthathavenonameorsignature.But her walking is thus still controlled negatively bypropernames.

What is it then that they spell out? Disposed inconstellations that hierarchize and semantically orderthe surface of the city, operating chronologicalarrangements and historical justifications, these words(Borrego, Botzaris, Bougainville...) slowly lose, likeworn coins, the value engraved on them, but theirability to signify outlives its first definition. Saints-Peres,CorentinCelton,RedSquare...thesenamesmakethemselves available to the diverse meanings giventhem by passers-by; they detach themselves from theplaces they were supposed to define and serve asimaginary meeting-points on itineraries which, asmetaphors, theydetermine for reasons that are foreigntotheiroriginalvaluebutmayberecognizedornotbypassers-by.A strange toponymy that is detached fromactual places and flies high over the city like a foggygeographyof"meanings"held in suspension,directingthe physical deambulations below: Place de 1'Etoile,Concorde,Poissonniere...Theseconstellationsofnamesprovide traffic patterns: they are stars directingitineraries. "ThePlacede laConcordedoesnot exist,"Malapartesaid,"it isan idea."37It ismuchmore thanan "idea." A whole series of comparisons would benecessary to account for the magical powers propernames enjoy.They seem to be carried as emblems by

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thetravellerstheydirectandsimultaneouslydecorate.

Linking acts and footsteps, opening meanings and directions, these words operate in the name of an emptying-out andwearing-away of their primary role. Theybecome liberatedspaces thatcanbeoccupied.A rich indetermination gives them, by means of a semantic rarefaction, the function of articulating a second,poeticgeographyontopofthegeographyofthe literal, forbiddenorpermittedmeaning.Theyinsinuate otherroutesintothefunctionalistandhistoricalorderof movement. Walking follows them: "I fill this great emptyspacewithabeautifulname."3BPeopleareput in motion by the remaining relics of meaning, and sometimes by their waste products, the inverted remaindersofgreatambitions.39Thingsthatamountto nothing, or almost nothing, sym-bolize and orient walkers' steps: names that have ceased precisely to be "proper."

[...]

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7. "WalkingintheCity"

16. SeeAlainMedam's admirable "NewYorkCity,"

LesTempsmodernes,August-September1976,15-33;and the same author's New York Terminal (Paris:Galilee,1977).

2. See H.Lavedan, Les Representations des villesdans l'art du Moven Age (Paris: Van Oest, 1942);R.Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age ofHumanism (New York: Norton, 1962); L.Marin,Utopiques:Jeuxd'espaces(Paris:Minuit,1973);etc.

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3. M.Foucault,"L'Oeildupouvoir,"inJ.Bentham,LePanoptique(Paris:Belfond,1977),16.

4. D.P.Schreber, Memoires d'un nevropathe (Paris:Seuil,1975),41,60,etc.

5. Descartes, in his Regulae, had already made theblindmantheguarantoroftheknowledgeofthingsandplacesagainsttheillusionsanddeceptionsofvision.

6. M.Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenologie de laperception(Paris:GallimardTel,1976),332-333.

7. See F.Choay, "Figures d'un discours inconnu,"Critique,April1973,293-317.

8. Urbanistic techniques, which classify thingsspatially, can be related to the tradition of the "art ofmemory": see Frances A.Yates, The Art of Memory(London:RoutledgeandKeganPaul,1966).Theabilityto produce a spatial organization of knowledge (with"places"assignedtoeachtypeof"figure"or"function")develops its procedures on the basis of this "art." Itdetermines utopias and can be recognized even inBentham's Panopticon. Such a form remains stable inspite of the diversity of its contents (past, future,present) and its projects (conserving or creating)relativetochangesinthestatusofknowledge.

9. See Andre Glucksmann, "Le Totalitarisme eneffet,"Traverses,No.9,1977,34-40.

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10,M.Foucault,Surveilleretpunir(Paris:Gallimard,1975); Discipline and Punish, trans. A.Sheridan (NewYork:Pantheon,1977).

11. Ch. Alexander, "La Cite semi-treillis, mais nonarbre,"Architecture,Mouvement,Continuite,1967.

12. See R.Barthes's remarks in Architecture daujourd'hui, No. 153, December 1970-January 1971,11-13: "We speak our city... merely by inhabiting it,walkingthroughit,lookingatit."Cf.C.Soucy,LImagedu centre dons quatre romans contemporains (Paris:CSU,1971),6-15.

13.See thenumerous studiesdevoted to the subjectsinceJ.Searle's"WhatisaSpeechAct?"inPhilosophyinAmerica, ed.MaxBlack (London:Allen&Unwin;Ithaca,N.Y.:CornellUniversityPress,1965),221-239.

14.E.Benveniste,Prohlemesdelinguistiquegenerale(Paris:Gallimard,1974),11,79-88,etc.

15.R.Barthes,quotedinC.Soucy,L'Imageducentre,10.

16. "Here and nowdelimit the spatial and temporalinstancecoextensiveandcontemporarywiththepresentinstance of discourse containing I": E.Benveniste,Problemes de linguistique generale (Paris: Gallimard,1966),1,p.253.

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17. R.Jakobson, Essais de linguistique generale(Paris:SeuilPoints,1970),p.217.

18. Onmodalities,seeH.Parret,LaPragmatiquedesmodalites (Urbino: Centro di Semiotica, 1975);A.R.White, Modal Thinking (Ithaca, N.Y.: CornellUniversityPress,1975).

19. See Paul Lemaire's analyses, Les Signessauvages. Une Philosophie du langage ordinaire(Ottawa:Universite d'Ottawa etUniversite Saint-Paul,1981),inparticulartheintroduction.

20. A.J.Greimas, "Linguistique statistique etlinguistiquestructurale,"LeFrancaismoderne,October1962,245.

21. Inaneighboringfield,rhetoricandpoeticsinthegestural language of mute people, I am grateful toE.S.Klima of the University of California, San DiegoandU.Bellugi,"PoetryandSonginaLanguagewithoutSound," an unpublished paper; see also Klima, "TheLinguistic Symbol with and without Sound," in TheRole of Speech in Language, ed. J.Kavanagh andJ.E.Cuttings(Cambridge,Mass.:MIT,1975).

22. Consciencedelavine(Paris:Anthropos,1977).

23. See Ostrowetsky, "Logiques du lieu," inSemiotique de I'espace (Paris: Denoel-GonthierMediations,1979),155-173.

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24. Pasapas.Essaisurlecheminementquotidienenmilieuurbain(Paris:Seuil,1979).

25. Inhis analysisof culinarypractices,P.Bourdieuregards as decisive not the ingredients but theway inwhich theyarepreparedandused:"LeSenspratique,"Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, February1976,77.

26. J.Sumpf,IntroductionalastYlistiquedufrant•ais(Paris:Larousse,1971),87.

27. On the "theory of the proper," see J.Derrida,Marges de la philosophie (Paris: Minuit, 1972), 247-324; Margins of Philosophy, trans. A.Bass (Chicago:UniversityofChicagoPress,1982).

28. Augoyard,Pasapas.

29. T.Todorov, "Synecdoques," Communications,No.16(1970),30.SeealsoP.Fontanier,LesFiguresdudiscours(Paris:Flammarion,1968),87-97;J.Duboisetal., Rhetorique generale (Paris: Larousse, 1970), 102-112.

30. On this space that practices organize into"islands," see P.Bourdieu, Esquisse dune theorie de lapratique (Gen6ve: Droz, 1972), 215, etc.; "Le Senspratique,"51-52.

31. See Anne Baldassari and Michel Joubert,

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Pratiques relationnelles des enfants a 1 et institution(Paris: CRECELE-CORDES, 1976); and by the sameauthors,"Cequisetrame,"Paralleles,No.1,June1976.

32. Derrida,Marges,287,onmetaphor.

33. Benveniste,Problemes,1,86-87.

34. For Benveniste, "discourse is languageconsidered as assumed by the personwho is speakingandintheconditionofintersubjectivity"(ibid.,266).

35. See for example S.Freud, The Interpretation ofDreams, trans. J.Strachey (New York: Basic Books,1955), Chapter VI, § 1-4, on condensation anddisplacement, "processes of figuration" that are properto"dreamwork."

36. Ph.Dard,F.Desbonsetal.,LaVille,symboliqueensouffrance(Paris:CEP,1975),200.

37. See also, for example, the epigraph in PatrickModiano,P/acede/'Etoile(Paris:Gallimard,1968).

38. JoachimduBellay,Regrets,189.

39. For example, Sarcel/es, the name of a greaturbanistic ambition (near Paris), has taken on asymbolic value for the inhabitants of the town bybecomingintheeyesofFranceasawholetheexampleof a total failure. This extreme avatar provides its

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citizenswiththe"prestige"ofanexceptionalidentity.

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