Bertrand Westphal

For several decades now, it has been striking to observe the extent to which cartography inspires artistic approaches, whether visual or literary. Whilst the flâneur view has long accompanied the process of discovering urban space, it did not necessarily rely on a logic guided by the route’s inscription within a concrete geography. It took the flânerie of a Walter Benjamin through the Parisian passages, for example, for a paradigm shift to become evident. In recent years, we have gone further: we are witnessing a verticalisation of perspective. Flâner no longer means allowing oneself to be guided by a planar, largely horizontal view, but also to explore the city’s walls with one’s gaze. Street art has introduced new iconographic landmarks that are transforming urban perception. The traditional centre-periphery hierarchy or points of interest/no points of interest opposition is being replaced by a logic of interstices based on a heterarchical mapping that is constantly shifting, largely subjective, fundamentally ephemeral and capable of sketching out a new urban mind.  Street art contributes significantly to this phenomenon – without, however, offering explicitly cartographic walls.