I have always been fascinated by all the marks, traces and treads that our daily movements leave throughout a city. The idea behind “TRACES” is to observe and somehow try to register these types of marks. For this purpose, I am working on some experiments that allow for the possible appearance of shapes and lines by exploiting these daily movements.

The first experiment is called “Gravure au sol” (ground engraving). The idea was to generate graphic works using the city as a studio. The four first attempts with a satisfactory result were executed on the asphalt of three streets (one in France and two in China) registering the passage of cars, motorbikes, bikes and a few pedestrians.

TRACES – experiment 1: Gravure au sol #1, asphalt engraving on card, 18 cm x 28 cm.
13/09/2011 from 14h25 to 20h20, road D54, France.
Most of the marks were left by cars.

I installed the device at 14h25 on the D54 asphalt road.

I observed for a little while to see how it was going...

...

… and then I left it on its own for several hours.

When I came back at 20h20, the device had been torn off (probably by a pedestrian). Luckily, I found it again, discarded on the floor 100 m ahead; it was crumpled.

I managed to rescue it and in the end, the result was quite positive.

TRACES – experiment 1: Gravure au sol #2, asphalt engraving on Canson Paper, 18 cm x 28 cm.
14/09/2011 from 9h32 to 16h54, road D54, France.
Most of the marks were left by cars.

This time, I added a note so that our pedestrian would not ruin the experiment again.

At 9h32 I installed the device on the D54 road asphalt.

Finally, after about 7 hours I came back and retrieved the device.

TRACES – experiment 1: Gravure au sol #3, asphalt engraving on Sumiaozhi-8K 160g Paper, 18 cm x 28 cm.
19/10/2011 from 15h00 to 16h19, 学院路 (Xueyuanlu), Beijing, China.
Most of the marks were left by bikes and bicycles.

Ready to be installed!

At 15:00 I stuck the device on the asphalt of Xueyuan street.

At 15h34 a sweeper was about to remove it, but I arrived just in time to explain to him that it was mine and that I would remove it later.

At 16h04, a student stopped and, intrigued, bent over, pulled on one of the plastic parts, and broke it. Luckily it was nothing serious and I was able to carry on with the experiment.

At 16h19 I recovered it... just before the same sweeper came back again, who (in my opinion) was not in a very collaborative mood.

TRACES – experiment 1: Gravure au sol #4, asphalt engraving on Sumiaozhi-8K 160g Paper, 18 cm x 28 cm.
24/10/2011 from 15h48 to 16h45, 展春园西路 (Zhanchunyuanxilu), Beijing, China.
Most of the marks were left by cars.

During the previous experiment, I had to stop a sweeper from removing the device from the ground and learned not to trust exceedingly curious students. So I made an improvement and added a seal from the Chinese Ministry of Environment, with the date and the phrases "Do not touch, do not remove". At 15:48 I stuck the device on the asphalt of Zhanchunyuanxi street.

15h50.

At 16h45 I recovered the device and at the same time I answered a few questions from a very interested pedestrian. I told him "大学练习", which he thought was a very satisfactory answer. He walked away smiling at me.

I am in the process of conducting further experiments at this time. As soon as I obtain some more interesting results, I will post more examples.

As the results for these first experiments from the TRACES project are recoverable, they will be available for purchase, with my other graphic works, at the shop on this website.