The Practice of Everyday Life
Michel de Certeau
General Introduction
This essay is part of a continuing investigation of the ways in which users-commonly assumed to be passive and guided by established rules-operate. The point is not so much to discuss this elusive yet fundamental subject as to make such a discussion possible; that is, by means of inquiries and hypotheses, to indicate pathways for further research. This goal will be achieved if everyday practices, "ways of operating" or doing things, no longer appear as merely the obscure background of social activity, and if a body of theoretical questions, methods, categories, and perspectives, by penetrating this obscurity, make it possible to articulate them.
This essay is part of a continuing investigation of the ways in which users-commonly assumed to be passive and guided by established rules-operate. The point is not so much to discuss this elusive yet fundamental subject as to make such a discussion possible; that is, by means of inquiries and hypotheses, to indicate pathways for further research. This goal will be achieved if everyday practices, "ways of operating" or doing things, no longer appear as merely the obscure background of social activity, and if a body of theoretical questions, methods, categories, and perspectives, by penetrating this obscurity, make it possible to articulate them.
Jonas Mekas
A Walk
1990, 58 min.
Filmed on Dec. 15, 1990. On a rainy day, I have a walk through the early Soho.
I begin my walk on 80 Wooster Street and continue towards the Williamsburg bridge,
where, 58 minutes later, still raining, my walk ends. As I walk, occasionally I talk
about what I see or I tell some totally unrelated little stories that come to my
mind as I walk.
This video was my early exercise in the one-shot video form. There are no cuts in this video.
from jonasmekas.com
