I started wandering into empty sites, alleyways and empty buildings in Adelaide. It was  a way of getting to know the city that I was living in,  a form of urban exploration into Alt-Adelaide   in a world increasingly marked by the transitory, liquidity  and precariousness. 

Urban exploration is usually associated with  exploring  little-known urban spaces like abandoned buildings, rooftops, construction sites, drains, transit and utility tunnels and more. Michelle Dicinoski in The Future that never took Place: exploring Detroit's Abandoned Buildings  in Meanjin says that:

Urban exploration, or ‘urbex’, can be described as ‘seeking out, visiting and documenting interesting human-made spaces, most typically abandoned buildings, construction sites, active buildings, stormwater drains, utility tunnels and transit tunnels’. That’s the definition given by Jeff Chapman, aka Ninjalicious, a Canadian explorer who literally wrote the book on urbex with his guide Access All Areas. 

The increased interest in urban exploring (or  ‘place hacking’) may well result from  the growth in surveillance technology and the shrinking of public space. 

Dicinoski says that: 

Many people photograph modern ruins. Photo-sharing sites such as Flickr are thick with arty images of decay and destruction: rusting amusement parks, abandoned asylums, ruined churches. Some critics call it ‘ruin porn’ because of the vicarious thrill it gives the viewer; the implication is that the images are endlessly stimulating but are disconnected from any ‘real’ experience for the viewer.