Paul Auster

In order to
 do what you do, you need to walk. Walking is what brings the words to 
you, what allows you to hear the rhythms of the words as you write them 
in your head. One foot forward, and then the other foot forward, the 
double drumbeat of your heart. Two eyes, two ears, two arms, two legs, 
two feet. This, and then that. That, and then this. Writing begins in 
the body, it is the music of the body, and even if the words have 
meaning, can sometimes have meaning, the music of the words is where the
 meanings begin. You sit at your desk in order to write down the words, 
but in your head you are still walking, and what you hear is the rhythm 
of your heart, the beating of your heart.
Paul Auster, Winter Logboek

14.510 steps

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)

14.504 steps

First exercise for 238.979 steps

Or how about .......

Theaterplatz, Weimar

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.

14.494 steps

14.492 steps

Vom Gehen im Eis

"Ende November 1974 rief mich ein Freund aus Paris an und sagte mir, Lotte Eisner sei schwer krank und werde wahrscheinlich sterben, Ich sagte, das darf nicht sein, nicht zu diesem Zeitpunkt, der deutsche Film könne sie gerade jetzt noch nicht entbehren, wir dürften ihren Tod nicht zulassen. Ich nahm eine Jacke, einen Kompaß und einen Matchsack mit dem nötigsten. Meine Stiefel waren so fest und neu, daß ich vertrauen in sie hatte. Ich ging auf dem geradesten Weg nach paris, in dem sicheren Glauben, sie werde am Leben bleiben, wenn ich zu Fuß käme."

(Werner Herzog, Vom Gehen im Eis. München-Paris 23.11 bis 14.12 1974. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag 2009. Vorbemerkung)

Or maybe I began where I ended

I walked and remembered. I walked and forgot. I walked and remembered I forgot. I forgot to walk. I remembered to walk. I walked. I walked. I walked. I counted my steps. I uncounted my steps. I ended where I began.

Walking (inspiration)

These are my personal sources so far.
If you are looking for a more extensive bibliography, check out walkart.wordpress.be


Books/articles about/involving walking (theory)

* Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space
Beacon Press 1994
* Benjamin, Walter. The Arcades Project. Belknap Press 2002
* Careri, Francesco & Gili, Gustavo. Walkscapes: Walking as an Aesthetic Practice. 2001
* Fischer, Ralp. Walking artists. Über die Entdeckung des Gehens in de performativen Künsten. Transcript Verlag Bielefeld 2011.
* Kaprow, Allan. Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life
University of California Press 1996
* Klein, Erdmute ed. Walking. In de voetsporen van. Byblos Amsterdam 2001.
* Nicholson, Geoff. The Lost Art of Walking: The History, Science, and Literature of Pedestrianism. Riverhead Trade 2009
* Solnit, Rebecca. Wanderlust. A history of walking. Verso 2002.

Walking writers

Auster, Paul. The New York Trilogy: City of glass. Penguin USA 1990
Büscher, Wolfgang. Berlin-Moskau. Eine Reise zu Fuss. Rowohlt Hamburg 2005
Büscher, Wolfgang. Deutschland, eine Reise. Rowohlt Berlin 2005
Chatwin, Bruce. Songlines
Cole, Teju. Open city. 2012 Croydon
Herzog, Werner. Vom Gehen im Eis. 2009 Frankfurt am Main
Sebald, W.G. The rings of saturn. Vintage 2002.

Walking artists/collectives & artists interested in/working with "walking"

Alÿs, Francis
Beckett, Samuel
Benjamin, Walter
Brouwn, Stanley
Brown, Tricia
Calle, Sophie
Cardiff, Janet
Debord, Guy and the Situationist International
Fulton, Hamish
Gerling, Volker
Lone Twins
Long, Richard
Nauman, Bruce
Piller, Peter
Schoemakers, Jacqueline (artistic researcher: http://jacqueline-schoemaker.nl/)
The ministry of walking (www.ministryofwalking.ca)
Ulay & Abramovic

http://news.discovery.com/human/walking-circles.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17658-we-cant-help-walking-in-circles.html
http://walkart.wordpress.com/
http://www.tragewegen.be

Thank you, Allan Kaprow!

Today I'm 14.364 days old. I opened the frontdoor of my house and walked 14.364 steps.