walking is talking

Somewhere in my last post, I wrote "Walk, don't talk." De Certeau corrected me. Walking is talking. His "pedestrian speech acts" section captures the potential of something that other disciplines seem to have realized (perhaps later in time): appropriation. By walking, one "appropriates the topographical system" and performs an act of enunciation. Choosing a path is a statement. Walking is rhetorical and emotive in ways similar to language.

Tourner un parcours
What would de Certeau think of the fairly recent (and French-founded) art of parcour? Maybe he spawned it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6F_iP-F7Fw

Graphical statistics can communicate vast quantities of data, but it isn't until one has appropriated the space of the map that the field takes form. Then the field becomes relational, the senses become engaged, and the mind and body must perform fundamental tasks.

We encounter a similar situation in "making" architecture. While we must be able to appropriate a field with language, we must also at some point act/react/do/see/make in order to find or produce hotspots. Surrender to context and impulse in order to find and create the art and order by which we construct the image or understanding of our personal and collective input-output transform.