luka

Well-known member
woops is playing Doom again and that gave me a simialr feeling. looking through a window at space represented in the game that was nonetheless impossible to reach
 

luka

Well-known member
and the magic of finding a secret door that actually lets you into a portion of that forbidden space. finally occupying it.
 

luka

Well-known member
and the magic of finding a secret door that actually lets you into a portion of that forbidden space. finally occupying it.

this is the urbex buzz that woops was talking about. sneaking into a cleaning supplies closet in the basement of a Victorian hospital.
 

luka

Well-known member
the map never stops rendering. it will always create an enviroment around you, no matter where you go.
 

luka

Well-known member
as children, projecting ourselves into these spaces which are real, but can never be accessed. railway sidings too.

islands in the boating lake. imagining rowing there and getting out. disturbing the ducks. the first human feet to ever tread that soil.
 

woops

is not like other people
this is the urbex buzz that woops was talking about. sneaking into a cleaning supplies closet in the basement of a Victorian hospital.
i considered drawing this connection myself but you beat me to it.
 

woops

is not like other people
i wasn't seriously into it but my mate was.

he's done everything, every disused tube station, sewers, mail rail, rooftops, european catacombs, etc etc, battersea power station, went to the top of the shard before it was open

we did a few road tunnels and stuff like that. the only "major" stuff i did with him was the roof of guy's hospital, which i'm surprised i had the nerve to do, and the roof of st. pancras. we went past there once sober and he said do you want to do the roof? and i said, nah. we went past another time pissed and did it.

i'm surprised urbex is news to any one, it was a big thing for a while, there was a guy called bradley something who made it quite mainstream and published books and guardian articles on the subject.
 

woops

is not like other people
there was an argument to be made at the time that this was a cutting-edge avant-garde psycho-geographic reclamation of disused spaces etc, but it was mostly just who can get to this forbidden / abandoned space and how at the same time. crossover with graffiti and the usual multimedia artists. disused tube stations were called "ghost stations" on the scene which sounds like a ready made blogosphere buzzword to me. you never hear anything about urbexing anymore though.
 

luka

Well-known member
seems to have transitioned into a stunt based thing for youtube to a degree. parkour and dangling off tall buildings and stuff. adrenaline junkies.
 

woops

is not like other people
won't be watching that video thanks luke.

anecdote on similar lines while i'm at it - in 2003/4 i used to go to raves in aldwych tube station. the last one got shut down cos the story goes the promoters had advertised on top of a banksy piece on old st. bridge. so some associates(? i guess) came down, set the fire alarms off and poured out paint on the dancefloor and also on an unrelated car outside. so that was the end of the night and of raves in aldwych tube station
 
I probably am aware of or have encountered urbex but didnt know the name and haven’t linked it with the feeling we’re discussing here. We can tend towards dismissing these things as eccentric pastimes without understanding the buzz
 

version

Well-known member
You can get into this stuff via skating too. Sometimes end up spending more time looking for and accessing spots than actually skating them.
 

version

Well-known member
Skating was how I first noticed what luka was talking about in From Nations to Corporations re: private space:
one interesting way in which it's happening is the way our cities are increaqsingly privately owned and policed by private security agencies enforcing their own rules and coes of behaviour, able to eject anyone they don't like the look of and ban any behaviour they object to, photography for instance, regardless of what the laws of the land say.
Anyone who skates street spots will have had a run in with security. There are spots where you know you've maybe a five minute window to get something down before they send in the goons.
 
Skating and Luke’s comment about looking at certain spaces as a child shows how the likelihood of taking these new paths starts to slim as people age. Doesn’t have to though does it?
 
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