13.6.12
12.6.12
round and round
I thought about my plan to walk 238.979 steps in a circle. The more I think about it, the more I get the feeling I should walk my circles on Theaterplatz (instead of walking in the Goethe park where I will leave visual traces because I will wear down a circle in the earth). There are a number of reasons for this change of plan. The overall reason is that it will become multi-layered. Encompassing more than just a number and a circle.
Some thoughts:
1. Theaterplatz is where all the tourists walk up and down, repeating what every tourist does in every city, gather around the main square, take photos and say "ah" and "oh" and "look at that". I will do the opposite of what they do.
2. There is something even more obsessive in walking without leaving traces. In fact I do leave traces, I do wear out minuscule bits of the pavement (think about old church steps where people walked up and down for centuries and how the steps get hollowed out, everybody took part in that, everybody did in fact leave a visual trace but this only became visible after thousands and thousands of people did the same thing, made the same movements). And why would I want to leave visual traces? The action is about me walking, about me making 238.979 steps, not about the proof I leave of it (like there is no real proof of many things that happened in history, in a way there is nothing left of the 238.979 people that stayed in Buchenwald)
3. The statues of Schiller and Goethe are in the middle of Theaterplatz. If I walk my 6.300 circles, I will walk around them 6.300 times. It could almost be seen as a sort of pilgrimage: it reminds me of muslims walking around the Kabaa. Although they walk around it "only" seven times, it takes a long time to prepare for the Hadj pilgrimage and when once a year 6 million pilgrims gather to all walk these seven circles, it isn't an easy task. (I'm currently reading Ilja Trojanow's "Pilgrimage to Mekka". The German writer isn't a muslim but prepares for a year for the Hadj and writes about this process in his book.) But it won't be a pilgrimage. Or if it is, it won't be about honouring those two great man. Will it be about encircling their heritage with my interpretation of the current world? (I'll think about this). I will be more like a fly, circling around their heads. Seemingly unimportant.
4. Goethe was quite a walker himself. I don't know about Schiller. Maybe I should look into Goethe's walking. Last week I was in Stützerbach where Goethe liked to walk when he was in Ilmenau.
Questions:
a. Does the number 238.979 still makes sense? I think it does althought sometimes I'm wondering about it.
b. Do I need a preparation like pilgrims do? Is it enough to walk my "exercise walks" (at least once a week I walk the number of days I'm old on that day and take a photo of the place I end up after having walked fourteen thousand and something steps)?
If you want to take a look at all my posts concerning this project (including some maps of my exercise walks), click on the label "walking" (in the column on the right at the bottom)
Some thoughts:
1. Theaterplatz is where all the tourists walk up and down, repeating what every tourist does in every city, gather around the main square, take photos and say "ah" and "oh" and "look at that". I will do the opposite of what they do.
2. There is something even more obsessive in walking without leaving traces. In fact I do leave traces, I do wear out minuscule bits of the pavement (think about old church steps where people walked up and down for centuries and how the steps get hollowed out, everybody took part in that, everybody did in fact leave a visual trace but this only became visible after thousands and thousands of people did the same thing, made the same movements). And why would I want to leave visual traces? The action is about me walking, about me making 238.979 steps, not about the proof I leave of it (like there is no real proof of many things that happened in history, in a way there is nothing left of the 238.979 people that stayed in Buchenwald)
3. The statues of Schiller and Goethe are in the middle of Theaterplatz. If I walk my 6.300 circles, I will walk around them 6.300 times. It could almost be seen as a sort of pilgrimage: it reminds me of muslims walking around the Kabaa. Although they walk around it "only" seven times, it takes a long time to prepare for the Hadj pilgrimage and when once a year 6 million pilgrims gather to all walk these seven circles, it isn't an easy task. (I'm currently reading Ilja Trojanow's "Pilgrimage to Mekka". The German writer isn't a muslim but prepares for a year for the Hadj and writes about this process in his book.) But it won't be a pilgrimage. Or if it is, it won't be about honouring those two great man. Will it be about encircling their heritage with my interpretation of the current world? (I'll think about this). I will be more like a fly, circling around their heads. Seemingly unimportant.
4. Goethe was quite a walker himself. I don't know about Schiller. Maybe I should look into Goethe's walking. Last week I was in Stützerbach where Goethe liked to walk when he was in Ilmenau.
Questions:
a. Does the number 238.979 still makes sense? I think it does althought sometimes I'm wondering about it.
b. Do I need a preparation like pilgrims do? Is it enough to walk my "exercise walks" (at least once a week I walk the number of days I'm old on that day and take a photo of the place I end up after having walked fourteen thousand and something steps)?
If you want to take a look at all my posts concerning this project (including some maps of my exercise walks), click on the label "walking" (in the column on the right at the bottom)
11.6.12
A week in a day
Imagine a week being like a day. Stretching everything you normally do so it lasts 7 times as long. Reordering everything so the week will become like a new day, a 168 hour lasting day incorporating everything you do in a week but doing everything only once when you do it once in a day. Having breakfast for 140 minutes instead of 20. Brushing your teeth twice for 35 minutes instead of 5. Sleeping for 49 hours and taking a 3,5 hour nap. How would you order your week when this would be how it is supposed to be? How would I order my week? When would I sleep my 49 hours? When would I have my 280 minute diner? How would I experience washing my hands for 14 minutes on end? Showering 7 times as long as I normally would? How would I experience this weekday? I’ll make a schedule. And I will plan a day. A week. A weekday.
6.6.12
5.6.12
Walking straight into circles*
I’m not telling you a new thing when I say that everything repeats itself. We ourselves are masters of repetition, striving for perfection, reaching our goals by never reaching our goal. Turning the past into the future and the future into the past. Stepping into other peoples’ steps as soon as we have learned to walk.
The idea is simple. I will walk 238.979 steps in a circle. I will walk the same circle again and again. The walking will wear out a circle in the earth. The diameter of the circle will be about 10 meter. This means I will walk about 6.300 circles and just over 190 km.
Possible locations:
Park-an-der-Ilm (my first choice if I get permission!)
Kirschbachtal
my own tiny garden
About the number of steps:
Between 1937 and 1945 about 238.979 people from more than 50 countries were deported to the concentrationcamp Buchenwald just outside Weimar and stayed for a longer or shorter period in the camp where a lot of them died.
About the circle:
“The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end. It is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world.”
(Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays. Circles.)
A circle is a perfect shape, otherwise it isn’t a circle. Could I ever walk a perfect circle? Of course I couldn’t, not even if I would try 6.356 times. And although I will walk the same path again end again, always ending where I began until there is no beginning and no end, I will never step exactly on a step I made earlier. I will repeat and fail, and succeed in my failure. A useless act, leaving visual traces only for the time being, but remaining in peoples memories for the rest of their lives.
About my training:
In the period leading up to the “big circular walk” I make walks with the same number of steps as the days I am old on that particular day. For example: May 26 I was exactly 14.492 days old. I walked that number of steps, starting from the front door of my house in Weimar. I took a photo of the exact location I found myself in after 14.492 steps.
* A scientific article with the title "Walking straight into circles" was published in 2009, researchers Jan L. Souman, Ilja Frissen, Manish N. Sreenivasa and Marc O. Ernst describe how and research why people who get lost in unfamiliar terrain often end up walking in circles.
The idea is simple. I will walk 238.979 steps in a circle. I will walk the same circle again and again. The walking will wear out a circle in the earth. The diameter of the circle will be about 10 meter. This means I will walk about 6.300 circles and just over 190 km.
Possible locations:
Park-an-der-Ilm (my first choice if I get permission!)
Kirschbachtal
my own tiny garden
About the number of steps:
Between 1937 and 1945 about 238.979 people from more than 50 countries were deported to the concentrationcamp Buchenwald just outside Weimar and stayed for a longer or shorter period in the camp where a lot of them died.
About the circle:
“The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end. It is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world.”
(Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays. Circles.)
A circle is a perfect shape, otherwise it isn’t a circle. Could I ever walk a perfect circle? Of course I couldn’t, not even if I would try 6.356 times. And although I will walk the same path again end again, always ending where I began until there is no beginning and no end, I will never step exactly on a step I made earlier. I will repeat and fail, and succeed in my failure. A useless act, leaving visual traces only for the time being, but remaining in peoples memories for the rest of their lives.
About my training:
In the period leading up to the “big circular walk” I make walks with the same number of steps as the days I am old on that particular day. For example: May 26 I was exactly 14.492 days old. I walked that number of steps, starting from the front door of my house in Weimar. I took a photo of the exact location I found myself in after 14.492 steps.
* A scientific article with the title "Walking straight into circles" was published in 2009, researchers Jan L. Souman, Ilja Frissen, Manish N. Sreenivasa and Marc O. Ernst describe how and research why people who get lost in unfamiliar terrain often end up walking in circles.
4.6.12
longevity
"Ik geloof dat kunst langer en langer moet duren, als het leven korter en korter wordt"
"I believe that art should last longer and longer, when life is getting shorter and shorter"
Marina Abramovic in an interview in the Dutch "VPRO Gids"
"I believe that art should last longer and longer, when life is getting shorter and shorter"
Marina Abramovic in an interview in the Dutch "VPRO Gids"
2.6.12
moving words
There's something stuck in the back of my head. I read it a few days ago and now, whenever I read something or when I'm walking, this line jumps up and down in my head. Being itself proof of what it meant to say. I'll translate it, since it was written in Dutch by the poet Tonnus Oosterhoff who recently won one of the, if not the biggest awards for poetry in Holland: the P.C. Hooft Award. He was one of the first poets in Holland who started using the possibilities of the new media and made "moving poems" in Flash. You can see some examples on his website here.
This is what he wrote in his speech when he received the award:
" I'm known in this country because of my 'moving poems', but poems on paper move just as well"
in Dutch:
" Ik ben hier te lande bekend vanwege mijn 'bewegende gedichten', maar gedichten op papier bewegen net zo goed."
He means it in the literal sense of the word "moving" (although this doesn't exclude the figurative meaning of "moving").
It makes me think of the opposite as well. How things stand still while moving. Me for example.
This is what he wrote in his speech when he received the award:
" I'm known in this country because of my 'moving poems', but poems on paper move just as well"
in Dutch:
" Ik ben hier te lande bekend vanwege mijn 'bewegende gedichten', maar gedichten op papier bewegen net zo goed."
He means it in the literal sense of the word "moving" (although this doesn't exclude the figurative meaning of "moving").
It makes me think of the opposite as well. How things stand still while moving. Me for example.
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