The Sunday Adventure Club wants to change cities by asking people to create their own environment. Because the environment should be a place where citizens can determine their own rules and explore their freedom, a playful environment, in which people revolt against the regulatory city. A dog-playground, a cooking workshop or a beauty farm, how promising is the initiative of the Sunday Adventure Club?
The SAC compare themselves with the Situationist. This movement started in 1957 and fueled the student demonstrations in Paris 1968. The situationists believe that every generation should rebel against the previous generation. As a consequence there will never be a ruling authority. The SAC though, doesn’t rebel against the ruling order in the city, they avoid the confrontation by choosing those places that are abandoned. Therefore we can hardly speak of a relevant comparison in this context.
Another difference between the situationists and the SAC is the use of media. Internet and GPS are used to create communities and find like-minded. These media are also used as toys, for instance to let the GPS track your steps and create figures in the city. This first of all only strains the feeling of freedom in my opinion, when anyone can track you anywhere. And second are these media now used to play instead of spreading a message.
An initiative funded by the city authorities can of course never rebel against them. The SAC therefore turns out as a real product of our time. Where everything has to be fun and people are satisfied with that, there is no real urge to change the dynamics of the urban environment. It’s enough to make a sunday in the city a little bit more ‘fun’.
posting Elke Baggen