Crack The Surface - Episode II

[Video - Crack The Surface - Episode II by SilentUK on Vimeo]

This is a must see! Following the release of Crack The Surface - Episode I last summer the good people at silentuk.com, sub-urban.com and placehacking.co.uk have teamed up with allcitynewyork.com and shaneperez.com to explore the UrbEx scene beyond Europe in Canada and the US.

Be inspired, stay safe, and don't try this unless you know what you're doing!

Crack The Surface - Episode I

[Video - Crack The Surface - Episode I by SlientUK on Vimeo]

In the first episode of new series Crack The Surface the folks at silentuk.com, sub-urban.com and placehacking.co.uk promise to take the viewer to the heart of the UrbEx experience...both the good, and the bad.

While offering a rare glimpse into the cutting edge of the UK's homegrown scene, it also provides a global perspective, including interviews with explorers from other cities across the globe.

Erm...Don't try this at home!

Urban Exploration - Going Native?

[Video - Trespass by Bradley L. Garrett on Vimeo]

Last summer Bradley from Place Hacking kindly agreed to join Urban Orienteer and others in the group exhibition Transparency and the City: Public Spaces or Forgotten Places? where he displayed his film Urban Explorers: Quests for Myth, Mystery and Meaning as part of his own Urbex crews installation. Having completed his ethnographic research he's escaped the pack for a while and gone Gonzo out West while he works out the story of their adventures. In his absence he's left us a brilliant new film on the innocent joy of trespass. No longer speaking to the intellect, it seems we are to be lured by other means...

It seems I am trying to tell you a dream--making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is the very essence of dreams...

[Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness]

...slowly going native?

Undercity: New York

[Video - Undercity by Andrew Wonder on Vimeo]

In his most recent project filmmaker Andrew Wonder explores the infrastructure of New York City with 'guerrilla' urban historian Steve Duncan of Undercity.org. Shot entirely with a DSLR while sneaking through the subways, sewers and across the bridges of the city, this film offers a highly compelling glimpse of the motivation behind this kind of Urban Exploration. As Duncan explains on his website:

I try to peel back the layers of a city to see what's underneath. From the tops of bridges to the depths of sewer tunnels, these explorations of the urban environment help me puzzle together the interconnected, multi-dimensional history and complexity of the great metropolises of the world.

While the film does not fail to romanticise UrbEx, what lover doesn't, it does succeed in striking an honest balance in depicting the fantastic excitement and many risks involved. 

For those interested in reading more about more of their adventures beneath New York with Norwegian explorer Erling Kagge I recommend the recent article The Wilderness Below Your Feet by Alan Feuer for the New York Times.

Urban Explorers: Quests for Myth, Mystery and Meaning

[Video - Urban Explorers: Quests for Myth, Mystery and Meaning by Bradley L. Garrett on Vimeo]

Those who attended our summer exhibition Transparency and the City: Public Spaces or Forgotten Places? will already have been introduced to the practice of urban exploration through the stunning photography of those participating the Urban Exploration // Behind the Scene installation. However, unless you attended the opening night you would not have seen the accompanying film Urban Explorers: Quests for Myth, Mystery and Meaning by Bradley at Place Hacking.

Including footage taken in the course of Bradley's own ethnographic research the film is comprised of a series of interviews with five scholars (Alastair Bonnett, Caitlin DeSilvey, Tim Edensor, Hayden Lorimer and David Pinder) whose work has engaged either with the practice of urban exploration directly, or with issues of urban decay, dereliction and exploration more generally.

It was my seeing an early edit of the film on Vimeo back in February that encouraged me to contact Bradley in the first place. Major props to Bradley for answering the email and agreeing to participate.

Update (05/10/2010) - A companion article for the above film has just been released in the journal Geography Compass (Volume 4, Issue 10, pages 1448–1461, October 2010). The article can now be read over on the Place Hacking website.