A walking workshop that we (Tool/Toy Project) are developing and iterating. On this night-walk we discuss and imagine new opportunities for human and non-human thriving at night as well as in the daylight. Night-walking (noctambulation) offers us another perspective on familiar places and patterns. As the dark rises and vision abstracts, it becomes easier to imagine the past as well as possible futures.

We consider alternative uses for buildings and surfaces, replanning through play using the simplest of tools. We invite participants to bypass the limits of practicalities and reality and to think and dream big about new ways of inhabiting our environment.

Part of The Living House, celebrating 150 years since Van Gogh lived in South London.

A workshop held in Great Yarmouth, documented by film maker Charlie Ditcham.

Darkness is instrumental to rest, and a facilitator of dreams and visions. As daylight fades, colour dissipates and the familiar shapes and landscapes blur and abstract. The city empties, and the earth grows quiet. In the absence of light, our minds begin to flow freely and amplify neural noise. The onset of darkness traditionally signals freedom from labour, and a shield from oversight and moral judgement. We may think and talk freely, and find ‘an intermediate space, where the business of life does not intrude’.

‘Dreams are powerful. They are repositories of our desire. They animate the entertainment industry and drive consumption. They can blind people to reality and provide cover for political horror. But they can also inspire us to imagine that things could be radically different than they are today, and then believe we can progress towards that imaginary world.’

- Stephen Duncombe (2007)

That night we took a walk. The term militant pedestrianism refers to walking as a political act. The Situationists, a radical artistic and political movement based in Paris around the 60s, believed in the concept of the “derive” or the drift, which involved wandering through urban spaces without any specific destination or purpose. They believed that reclaiming streets for non-productive and non-consumptive acts such as aimless wandering or creating spontaneous public art could challenge the dominant capitalist system and encourage people to engage with their surroundings in a more creative and spontaneous way. They saw this as a way of breaking down the rigid structure of modern life and creating new forms of social interaction and community.

‘What does it mean to know how to take a walk? It means to walk attentively, observantly, and thoughtfully, actively delighting in one’s surroundings.’

Nightwalking - or noctambulation - offers us another perspective on the places we think we know. In darkened, abstracted conditions where everything looks subtly different, it becomes easier to imagine and discuss the past as well as possible futures.