Abstract

Electrical substations, in which medium voltage electrical current is converted into low voltage current that can safely enter our homes and workplaces, are densely dotted through our urban surroundings. As pieces of essential public infrastructure, they each require identifying. Substations in the UK and Belgium are identified with numbers. In France, they have names, usually related to their address, such as the name of the street or village. However, in the Paris suburbs, these names are more complex, diverging from the realms of the pragmatic and technical into those of poetry and storytelling.

I have been observing and cataloguing these names over the past few years. I consider them to be “as found” poetry, forming a discreet narrative layer woven into the fabric of the city. They tell us stories about local and national history, about politics, science, art and literature. Some are serious and some are funny, some are obvious, some are obscure. This article takes the reader on a psychogeographic walk through my neighbourhood in the eastern Paris suburbs, stopping to first notice, and then make sense of, each of the substation names found along the route. 

Keywords: Infrastructure, Electricity, Walking, Naming, Poetry

How to Cite:

Oldham, R. A., (2026) “Electric Poetic - the naming and noticing of infrastructure (part of the Live Writing workshop)”, field 10(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.62471/field.219