Take a walk outside the time it takes.
December 06, 2012
I want to take a walk, go out walking. Then turn it into a piece of work.
Perhaps I walk alone. Maybe with the dogs - Reggie and Buford. I want to walk out, following no particular path. I want to walk out, with design and intent. Either way, I'm good. But there's a formalist conceit, which is that there's something waiting to be extracted at the end.
What would that look like? Or sound like? I like a good story, a knotty narrative fills with reflection, tangents and occasional poetic flight. But it takes time to read. I ask if there is medium outside of time, where I can take the walk and consider each angle? I want to hold it. Can I represent it as a sculpture? Can I weave strands of wire together to create the form of the walk?
And not the pedestrian representation of topography. I wrote some short studies once, using the KML file downloaded from a GPS unit to upload to Google Earth. I think I just assigned one set of values to a pitch, and let a sine wave warble for about 10 seconds. There are more interesting ways to assign values to sonic vectors. And besides, the sound still unfolds in time.
I like very much Richard Long, his lines created by walking through a field. The walk itself is constrained, but the line is a single artifact. It is a representation of the entirety. Time is wrapped in the soil. The molecules of the soil are changed, they have been held outside the earthy processes of decomposition, seismology. The line has removed the walk from the topographic domain, placing it above the realm.
If this sounds familiar, it is because you are a loyal reader. Loyal and attentive, for you are noticing that I describe Richard Long with the same language I used a few days ago to talk about Leys. And indeed, I do think that the awareness of sight-lines (the Old Straight Track) is a long form vision shared across the poetic landscape. A Ley is a non-narrative construct of distance. I wish all readers were as delightful as you are - for you surely know who you are.
I've thought about a piece, set in Pittsburgh, working title "Cairn-Seeds". I walk, and I place small red stones at each terminus. These stones are the Cairn-Seeds. I publish the GPS locations, with directions to bring also a red stone and add to the pile. ( I'd publish using the geocaching sites, which would increase the population sample). Then, I walk the same path repeatedly. The frequency with which I walk each path is based on an algorithm that I haven't figured out yet. Lets say it works out to be once every 7 weeks. I visit each cairn.
Do I document the growth of the stones? Photography? Journal of the estimated weight? Or do I leave, knowing that it is known somewhere, at least by the last person to leave a stone?
There can be many walks. The stones could be any color.