lines to walk along, marking against

A large-scale drawing in Ginza, Tokyo created in response to Lefebvre’s theory of rhythmanalysis.

Following A Subsumed Brilliance and Assembled Earthly Geometries, I used charcoal rubbed onto the sides of my shoes to create scuffed lines on surfaces across the city. These lines accumulated slowly as I walked, turning movement into a slow inscription: part residue, part drawing. As I moved, the friction between my shoe, charcoal, architecture and infrastructure produced long, uneven marks that tracked movement across walls and edges matched by my labour in constantly reapplying charcoal.

Henri Lefebvre’s Rhythmanalysis proposes that everyday life is structured through rhythms, repetitions with variations that occur across time and space. He distinguishes between linear rhythms shaped by social systems and infrastructure, and cyclical rhythms grounded in nature and the body. Through attentive engagement, rhythmanalysis registers how space is produced through temporal flows, positioning the body as both instrument and register of these interwoven patterns.