Drift report from Downtown LA

In March 2016 I walked around Downtown LA in an attempt to move beyond a neutralized contemporary version of psychogeography with its subjective, personalized relationship to space, towards an engagement with collective intensities held in the fabric of the place. The 3000 word text generated from these walks has drawn on earlier drawings, photographs, notes and recordings of the architectural ruins and social conditions left in the wake of deregulated capital. It maps a web of tactics and strategies undermining gentrification; points of intensity/contested sites include MacArthur Park, Skid Row, Union Station, Bradbury Building, Grand Central Market and the abandoned cinemas of Broadway.