Inés Muñozcano: An Abode in the Crowd

“An Abode in the Crowd” is an ongoing research project by Inés Muñozcano and Marta Moriarty based on the idea of physical flâneurism —good legs, good eyes and great capacity for astonishment— accompanied by the digital tools of deep research. The project builds on topics or places that we research, putting into practice a theme that was very important for the early philosophers who tried to offer an explanation of the origin of philosophy and establish its limits. To Plato, ‘κατάπληξη’ [katáplixi] or wonder is the first disposition of knowledge in a double sense: it precedes the desire for knowledge and also makes it possible. Astonishment sets in motion the soul and helps it arrive at the discovery of truth.

The outcome is at once a stock and a flow. It is, on the one hand, an archive: our own literal ‘archive of astonishment’ of objects, sound recordings, and collected texts. On the other hand, a podcast in Spanish called “Lo que te dije” ("What I told you") in which we share the surprising cultural, artistic and historical discoveries we uncover by combining ‘katáplixi’ with further encyclopedic research. But it is also an experience: we wander, share, learn, expose, and react in ways that cannot be predicted. Amazement helps us to talk about reality and to link each of its forms, be it personal, natural or artistic. Moreover, astonishment is the paradigm of all art, and helps our attempt to make what Baudelaire once called “an abode in the crowd.”