Dark Matters: A Manifesto for the Nocturnal City

by Nick Dunn

Dark Matters explores the city at night as a place and time within which escape from the confines of the daytime is possible. More specifically, it is a state of being. There is a long history of nightwalking, often integral to shady worlds of miscreants, shift workers and transgressors. Yet the night offers much to be enjoyed beyond vice. Night by definition contrasts day, summoning notions of darkness and fear. But another night exists out there. Liberation and exhilaration in the urban landscape is increasingly rare when so much of our attention and actions are controlled. Rather than consider darkness as negative, opposed to illumination and enlightenment, this book explores the rich potential of the dark for our senses. The question may no longer be about what spaces we wish to engage with but when we do?

Genres: Nonfiction, Architecture, Essays, Urban, Theory, Philosophy

120 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2016

Reviews

[RKanimalkingdom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review Found Here

[Avery · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm rating this five stars, which I rarely do these days, but you are not guaranteed to like this at all. The book is simultaneously trying to be theory and poetry, at some points literally: it contains both Baudelaire-esque descriptions of decaying urban streets the author has walked down, and a manifesto proclaiming the virtue of subverting neoliberal order through nighttime urban walks, like in Ray Bradbury's short story "The Pedestrian" and his novel "Fahrenheit 451". If this sounds insufferable to you, run away from this book as fast as you can, because you are going to hate it. It is very easy to hate if that's what you want to do. As for me, when I heard about this book I was immediately fascinated, so much so that I took a directionless nighttime walk myself, eventually finding a quiet park where I read it.

The author has the privilege of a lot of free time for walking, reading, and thinking. He doesn't dispute this fact. Instead, he digs into it: can solitary walking be creative and productive? Can he help society escape the seeming inevitability of a downward spiral into neoliberal chaos by stepping outside the urban rush entirely, into a forbidden and dark world? Is nighttime walking the Archimedean lever by which he can jolt the world out of place? Obviously not in a literal sense, but in a poetic sense, I quickly come to agree with him that yes, this is what he is doing, and that he is performing a deep kind of human experiment that demands to be reproduced.

This is a book extremely fit for our times. It reiterates the joys of aimless movement that can be found in earlier books like Rebecca Solnit's Wanderlust, but unlike any earlier book that I am aware of, it urges us to consider the political/spiritual possibilities of such behavior that are increasingly being closed off to us in the 21st century. The world of productivity is now always available to us through 24-hour artificial lights and glowing screens, but the Cthulhu who lurks behind all that productivity only becomes visible in the darkness. In an interesting sense, darkness is now harder for us to find than light, and night accordingly has become more important than day for opening up real possibilities of the human spirit.

This is a book about decline, but it is about finding possibility in decline -- not to beautify it, but to discover it as it is through physical examination. It is short and slightly repetitive, but also spellbinding, disruptive to our tired out values, and very rereadable.

[Hayley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mum, the men are psychogeographing again! Conflicted here because I like Nick's work generally and I can see how much knowledge and research this required but it's presented in a way that the references he makes within the creative non fiction are so cursory they feel hollow. I know all of these references well as someone who studies the city but they'd be lost on an audience outside of the Modernist/Manchester urbanist echo chamber. Feels like a lot of untold stories and missed opportunities for a richer collection of essays. I don't know how they do it but men writing about cities, especially the modernists, do so in such a masculine way - yomping about barking out half-facts that position them as experts but ones fearful of sharing too much in case other people become experts too. I skimmed over a lot in the end so I may have missed it but there didn't seem to be much in the way of safety and other experiences of a night time city or acknowledgement of privilege to do what he was doing without fear. The books published by Zero are meant to be educational but not academic but this was so clearly written by a university lecturer. I wanted to like this, I can admire the work put in, but I really disliked it.

[Nurten Müge Ayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book explores the urban environment during the nighttime as well as the negative reputation it possesses in comparison to its daytime counterpart. Based on his first-hand research and nightly walks throughout the city, Dunn discusses why having a deeper connection with our physical environment is more important than it seems, especially the unexplored parts of our environments, referencing the night. He also delves into the environmental stresses caused by trying to make “cities at night” behave as if they are “cities in the day” and how embracing our urban environment in all shapes and forms is more beneficial not only for the user, but for the environment as well. Dark Matters seeks out to reflect on and restructure the common mindset many possess of cities at night and to create a new perspective for our urban environment.

The book begins by claiming, “cities are not neutral containers or aspatial.” The author stresses that the urban environment is made up of its not only physical structures, but its people, rules, regulations, and capitalistic ideals, to name a few. He believes that to walk in a city is to conform to its ideals, to be shaped by those who have shaped the city before you. “Architecture (referring to the city), through its presence and function, is typically a reflection of the values of the society that built it.” Even down to the simple act of walking, he notes, “we moderate the direction and expression of our bodies in motion in response to both the built environment and the people around us.” Meaning that to do anything out of the ordinary will not only arouse suspicion, but will be a failure to conform to the city’s ideals. Signage, CCTV cameras, fences that bar you from entry, are all of the physical limitations that cities possess that inhibit the users from falling outside of what is deemed to be the acceptable norm.

Dunn states that the “nocturnal city” is not appreciated as the daytime city; that lack of light seems to welcome thoughts of fear and violence. Additionally, the rules and regulations that arise in the nighttime detract from the true functionality and success of the city. Although many enforcements are present in the daytime as well, the night brings about extra scrutiny to those who inhabit it. As he recalls all of his nightwalking experiences, Dunn makes the differentiation that the common activity of simply walking throughout the city during the day, becomes a suspicious act during the night. As he puts it, “ to enjoy the atmosphere and the ecology of the urban night, is to appear strange and questionable in the minds of others.” He even points out that most authoritative figures, just as patrol officers, could see this activity as something that poses a threat to the environment.

Although the city’s grasp on its residents to conform and reflect its ideals is strong, night walking seems to have its meditative ways of combating that. “The escape of daily roles and responsibilities is to enter the melding city,” says Dunn, “This place and time enables both the meditation on and meditation with the nocturnal city.” Unlike the daytime, when walking into the long hours of the night, there is less of a sense of urgency. The rush of the day, the smells, noise, traffic all melts away and you no longer have to walk to get from point A to B, but can do so rather aimlessly to discover your surroundings from a different perspective. The nighttime city also abstains from the “preoccupation with managing (the) urban space” where action is taken to “constrict the sensual world”; To constrict us from being exposed to “pungent smells, rough textures and discordant sounds.” Unlike the regulatory restrictions, the sensual world is not barred from existing in the nocturnal city. While the daytime city is so hyper focused on creating an ideal city and shaping the reality into a specific mold, the nighttime city has little to no one to try to impress or reflect its ideals on. It just exists, with all of its smells, sounds, sights, and tastes. Therefore, Dunn proposes that we try to break away from the way the daytime city has wired our brains, so that we may view the city at night in its truest form.

Overall the book takes on a very contemplative and poetic tone, the writing style reflective of the thoughts of a person walking throughout the city at night. I would definitely recommend it to most but it isn't for everyone.

[Sophy H · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great study of the benefits of nocturnal wanderings in cities.

Nick Dunn's text focuses on Manchester for his after dark moochings, and the associated change in perception and interpretation of space at a different time of day.

Every aspect of the city is covered here, from architecture to capitalism to control of space.

Dunn's writing is quite dichotomous though, it veers from the poetic to the overly academic. At times, it feels as though the desire to be scholastic detracts from the overall message. And he has a raging penchant for the word palimpsest!!! Just stop it Dunn!!

Otherwise a great read and of interest to anyone who's ever wandered about after dark and seen their space in a totally different way.

[rasmus linde · Rating 3 out of 5]

mulle meeldib, et eesti keeles sõna “öö” on nagu kaks karjuvat või üllatunud nägu hästi kõrvuti ja nad mõlemad on kuidagi kohmetud ja ei saa iseendaga eriti hästi hakkama ja need “silmad” otsivad nagu abi või sellist kaastunnet kuksilt väljaspoolt.. ö

[Phoebe]

Nick Gunn doesn’t quite have the right blend of academic prose, poetry and memories that underlies the writings of Henry Lefebvre or Gaston Bachelard. Although he tries.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extremely poetic examination of the nocturnal city. At times it almost felt like a love-letter to an abusive partner (i.e. neoliberal cities) about how beautiful they happen to be when they're asleep.

While reading it I couldn't help but think of Heidegger's analysis of tool-being. The book is written as a quasi-phenomenological description of a certain state of urban being. While most of us, most of the time, comport ourselves towards the city in the manner of readiness-to-hand, as a familiar piece of equipment or background wherein we seek to accomplish our stupid every-day tasks, Dunn is trying to paint a picture of the nocturnal city as a kind of vorhandenheit, a presence-at-hand, a state of being where the equipment has broken down and we can actually see it for what it is isolated from all of the chaotic goings-on of the day. Doing so opens up a particular space for radical thinking which might not otherwise exist.

The problem is that our 24/7 world is constantly encroaching on our experience of the nocturnal by artificially extending the day, be it through omnipresent street lights or the screens of our hand-held devices. There's also an element of fear associated with walking through the city at night which we would need to overcome in order to have this experience at all.

I used to do more nocturnal urban exploration than I do now and this book made me realize how much I've missed it.

[Vakaris the Nosferatu · Rating 3 out of 5]

The rest at {NMR: Not a bad read. Not a good read, but I think I feel this way mostly because it was rather meant to be read as it is meant to be written - in one breath that pulls the ground from under your feet. You get back up and walk away, so to speak. I spent days on it, and so the thoughts settled, as a result I have a tough time to even explain what this book was... So I'll give it 3 out of 5, for two is too little, and four is too much. It was worth the time, that is for sure. There are a lot of great thoughts in it, and all the sources, kindly. So if you have a spare hour or two, feel free to indulge.

[burntpic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Этим поэтичным эссэ автор приглашает с собой прогуляться по ночному Манхэттену. Пусть путешествие будет очень коротким (вы сами не заметите, как проглотите эти 100 страниц), но лиричными размышлениями о том, что ночные прогулки - один из способов высвободиться от автоматизма дневной рутины, собрав охапку непривычных впечатлений от обыденных вещей, вроде той же архитектуры, которая совершенно иначе выглядит ночью. Город всегда в процессе становления, он никогда до конца не восстановлен и не уничтожен, так почему бы вам не засвидетельствовать его в самый уязвленный момент, когда акценты расставлены иначе и открывается пространство для воображения, когда визуал притупляется, и обостряются особые звуки города-киборга? Только пребывая в лиминальных зонах города, можно по-настоящему войти. Станьте собственным картографом ощущений. Если вы достаточно одиноки, чтобы гулять по ночному городу, считайте, на ближайшие пару вечеров у вас появился компаньон, который вас понимает.

[PABLO LASKOBAR · Rating 2 out of 5]

100 страниц словоблудия, в которых автор то критикует процесс превращения городов в социально-активное пространство света и безопасности, то, например, вспоминает, что исторически в тени ночных городов прятались грабители и маргиналы, при этом не забывая пожалеть граффитистов, которым современные подходы к урбанизму не дают занимать себя по ночам.

Очень жаль, что книга на тему с таким потенциалом, оказывается потоком сознания без какой-либо крепкой аргументации или хотя бы интересных идей.

[Kit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poetic and stunning exploration of our relationship with nocturnal sensations, trusting our perception, reconnection with space and place, and the way the city at night illuminates our daytime practices and engagement in the larger capitalist structure that seeks to confine, corral, and redefine our comings and goings.

[Greg · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like this book has a lot of interesting ideas that are lost in the way it's written. For me, it felt more like a stream of consciousness without any really structure or point.

I do believe this is intentional, and that some people might enjoy it more than I did, but I found it difficult and somewhat boring to read

[Gemma · Rating 5 out of 5]

I believe this book to be a piece of art which encapsulates the feeling of walking around a city at night.
Theoretical points are discussed, but to me personally, the poetic language of the journey interspersed with lyrics and quotes, made this book special.

[Henry Foster · Rating 5 out of 5]

super happy that i picked it up in a book store, love how it intertwines urban environs with hauntology + it is really short, please d o m a k e the effort and read it in one sitting!

[Samelu Binumcole · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this book but turned out to be not very excited by the ideas or the style of writing.

[Aaron Schuschu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found footage ARG vibes