Cruising the Car Yard

All cities are shaped by technologies of movement. We see this in the fabric of the metropolis, from the infrastructure of urban planning to the informal desire lines of pedestrian shortcuts. Although the motorcar had taken hold of the boulevards of Europe by 1900 it would be wrong to suggest that the flâneur was a casualty on the road to automobility’s dominance. For like the city itself, the creative observer that saunters the streets is not a static entity. To keep pace with a changing metropolis and the spatio-temporal realities it demanded the flâneur had to adapt. The dandy had to learn to drive. And as the automobile multiplied in number, variety and velocity, writers, artists and architects were compelled to convey the thoughts and sensations it inspired. Central to the many realisations that came with driving is that the activity itself gives rise to novel ways of seeing and being seen. Thus with its blurs, gazes, and glimpses snatched through various framing devices, motoring has altered the way we visually read and relate to our environment.
The Car Yard series emerged out of an attentiveness to the embodied experiences of driving and a desire to reflect on the blinding ubiquity of automobility. I wanted to find a new way to picture the car and at the same time acknowledge driving as a seeing and thinking activity. The more I became aware of what I experience when I drive, the more I noticed what catches the eye.