The Art Of Travel

Quote

“Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than a moving plane, ship or train. There is an almost quaint correlation between what is in front of our eyes and the thoughts we are able to have in our heads: large thoughts at times requiring large views, new thoughts new places. Introspective reflections which are liable to stall are helped along by the flow of the landscape. The mind may be reluctant to think properly when thinking is all it is supposed to do.

 

At the end of hours of train-dreaming, we may feel we have been returned to ourselves – that is, brought back into contact with emotions and ideas of importance to us. It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves. The furniture insists that we cannot change because it does not; the domestice setting keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life, but who may not be who we essentially are.

 

If we find poetry in the service station and motel, if we are drawn to the airport or train carriage, it is perhaps because, in spite of their architectural compromises and discomforts, in spite of their garish colours and harsh lighting, we implicitly feel that these isolated places offer us a material setting for an alternative to the selfish ease, the habits and confinement of the ordinary, rooted world.”
― Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel

Day 5: Energy project NY.PARIS.BERLIN

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This gallery contains 5 photos.

A little cell phone documentation. Starting at Gare L’est Paris traveling on the train to Nogent Sur-Seine. (Nogent Sur-Seine was chosen because of the recent controversy and break-in by Greenpeace activists- see previous post.) Miles away on the train I … Continue reading

Day 4.2: Energy project NY.PARIS.BERLIN

November 19, 2012 at

Day 4/ Journée 4

Since I lived in France during a year of high school and speak French I decided a layover in Paris on my way to Germany would be a good idea. Having a couple of days to get over jet lag and prepare for research in a country where I can actually communicate and function easily was ideal.

The more I read the book, The Radiance Of France by Gabrielle Hecht the more I become interested in the French view of nuclear power. France uses nuclear power more than any other country. They are one of only 3 countries (France, Belgium and Slovakia) that rely on nuclear power for their primary source of energy. To a large degree it has to do with the French definition of the public service: “Everyone’s right to equal access to a regular, quality service, supplied at the best price.” Like education and healthcare, energy is one of those very basic services that citizens need. (I would note that the cost of nuclear energy is going up, not down however.)

Without going to far into the topic of nuclear weapons, which is not what my project is about, I do have to point out that nuclear weapons and nuclear energy are not two exclusive topics. This should be important in noting with the current climate, fear and international investigations of nuclear weapons. Support of nuclear power in the 1950’s was in major part by a technopolitical regime.  As mentioned in Hecht’s book, “Technical and the political are carefully defended and distinguished, but are at the same time made interdependent. The nuclear power plant, designed by industrialists, engineers and scientists, is a hybrid sociotechnical agencement, both  a technical device (capable of producing plutonium and electricity) and a political contrivance (it paves the way to the atomic bomb).”

With 58 nuclear power plants in a country that’s smaller than Texas, I knew one wouldn’t be too far. I chose Nogent Sur-Seine Nuclear Power Plant because of the recent controversy. In December 2011, after the Fukushima disaster, 9 Greenpeace activists broke into the power plant and climbed onto one of the towers holding a banner that stated, “Safe nuclear (energy) doesn’t exist.” Greenpeace’s mission was to show how easy it was for someone to break in and get to the heart of the nuclear reactor.

Photos up next

Day 3/ Journée 3 Energy project NY.PARIS.BERLIN

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Have been reading The Radiance of France by Gabrielle Hecht in order to better research the international dialogue and opinions on the topic of nuclear power (for project). Tomorrow I will travel to one of France’s nuclear power plants. France … Continue reading