About ——–

Hi visitor, a few words about this blog:

What you will find here is mainly decided upon by undersigned. Yes, the choice of what is included is subjective. The title ‘urban anomalies‘ indicates that the content is referring to an urban ‘normality’. Obviously, what we consider to be normal in a city highly depends on the context in which we experience our surroundings. Are we working? On a tourist visit? Poor? Out of our daily habitat? ..

In September 2003 I moved from Rotterdam in the Netherlands to Brussels, Belgium. I started to publish observations of my new hometown in this weblog. It struck me that there were so many differences in how the two cities functioned, what they looked like, how they smelled, felt and sounded. I realised that it would just be a matter of time before this heightening of the sense caused by my change of surroundings would start to errode. How could I hold on to that somewhat naive but fresh impression of a city that you only experience as an outsider ?

This blog is an attempt to tease myself in not to get accustomed to easily by the place that I live in, day in day out. I try to keep my eyes open while walking down the same street every day, and having to take pictures for your blog is a great excuse for wandering around your own city; trying to spot patterns, common behavior, unwritten rules, looking to find some extraordinary features, quirky visuals and special moments.

Did you see, photograph or film an ‘Urban Anomaly’ (whatever that may be) in Brussels and you think it would fit this blog? Please do not hesitate to contact me: info at videomagazijn.org Your contribution to the category Intake Center A.U.B., that contains pictures that were sent to me by guestwriters, will be highly appreciated.

This blog is hosted by Constant, a Brussels association “bringing together creative and/or critical works using new media in dialogue with other forms of expression”. We share a taste for Free Culture (free as in ‘freedom’ or ‘free speech’). It probably does not come as a surprise that my main interest lies in how people in cities tweak, appropriate, contribute to, express their opinions in or do funny things with public space. Public space is not left over space but allows for expressing differences between people, it fuels and nourishes our society. This blog brings tribute to those virtues.

Cheers, Peter Westenberg

Urban(e)(istiques) Anomalie(ën)(s) Bru(x)(ss)el(le)(s) by Peter Westenberg is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.