notes on walking

reflection

I am mindful that not everyone can go for a “walk”. I approached “walking” as an able-bodied person, as that is my lived experience. I would like to think that “walking” as an idea, has a commonality, whether you physically walk, using 2 legs, or whether you wheel, are wheeled, or move around in some other way, but I’m not in a position to comment on that. 

At one point, during lockdown, walking was about all we were allowed to do outside of the house. I tried cycling too, but walking became the most common. A lot of the walks took me to the supermarket, many to the park. They were always accompanied by at least one family member.

I used the walks to my own ends. To attempt to make some sort of art during and out of the walks. 

I had intended to lead some art walks prior to lockdown. Well, I’ve probably got that out of my system. I’m not sure it’s for me. I think I’d rather walk alone. I don’t have much to say when I’m walking. I like to use the time to think. But everyone wants to talk, walk and talk, the walk sets off thoughts and the thoughts come out of other people. Mine stay inside. I enjoy walking for the internal dialogue. Reflecting on my thoughts. Working through my problems and ideas independently.

I bought a couple of books on walking. I haven’t finished either of them, even though one is really thin.

I thought about protest marches, and then I thought about marching. My time as a majorette, marching for miles and miles in carnivals. I thought about running and how it differs from walking but that’s another story. I thought about Eddie Izzard and all those marathons he did in South Africa. I thought about Nelson Mandela because of that.

I thought about nomads and travellers. And I thought about pilgrimage. I thought I should follow up on my thoughts, but I didn’t expect to focus so much on walking.

I thought I should have thought about time, in a linear way, but I didn’t. 

I thought about artists. 

And Christian Marclay’s walks referenced time.

https://www.wallpaper.com/art/christian-marclay-artworks-to-be-projected-outdoors-at-white-cube-bermondsey-during-frieze-london#0_pic_0

Richard Long and his performative art practice. Lucy Gunning and the mirror event, Francis Alÿs and his block of ice, or his magnetic shoes, or the fiery football kicked down the street.

From my phone feed, Ligia Lewis “Walk, walk, walk until” for Hans Ulrich Obrist’s “Do It”.

From my son’s school, Raymond Bradbury’s, The Pedestrian, assigned for homelearning,

“What are you doing out?”

“Walking.”

“Walking!”

“Just walking.” He said simply but his face felt cold.

“Walking, just walking, walking? “

“Yes, sir.”,

“Walking where? For what?”

“Walking for air. Walking to see.”

These walks started to appear in my feeds. Either others were thinking about walking, or that algorithm was thinking of me.

All those walks. Don’t get me wrong. I like trampling, making my mark, I like intervening and documenting, I like journeys and I like Google maps. But I hope I can escape this topic, there has to be more than walking.

I thought about dog walking but not much, as I don’t have a dog. I tried to think of all the different kinds of walk. But mostly I sat. And I haven’t been out for a walk for several days, trying to write something. I’d like to go out for a walk now, but I’ve really run out of time. 

walking through the artists marketing campaign

“The extraordinary change that has taken place in the climate of London during the last ten years is entirely due to a particular school of art… At present people see fogs not because there are fogs but because poets and painters have taught them the mysterious loveliness of such effects (the fogs) They did not exist till Art invented them”

Oscar Wilde “La decadencia de la mentida” in L’anima de l’home

As ramblers trudge across fields and cliff tops, in their uniform; stick and hiking boots, choosing “youth” hostels en route, they are engaging in endurance; striding forth, battling weather, with purpose. They also synthesise with culture, physically and with that of the cult of walking. The walkers are entrenched in the apparent romanticism inherent in the walk, arguably put there by artists. Suffering for pleasure, immersing themselves in the sublime, before returning home to warmth, comfort and safety.

stepping aside to walk

Walking is a form of dependence on the other as every act is. Using a road and wearing shoes. Even if we go barefoot across the landscape, we are still in the chain, walking on land formed by others, a path perhaps worn accidentally, or fields more deliberately sculpted and carved by ownership. The wilds of this country are planted forests and woods, it is sand dredged up on the beach, denied its natural path around the coast. Consider the interventions of others in the place we perceive as wild and free, and the land that is owned and controlled. Outside of the city, nature, the countryside, is controlled, even if it doesn’t display a sign defining it as a royal park, or council owned recreation ground. Escape, as an idea, is flawed, as the dog walker, hounded by a police drone during lockdown will testify. Perhaps, being at one with nature, is just that, a co-dependence with it. 

an act of doing

Regardless of restrictions, can we walk for walking’s sake? Is it possible to walk without purpose or reason? Can we set off at one point and walk, not knowing where the walk will take us; or in choosing to do so, are we not inflicting an element of choice onto the walk? 

Can we walk without care, without concerns; food, water, shelter, weather, safety? Do we have to be prepared to walk; shoes, bag, route, phone? Are we free to leave? Should we let others know where we are going and when we’ll be back? Or can we lose responsibility? Is it a mere dream to imagine it or are there possibilities? 

Epic walker, Richard Long, talks of freedom and independence, but despite his seemingly unfettered walks, Richard Long imposes his own restrictions, conditions and sets of rules. With walking as art practice, he documents, purposefully makes his mark, notes the distance. His walks are constrained, not necessarily free. 

One might detach oneself from purpose, but the new purpose is inherent in the intention to go for a walk, whether that is for the sake of walking alone or for arts sake. 

guilty (non) pleasure

“…when sometimes I have stolen forth for a walk… (I) have felt as if I had committed some sin to be atoned for”

Henry David Thoreau

Away from the romantic strolling of Wordsworthian landscapes and Heathcliff’s wuthering cliff tops, the apparent freedom of the walk, denied in lockdown, is offered as a carrot of escapism – being allowed to leave the home environment, for “no longer than an hour”. 

However, in a domestic setting, walking by government instruction, for daily exercise, becomes a necessity and a chore. We are robbed of the ramble, the opportunity to roam free, bound by distance and time constraints. And have purpose in our step, we purposefully walk; briskly, controlled, managed. 

And then repeat, repeat, repeat. 

Don’t talk, just walk. Don’t make eye contact with strangers. 

We have imposed our own set of rules on our walk, we pass by as ghosts, steering clear of others, resisting any engagement that might encourage a breaking of social distance, the risk of raising our voices in order to be heard is matched with an increase likelihood of us spitting potentially infected droplets into others faces. So, we hang our heads in shame, no one knowing who is cursed, avoiding others for our own safety and theirs. 

a special subset of walking

“To make walking into an investigation, a ritual, a meditation, is a special subset of walking, physiologically like and philosophical unlike the way the mail carrier brings the mail and the office worker reaches the train”

Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust 

I would say postmen, and to a certain extent commuters too, do relate to walking in a philosophical way. Their routine is not all drudgery, and they can no doubt find solace, as we all can, in those often solitary moments. The walking part of our day is often ritualistic, maybe you walk the dog first, before taking the same route to work or school, picking up a coffee at the same café, going to the same tube station, standing on the same platform, walking to the same bus stop, dropping your coffee cup in the same bin, chatting to the same person, commenting on the weather, or the traffic. It is routine but not without focus, what goes on in our head has all the elements of investigation, ritual and meditation. Its purpose may be getting from A to B, or delivering post along a route, but engagement in it is not that perfunctory. 

The interruption in our behavioural pattern during lockdown highlighted how valuable and necessary these subset of routines were. I don’t think we would have felt such yearning if they were less vital. 

magnetoreception

Marvel Comic’s Magneto is the Master of Magnetism, a powerful mutant with the ability to generate and control magnetic fields.

But magnetism and magnetic fields aren’t just for comic book characters. It turns out that Magnetoreception helps certain creatures to locate themselves; they appear to navigate with magnetic fields.

There have been theories about it since the 1700s although many were debunked or at the very least viewed with scepticism.

However, over the last half century it has drawn more attention. A pioneering study in 1972 demonstrated that European robins respond to magnetic cues. Since then the list of animals with magnetic sense has grown from tiny song birds and sea turtles, to include every vertebrate category as well as certain insects and crustaceans.

The Earth’s magnetic field varies in intensity across the surface, being weakest at the equator and strongest at the poles. Some may use it to orientate, whilst others use it for migration and homing, alongside other sensory cues. 

One theory says animals have an intracellular compass, whilst another suggests chemical reactions, influenced by the geomagnetic field, produce the sense. 

The evidence for a magnetic sense is mostly behavioural; researchers have yet to find receptors. Cells could be located anywhere in the body since magnetic fields pass freely through tissue. 

hiding in plain sight

Tate Modern: Olafur Eliasson, Naim Jun Paik and Takis

Olafur Eliasson’s works embrace a visual spectrum and challenge our senses. In many works we are faced with large scale environments, such as a whole wall of sphagnum moss. As I entered the exhibition at the Tate, there was a wonderful array of geometric shapes and polyhedra; we appear to have the same affliction. ‘Your blind passenger’ 2010 is a fog filled room (or series of rooms). As one walks through you can barely see in front of your own face. You shuffle as a crowd but cannot see anyone in front or behind; aside from perhaps a faint shadow. Guided by voices, the hum of the crowd, clinging to the wall for guidance, you are robbed of everyday familiar senses as you struggle to navigate. I wonder how the experience would be on your own, in the middle of the room alone! Olafur has infused various rooms with colour and possibly aromas. You walk through orange, white and blue zones. I wasn’t the only one to sense a hint of orange oil in the orange air, but perhaps the brain is just forming a picture and filling in the gaps. We don’t know. 

In other works, one is asked to stop and take notice, such as the water on the window, simulating rain. ‘Rain Window (Regenfenster)’ 1999 triggers memories of childhood, when I would happily sit for hours and watch rain on the window; I would follow one drop down the pane, trying to predict where it would run; if it would merge with another drop and pick up speed. Sometimes on a car journey, the drop would get blown backwards, and sometimes upward; the unexpected drop of rain that appears to defy gravity. 

  • naim jun paik
  • olafur eliasson
  • naim jun paik

I was surprised that Naim Jun Paik’s show, also at Tate, shared so many visual similarities with Olafur Eliasson. Eliasson’s work seems so involved in both the environment, with nature and climate; and with the senses and sensory experiences. Paik threatened to be more anarchic and technological. But beyond clumsy looking robots, Paik delicately employed technology and audio visual equipment. Far from Fluxus associations and subversive tendencies, candles flicker in a split spectrum of light. Magnets on cathode ray tubes conjure up angelic apparitions on screen. 

  • naim jun paik
  • olafur eliasson

Also in this vein, Takis has taken metal, magnets and clunky decommissioned machinery, then made them dance and hover as if gravity doesn’t belong in their worlds. Old mercury arc rectifiers emit blue light and produce an ethereal glow. Reportedly, Takis used these to make viewers aware of the energy fields surrounding them; these glowing blue valves use magnetism to convert alternating electrical current (AC) into direct current (DC). Ethereal and beautiful, they solicit a very emotive response. 

“But the simpler pieces need no translation. They are (suitably enough, for an artist whose works often screen and rattle) a sort of visual equivalent of music. They do not mean anything. They are meaning. They reflect harmonious relationships between energy and space and mass. Taki’s work is like his subject: it hides in plain sight.”

takis

Simon Ings, Full of wonders: Takis at Tate Modern Reviewed, Spectator Magazine 

more than meets the eye

“Visual experience is dynamic” 

I have been reading about and researching vision and visual perception. I am interested in all aspects of vision science, from ophthalmology and optometry to neurology and psychology. I hope to understand more about the many ways vision is processed and how visual perception works. 

visual acuity refers to how clearly a person sees but visual perception is how we interpret the surrounding environment. there is much more to vision than images, colours and shapes or distances between objects.  

perception is the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses. it is the organisation, identification and interpretation of sensory information in order to understand the presented information or environment. 

in this way, we also use perception to describe the way something is regarded, understood or interpreted. 

with visual perception we interpret the surrounding environment using light in the visible spectrum reflected by objects in the environment. rods are the photoreceptors found around the boundary of the retina, they are responsible for twilight vision, picking up low level light (scotopic vision). although fewer in number, cones dominate in the centre of the eye, picking up light and colour, they are responsible for high spatial acuity (photopic vision). 

as perception is not a simple translation of retinal stimuli people have long struggled to explain what visual processing does to create what we see. 

perceptual inductions are sometimes interpolations based on previously acquired knowledge. typically, they are often derived spontaneously during perception from a given configuration. they differ from logical inferences which are thought operations that add something to the given visual facts by interpreting them. 

perceptual forces are assumed real in both realms of existence. as physical and psychological. physicists describe forces as a push or pull on an object. they can be due to phenomena such as gravity, magnetism, or anything that might cause a mass to accelerate. in physics, a force is any interaction that, when un-opposed, will change the motion of an object. 

in ‘Art and Visual Perception’, Arnheim describes an interplay of directed tensions that are not added by the viewer but rather are as inherent as size, shape, location or colour. these tensions, because they have magnitude and force, are described as psychological “forces”. 

psychologically they exist in the experience of any person looking. as pulls, they meet conditions established by physicists for physical forces. (physically, molecular, gravitational forces are active too. for example  – in paper; holding microparticles together). artists create experiences with physical materials.

light rays emanating from the sun or other source, hit an object, are partially absorbed and partly reflected. some reach the lenses of eye and are projected onto its sensitive background, the retina. elementary organisation of visual shape, by small receptor organs is combined by means of ganglion cells. as electrochemical messages travel towards the brain, they are shaped at other stations until a pattern is completed at various levels of visual cortex. 

for any spatial relation between objects there is a ‘correct’ distance, established by the eye intuitively. artists are sensitive to this requirement when they arrange pictorial objects in a painting or elements in a sculpture.

within this is an equilibrium or balance, two forces of equal strength pull against each other. we exert a stylistic, psychological or social preference so that all elements are distributed in such a way as to create a visual balance. although not everyone will agree with an individual’s preference, the eye nevertheless has an intuitive sense. 

“Vision typically starts when certain electromagnetic waves strike a light-sensitive retina. The visual end product is something else – a perceptual awareness of the location and properties of objects in the environment.”

‘Perception’ edited by Robert Schwartz 

there are many conceptual and theoretical problems in the study of vision. there is no doubt that perceptual phenomena exist. we recognise objects essentially alike, as constellations, and group them together to dynamic effect. stroboscopic effects can change the perception of moving parts. with vision and perception there are metaphysical, epistemological and ontological questions. 

“What each of us sees is the reality we know”

‘The Frog Who Croaked Blue: Synesthesia and the Mixing of the Senses’, Jamie Ward

flammable ideas

small notes on flames

coloured flames produced by adding chemicals to a fire

Fiery ideas and youtube videos

Battery and steel wool fire.

Lighter fuel and washing up liquid bubbles under water – on hand?

Lighter fluid alight, split glass jar, side by side spiral

Boric acid, methanol, green flame

Methanol and lithium, red flame

Methanol, plastic water bottle, thrust, rocket

Tissue burn like tea bag experiment, flies.