Talk today by Hamish Fulton. I had no expectations or real knowledge of his work beforehand, but that he is known as a ' walking artist ' - therefore intrigued to learn more and hoping he might explain what his process is and what walking art entails.
In truth I still don't understand his practice. He presented works that he has done or orchestrated but didn't make clear his reasoning behind them; I wanted to know what elements of a walk he is likely to pick up on and translate to his gallery work, is it the thoughts that are evoked within him as he walks, or the sounds, or something in the physical exertion of the activity...
An element I was surprised by was the political reference, support of Ai Wei Wei, Chinese economy etc. I hadn't considered walking a politcal business but more about nature and perhaps solitude. I suppose Fulton's art is as much to do with the people and societies he encounters travelling, as the ground he treads on and environment through which he navigates.
I wrote down in my notebook " Pavement - A walking surface " (not the dictionary's choice of definition) ...this was one of those (lovely) moments where someone says something really obvious that makes me re-evaluate it: the purpose of pavements is for people to travel on them, to make journeys. I guess this sparked my imagination because of how I always wonder where people are going when I see them walking, what is their mission, why are they there... I guess pavement's also have some strange authority as well, that I've never considered before, they dictate where we go, they lead us away from certain encounters and draw us into others, they change the route of our lives effectively.
I still want to ask my question: how much, if any, consideration do you give to the public walks being a performance? Does performance art have any links at all with the works? And if not, why are we being asked to wear black clothes.. it will not affect the participants, so it must be an aesthetic decision and anticipating some form of audience. I will probably never know the answer to this. We shall see.
Having looked his work up online again, I feel I know both a little more and a little less. I was pleased to find the first photo because it makes sense to me - the use of the photograph as a background and poetic language evoking the atmosphere of the walk perhaps, conveying some elements of being amongst nature. The second work however, is so at odds with this - the text sterile, more scientific than poetic and has nothing aesthetically that would bring to mind the environment that Fulton was experiencing. I just don't know what these works are aiming to do.
This article, http://digitalnomad.nationalgeographic.com/2011/07/25/hamish-the-hirshhorn/, had some thought provoking points, in particular the observed resemblance between his work and twitter, both being "a short message and image describing a prolonged experience, sent out to the world for reflection and consideration". Fulton seemed very against modern technology so I find this a bemusing comparison.
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