W.A.L.K

by Rocca Gutteridge, 31 Jul 2011

There be a lot of talking on walking at the moment.

Last Thursday’s symposium at the Gallery of Modern Art- “Critical Dialogues on Walking, Art, Lanskip and Knowledge” was a fantastic contribution.

Organised by Suderland University Research Initiative W.A.L.K, Critical Dialogues took a meander, a romp and sometimes a march to exploring the many facets and fantastic aspects of walking… and there were many more clever walking puns throughout the day.

Artist Tim Brennan
web link
chaired the event and was able to generate some honest reflections on a focused but vast ranging topic.

Three presentations in total- up first:

Enduring Gravity: Footnotes on walking, duration and distance.
Dr Misha Myers

• Myers gives us personal steps and academic lengths on the elusive subject of walking

Footnotes:

• “Rock Tours of Great Britain” He Yunchang

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• Exploring the aesthetic of slow mobility

• The Image depicts a series of oil paintings of his journey- I enjoy the contradiction of the slowness yet constantly moving quality of the medium of oil paints.
  It’s a surprising way to document a modern journey

Footnote “Spacemen on holiday”

Myers students adorn space outfits and walk, as though on the moon. Through Falmouth. The effort of this, the resistance to doing it.

Footnote “Helston Furry Dance”

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• A four mile dance in Cornwall. One of the oldest British customs still taking place today. A celebration of the passing of Winter and the arrival of Spring.
  Dancers proceed through houses, nothing gets in the way of their route.

Footnote Tim Brennan- Codex: Crusade (2004)

• Retracing the itinerary of the 1936 Jarrow March when in 1936, mass unemployment and extreme poverty in the north-east of England drove 200 men to march in protest from Jarrow to London.

• Made me think of artists re-enactment- Jeremy Deller, Battle of Orgreave and the many of Rod Dickinson

“Re-enactment seems, as a form of representation, strangely well equipped to address moments of collective trauma and anxiety. Almost as if, taking a Debordian turn, that the re-enactment operates as the uncanny of the spectacle. A live image, in real space and real time, but simultaneously displaced.” Rod Dicinson from this article- Once More With Feeling: Reenactment in Contemporary Art and Culture by Robert Blackson (Art Journal, Spring 2007)

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• Thoughts from me of walking, collective action, retracing the anxiety of processions, marches, protests. Re-tracing why they worked, why they didn’t.

• Myer notes the significance of Brennan’s archive of blisters he suffered whilst retracing the 283 mile route. A reminder, a way to record time, record pain.

• There’s something about walking and physical experience here- I think about my walk along the English Scottish border next weekend from Upsettlington to Hungry Law to raise awareness of the highly problematic Tier 5 Visa policy. Do I need to even do it? Is the statement more in the idea? No I include, because it’s experiential and the thoughts you gather along the way are crucial as is the legitimacy of the action.

• I also think of my Dad’s house right by Hadrians’ Wall and the stories walks along this wall must hold.

• An image now of the “Spirit of Jarrow” outside Morrisons by Graham Ibbeson (2001)

• Awkward giggles of this ‘terrible artwork’. I stick up for it, arguing and questioning the relevance of monuments today in such a transitory world. “Maybe it’s educational, maybe it will serve a task” I’m not sure if I’m just playing devil’s advocate.

We discover the monument is commissioned by Mr Morrison who was involved in the crusade, because of this the audience seem to give it a higher level of respect.

Brennan argues the route (from Jarrow to London) is the monument. I like this.

The ongoing and rambling journey of the fugitive
This phrase pops up, I cant remember who from.

Footnote “The Anti Vietnam War Demonstrations by Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh”

Nhat Hanh already features in my project WalkingAnd… web link

as someone who teaches the art of walking meditation. Nhat Hanh and other courageous monks went to great lengths to implement the importance of Buddhist teachings in response to the brutal, violent, devastating killings of Vietnam.

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Other Footnotes Walking an paralysis, Werner Herzog’s walk from Munich to Paris in an attempt to save his own life, ArtAngel project 1395 days without Red “weblin”: http://www.artangel.org.uk/collection/whitworth2011

Second presentation- Artist, Alec Finlay

I’m present this in wandering thoughts I jotted down.

• Are paths, views?

• “You can’t make art about mountains if you haven’t climbed any” a man tells Alec. He strongly disagrees

You can- The importance and function of the imagination- the walk beyond the walk.

The preference of walking around mountains, not over them.

In many cultures mountains were to be viewed and not climbed

Alec’s Grandfather, also shared this preference.

• The Japanese discovered Zen in Skye, Scotland.

• Daily walks (to the bus stop, to school)
  Family walks, walks we take together.

• I like this Ian Hamilton Finlay (Alec’s father) piece fragile. You stumble across it, Fragility of us, of the garden, of words

• The walks around little Sparta

• Is a walk that doesn’t return a migration?

• “Can we walk imaginatively? We have to.” Alec Finlay.

• The Japanese term Ginko roughly translates as- walking to be composing poetry.

• Alec presents his project, “The Road North”

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A world map of Scotland composed by himself and Alec Finlay as they travel through their homeland, guided by the Japanese poet, Basho, whose Oku-no-Hosomichi (Narrow road to the Deep North) is one of the masterpieces of travel literature.

I pose a disruption I have with the project- romanticism. Why it’s a problem I had to admit I wasn’t sure but it just felt too… staged, inward, self-indulgent… those words are too strong and I’m still not sure where the problem comes from. Any help appreciated!

Final presentation- Matthew Beaumont. “Beginning with the big toe”

Beaumont offers a playful, imaginative, curious and unique look at the world through or big toe.

• The toe is the most repressed part of the body.

• It’s also the key to walking. It comes into play as the conscious and unconscious part of walking.

• L’Age D’or – the big toe and love and sex.
  Sucking the big toe of a statue

• Big toes are used to spring and leap

• The time keeping of the tapping of the toe. He metrical toe.

• The world’s first prosthetic- the Cairo Toe 1069 – 664 BC

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• A final elastic part of the body

• Man on Wire- the ultimate walking? Conscious walking.

• Charles Darwin’s gout on his big toe “weblink”: http://rheumination.typepad.com/rheumination/2009/02/darwins-big-toe.html

• Our big toe evolutionised so that we could walk.

• The doma people of Zimbabwae

• Understanding the human through walking by turning the anatomy upside down- so life starts with the big toe.

• Life ends and begins with the toe- bite the toe to see if a person’s dead. Croque Mort