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ASEMIQUES

In 2020 I came across this book on the wonderful Timglaset site: https://www.timglaset.com/produktsida/hartmut-abendschein-asemic-walks

‘These 50 maps for pataphysical inspections have been printed on transparent paper and can be put on top of any other map, creating new paths of discovery in any landscape. Comes with nine statements by travellers from six different countries in four different languages.’

“… following the dots as if each is a footfall. This means I am no longer pacing but walking, one foot directly in front of the other, recreating the configurations that look like beads, rosary beads in various stages of fulfillment – paths of prayers, prayers are escapes…. These 50 prayer-like excursions involve watching the positioning of your feet and counting steps. When you come to a star, stop, look around, take snapshots from these different vantages. You might assume that many of the snapshots will look similar but there will be slight variations in perspective and lighting. As you accustom yourself to these incremental changes your desire for escape will either increase or decrease. An accumulation of your visual souvenirs will re-create the situation, but only from your particular elevation.  Alternative routes through the same area, indicated by smaller dots, are suitable for a companion, say, a dog – though pets are not permitted in this hotel, especially during quarantine.”Rosaire Appel 

Asemic Walks – 50 Templates for Pataphysical Inspections, 112 pages, high quality digital print, perfect bound. 50 black & white maps printed on transparent paper. Format: A5 landscape (210×148 mm)

OBVIOUSLY THIS WAS RIGHT UP MY STREET. I HAD THE BOOK BUT I COULDN’T GO ANYWHERE. I DIDN’T WANT TO ASEMIC WALK THE 5K RADIUS THAT WAS ALL I HAD TO WALK IN FOR MONTHS ON END IN MELBOURNE. BUT THEN I WENT TO PARIS, AND LONDON, AND ABERDEEN AND GLASGOW AND PERPIGNAN AND MARSEILLE…
SO RIGHT HERE are MY DOTTED MEANDERING WALKS. WHEREVER I laid MY TRACING PAPER was my home.

BONUS OFFERING! I TOOK BRIAN ENO’S OBLIQUE STRATEGIES WITH ME AND EACH DAY PICKED A CARD AND ILLUSTRATED ITS ADVICE WITH SOMETHING I FOUND IN MY WALKING

THE WALKS (work back from here)

THE WALKS (start to finish)

  • first outing
    EAGLEMONT, VICTORIA 3084: 24/10/22 There is a fairy grotto with an ancient looking bottle of hand sanitiser sitting on the Blinky Bill tree stump, and as you walk out of the station underpass Burley Griffin is everywhere and nowhere baby: around the station the buildings are strangely tatty, rejects from an art deco slide night.… Read more: first outing
  • Outing 2
    BRUNSWICK EAST/CARLTON NORTH BORDER 25/10/2022 Closer to home now and no railway except the linear green ghost of one and a station where the neighbourhood lives. It’s very familiar at the start by the bike shop until the line pushes me down alleyways that are weedy, plashy underfoot, are sometimes almost too artful, and never… Read more: Outing 2
  • AN INDOORS OUTING
    It wouldn’t stop raining today so I took a walk through my bookshelves and around Andy…I found this book in 1995 or so, in a box full of oddments in the corridor outside Collected Works in Flinders Lane. NOT FINISHED LIKE STUD / EXAMPLES, CLASS, OF NOW A WELL-KNOWN ROUGH COLLECTION / TRAINS CHOSEN BY… Read more: AN INDOORS OUTING
  • Round and round the garden
    LIKE A TEDDY BEAR: IT IS STILL RAINING Untickled bear on a sculpture seat ignoring the rain that isn’t going into the water tanks that aren’t there and the ghost mulberry still trying to cast shade but buddleia medlar warrigal greens drunk on rainwater and light however grey / apricot, crab apple with flogged blossom… Read more: Round and round the garden
  • Stately plump
    Along the railway either side and very few surprises: ugly station pretty station nuclear family playing basketball on a scruffy court next to the hopefully organic community garden while the white haired men pack up after the fete at the Greek monastery and aged repository. But up the hill and here is a strangely threatening… Read more: Stately plump
  • Kitchen table
    Banquo. It will be rain to-night. First Murderer. Let it come down. A wooden tray, souvenir of Fiji / three jugs and a canister cutlery various /a striped jug / a bluetooth keyboard / a form to be witnessed / a Duralex glass with wine / a bluetooth mouse / a pair of sunglasses / a box… Read more: Kitchen table
  • Asemic CBD 1
    LAST WALK AROUND MELBOURNE BEFORE SEEKING FOREIGN SIGNIFIERS…
  • Asemic CBD 2
    ACTUALLY WALKING…
  • Marais
    AVEC DES MO(R)TS Words everywhere whatever the premise: remembrance whimsy and so on. OR BOTH TOGETHER
  • Garage tangent
  • NO WORDS…
    The line takes me safely around horrors, glancing glancing for exactly 52 steps
  • Sleepless aubade
    behind me a man or at least shape in a sleeping bag in the doorway of a church, his larder spread around him and around that corner four more sleeping bags neatly arranged in the open together perfectly equidistant. Across a bridge to the lit wrapped picked over patient and somewhere in the quiet, quiescent… Read more: Sleepless aubade
  • de trop
    BELLEVILLE/MENILMONTANT It’s alleyways up steps and steps down through the park where the Chinese ladies push the air around with thir hands to the loud music while the French woman does determined yoga on the steps next to them. It’s many kinds of louche and artful graffiti. It’s a view of the Tower and some… Read more: de trop
  • Stendhal syndrome
    JUST RIDICULOUS. AsEMIC? WITH ALL THE fOUND TYPOgRAPHY DANCING IN YOUr FIELD OF VISION? The street is named after him.
  • La petite ceinture
    A DISUSED RAILWAY LINE BARRED TUNNEL TO BARRED TUNNEL BARELY TIME TO SING ANYTHING BUT HOWEVER LITTLE TIME SO MUCH TO SEE WHEN YOU LOOK and SO BEGUILING AND IN DIFFERENT WAYS TIME STANDS STILL FOREVER.
  • Dialectic
    OVERLOAD ALMOST, AND A SENSE OF CONFUSION AND ANGER AMIDST THE ESPRIT DE CORPS: THE COMMUNE SUMMONED AND SOMETHING ANCIENT SITTING THERE.
  • Fogline
    FOGGY ALL THE WAY TWO COUNTRIES ALMOST MELDING INTO ONE EXCEPT FOR TESCO AND A BUS
  • S0sohoish
    RAIN,ADMONISHMENTS AND TAT: FINGS AIN’T WOT ETC BUS TO THE GLOTTAL STOP: STOPPED.
  • Keep out
    (UNLESS NOTABLE OR A CARRY ON STALWART) round and round the lovely LOCKED square. LOCKED gates, LOCKED lamp posts, LOCKED mysterious posts, thinking that Orwell said that one of few good things about the war was that all the railings around london squares were removed to be melted down to make weapony things, so that… Read more: Keep out
  • Clicking in
    AH LONDON FOUND AFTER A WEEK OF THE USUAL MISALIGN: LEAF FALL BEAUTY FOUND
  • Train
    NORTH YORK CROSSING THE FORTH BRIDGE CROSSING THE TAY
  • Cults
    IT’S PLASHY AND THE HOME CROWS KEEP THEIR DISTANCE.
  • GLASGOW!
    A FINE AND effortlessly ASEMIC PLACE WHILE ON THE OPPOSITE, MORE AUGUST PILLAR OF THE SAME BRIDGE…
  • Glasgow lane extra
    SANS dotted LINE, BUT A REAL TREAT AND THEN IN FOR PORRIDGE!
  • Chalk. Primrose.
    OLD GROUND. MUSIC. FRIENDSHIP. SAD LIBRARY ALMOST ASEMIC.
  • England(‘s)
  • England(‘s) nighttime
  • Petite La real
  • Goose getting fat
    A WALK IN TWO HALVES BECAUSE TOO MUCH FOR ONE
  • Old man’s hat
  • suggestif digestif
  • meat and silver streets
  • 15 degrees & a hillock
  • apartment, Joan of Arc Street
  • Conflent conflate
  • The French revolution is a street
  • Collioure: Domaine publique maritime
  • On the Christmas bank
  • Marseille: fin de saison
  • Ferryland
  • Highgate wood benching
  • Heathen progress
  • Without benefit
    OF CLERGY THIS TIME. HERE ARE THE STREETS
  • Without tracing dots
    AND HERE TOO ARE THE STREETS