14.494 steps

14.492 steps

passing a landscape

"... everyting is made up of fleeting glances, to be kept close at hand for a journey that sometimes gets rough."

Tonino Guerra in "Instant Light. Tarkovsky Polaroids" p. 7

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.

out of control

The lightness of life; the things inbetween; the seemingly unimportant happenings; the beautiful absurdity; the poetry of the moment. These are things I’ve been struggling to catch in my work ever since I started making art .
As an artist I’m using a lot of different media. I like to work site specific. I usually build installations, using carloads of tv’s, materials you would never have thought of, performers, text, garbage, you name it. I’m fighting, thinking, cursing, running, sweating, building, destroying. I’m filming, writing, drawing, talking. And sometimes I push a small red button. I push the button of my sx-70 because I know I have to at that specific moment and out comes a tiny image. A small world. Complete in its size, its colour, its meaning. I push the button and I don’t want to do anything else for the rest of my life. The installations disappear. The struggle stops. This is it. There’s nothing to add, nothing to change. An instant artwork. The magic of light.
Now and then the polaroids do end up in an installation. Or in a performance. But usually they are what they are. On their own in their own world. Representing a portrait, a landscape, a thought. Sometimes a beautiful image, sometimes a conceptual work but always real in its mysteriousness. Because I only pushed a button and the rest just happened.

In this world with endless possibilities I’m delighted to be guided by a camera that makes it impossible for me to be in control. I’m spending more and more time to figure out what the possibilities of this beautiful medium are and how its limits broaden the horizon of my art practice.

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