Could we consider everyday movement as the starting point of a contemporary urban science? Consider the city as a space defined by the paths of thousands of moving bodies, crossing each other, running parallel to each other, colliding, creating an infinity of possible encounters. This multiplicity of intersecting paths gives the place its form, carving roads, highways and public spaces, and filling the void in between with buildings. The impact of these journeys transforms lives, changes the face of the city and resonates on a planetary level. 

It seems natural that this exploration of the contemporary city should begin in Dublin, with its terrifying growth rate, sprawling suburbs and chronic transportation problems. Yet, despite its rapid horizontal expansion, Dublin is still much the same place we left eighteen years ago – a real place, made of stone, brick, concrete, tarmac, grass, inhabited by real people, whose lives are the building blocks of the city. Only later, when we had talked to these people, did we begin to understand the nature of this edgeless city. We amassed a hoard of treasures; video footage, photographs, interviews, ambient sounds, stories, all little snippets of Moving Dublin. These documents reflect as much the built reality of the urban space as they do a mental picture of the city that Lady Morgan once called her dear, dirty, Dublin.