City of Cities

May 28, 2025

I heard that yesterday my post about conjuring up a special committee to name the series of bridges was reposted to a local Facebook group and was met with some vigorous commentary. Now, I don’t know if the commenters were in dissent or in support, I am sure it was a much more complicated back-and-forth, but the fact that the The Civic Guild of Transitional Topographic Labelling or perhaps the Institute for the Enhancement of Unremarkable Crossingswas a discussion point at all, proves that there is something about this weird intermingling of my subjectivity and yours: that is, I find more and more that the solicitation of versions is a way to resist singularity and introduce complexity.

This is just a photograph because it’s nicer to read when there are photographs.

The Bureau of Operational Landscapes is a tangential organization; its remit, to some degree, is to summon contradiction in, and with, the existing organizations here in Trenčín — not in opposition, nor in total acquiescence. And here this territory offers some friction and tension, which is when the fun begins. I start to realize the world I inhabit as one suspended between irony and gesture, subjectivity and the system, the official and unofficial, as a way for new spaces of meaning to emerge.

The Bureau exists as a paradox. Though it names itself as The Bureau it does not claim authority. I prefer to see it as a host for possibility, where the official is not discarded but placed in dialogue with the unofficial. It is a way to speak the city into being, again, and differently.

Poles x road signs x mixed lighting = picture

I had these thoughts because this morning I met with local architect Alexander Topilin, with whom I share similar sensibilities. He asked me a question, something like: “What would happen if you invited a mixture of people to share their stories about specific sites in the city?” Here you’d get a great assortment of responses: overlapping, diverging, contested, effusive, ridiculous, factual, un-factual, preposterous, inane, hilarious, morose, speculative, mundane, dubious, conspiratorial, poetic, heartfelt, and many other adjectives.

But then, isn’t that what a city is? A field of plural meanings, laden with experiences that overlap and diverge in unexpected ways? I think so. And that’s what I am looking to do here.

A city in all its ridiculous splendour: a Socialist-era monument to WWII in the middle of a parking lot.