I set out for the prayer room. It is early afternoon, 12:15PM. Half an hour before the first call to prayer, but it is only a seven minute walk. “Apply yourself. Take your time,” writes Georges Perec (1997, p. 50) in Species of Spaces and Other Pieces. This is my attempt to do that.
Perec’s (1997) instruction on time is prefaced by a suggestion of systematic observation, expanded upon in the section of Practical Exercises by way of deciphering, classifying and collecting. In this spirit, I too have decided to develop a rigorous system, which comes to life once inside the prayer room. It begins with a glance at the wall clock to note the time of entry. As I have arrived early, the room is empty and I photography the sequence of prayer rugs arranged on the floor. I will compare this to yesterday’s arrangement; it seems to have changed. Time passes and people begin to stream in. “Detect a rhythm”, writes Perec (1997, p. 51), referring to passing cars, which I substitute with men. I fixate on one person and record their movements. An old man enters the room, his arms wet from the kitchen sink just outside where he performed ablution. He approaches a defunct fireplace, whose mantelpiece holds large blue rolls of tissues. He picks up a long black cloak off a hook on the back wall. These cloaks have been a mystery to me, but now I realise they denote the imam. Before the prayer begins, I take a mental note of the time. When it ends, I do the same, after I sneak a quick photo of the prayer rug I’m kneeling on, and before I leave the room. “Force yourself to write down what is of no interest, what is most obvious …” (Perec, 1997, p. 50); I type notes on my phone on the walk home.
As noted in Shannon Mattern’s (2013) Infrastructural Tourism, our inherently networked world dictates “an existence somewhere between the material and immaterial … the place-bound and the placeless, the local and the global.” While this primarily references the Internet, these themes translate to the experience of the prayer room. Wires are replaced by time; the wall clock dictates the flow of people in and out of the space and the times they convene, changing daily as per the lunar cycle. Time is the fundamental element of my Perec-inspired system and as Mattern (2013) classifies infrastructure as “defined with regard to context and situation”, the clock begins to surpass its basic function. Its physical form, a pointed arch on columns, frames an aerial photograph of Makkah – the city towards which prayers are oriented. It is a portal, from a London prayer room to the heart of the Muslim world, the local worshipper to a global community, a literal ticking of digital digits to an immaterial passage of time. There are no hidden wires connecting this room to the cubed structure of the Kaa’bah, but as a space rooted in both a local and collective context, the possibility to transport oneself through time and space remains.
Reference List:
Perec, G. (1997) Species of Spaces and Other Pieces. London: Penguin Books.
Mattern, S. (2013) Infrastructural Tourism. Available at: https://placesjournal.org/article/infrastructural-tourism/?cn-reloaded=1 (Accessed: 23 October, 2021)
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Unit 1: Methods of Investigation – Feedback
What’s working:
- A good number of iterations throughout the investigation, most of which make sense – e.g. spiral diagram with Makkah
- The spiral diagram is so far the most interesting experiment
What’s not working:
- The new diagram (parallel vs. perpendicular time) don’t offer a lot of new information
- Doesn’t build on the aspect of time, which is central to the project
- Seems a little forced
To develop this further/in future projects:
- It would be good to get a sense of the prayer as it happens – the spiral could unfold in real time
- Could be worth investigating and showing the different parts of the prayer separately
- Can objects be connected to the process?
- The idea that everywhere can be a prayer space is interesting – could develop this further
- The project is primarily about time, so it would be worth going back to the spiral diagram and developing that further