The Cycling Flâneuse
Eva Bachmann + Pauline Lemaire
Eva Bachmann is a lens-based artist, currently studying MFA Media at the Slade, UCL. Her photographic series explores overlooked architectural elements in the urban landscape, tracing cultural and historical references through the layers of time.
Pauline Lemaire is a Digital Anthropology student at UCL and has previously created a project on London and Senses, exploring the sensorial experience through the lens of runners, interlacing her study with digital tools.
The Cycling Flaneuse video unites Bachmann’s visual and sound documentation of the urban landscape and Lemaire’s use of digital tools to recreate digital exploration of London. For this project, Bachmann focussed on her cycling route to university and depicted ten landmarks that she photographed and recorded ten times. There are two versions: the first one includes all 100 photos and 100 recordings, and the second one is an 'audio-visual patchwork', where Lemaire picked her preferred three pictures and sound recordings and assembled them into this video, which meshes the gaze both Bachmann and Lemaire cast on the city.
Lemaire has worked already on the subjectivity of itineraries and how they each represent some form of portrait of a neighbourhood, or a space. By recording the image and sound, Bachmann creates a relationship with each landmark, as it becomes something more than an incidental milestone on her commute.
Further, unlike taking merely a photograph, recording sound, forces one to stop and engage with the external environment, which may impact one’s perception of space. Bachmann was particularly influenced by organic interactions when editing the sound recordings, such as children’s laughter, birds chirping, people talking… All these elements interplayed her experience of space and the memory she beholds of it.
During the editing process Lemaire and Bachmann noticed how the stillness of the photographic images can stimulate one’s imagination whilst listening to the lively sound recording.
