A Hop, Skip and a Jump Away: ‘The Art of Movement' - examining the experiential potential in contemporary public space

This paper will address spatial experience and issues of ownership, exchange and indeterminateness in urban public space. The contemporary urban situation is characterised by media and mobility, where the potential for alienation - not only from each other, but also from the spaces we occupy, is prevalent. Themed and ‘designed' spaces - many of the most common public spaces of the contemporary urban environment - often propagate a limitation in the diversity of their users, but they also propagate a kind of spatial inertia - an object-fixation prescribing use within a pre-determined schematic that focuses on clearly demarcated borders for containment.
The discipline of parkour - the art of movement - will be used as a lens through which to view the potential that lies in activating the indeterminate city, and accessing a sense of ownership, belonging and interconnectivity in urban public space.