As a bridge between Week 2: Walking & Mapping and Week 3: Scores & Instructions, we went on a "scored walk" yesterday around the NW campus. Working in small groups with at least one camera to share, we walked with our eyes trained on the ground.
It was incredible to see not only how much there was to see when looking down, but how our noticing evolved over the 20 minutes of walking. At first it was easy to only see the obvious things -- shiny pieces of trash, big swathes of paint -- but then smaller details and patterns began to emerge. The textures and colours of the asphalt, dark smudges against the lower sections of wall, lost coins and solo almonds, the circle of sneakers around a point or object.
As much as I was keeping my own eyes down on the ground, I was also looking up to see students looking down. It was a delightful sight: groups of teens wandering with their heads down, pairs hunched over clumps of weeds to seek bugs and flowers, cameras passing back and forth, peels of laughter as someone finds something weird or gross or funny and shares it with others.
It continues to amaze me how simple instructions can yield significant results, materially and processually, and just how much looking has to offer.
2 comments:
I found the "Walking and Mapping" video of the man pushing an ice block through Mexico City very interesting. It is a very abstract idea and some may not consider it art, but to me the bottom line is that it is all about creativity. If the "artist" believes that what they are doing is art, and wishes to document it in such a way, then it is art.
i agree with Aiden the man was doing something he believed in so he so be given attention because that probably took a lot of work to achieve
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