Photography, 2018, directprint on brushed alu-Dibond
Dimensions variable, for instance: 210 x 110 cm. (100 pieces 20 x 10 cm)
Market square stroll with a home-built large format digital scanner-camera.
‘Drawing on Fournel, and on his analysis of the poetry of Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin described the flâneur as the essential figure of the modern urban spectator, an amateur detective and investigator of the city. More than this, his flâneur was a sign of the alienation of the city and of capitalism. For Benjamin, the flâneur met his demise with the triumph of consumer capitalism.
The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur finds the world “picturesque.”‘
— Susan Sontag, On Photography, p. 55
Source: Wikipedia
The walk revolves around the historic origin of the city of Rotterdam, where Van Bakel also recorded ‘Equestrian’.