after the walk
After the walk the hard work begins.
Seriously, I now have to go through what I filmed and recorded and start to come up with a shape for it. Except an idea crept up on me from nowhere.
It started yesterday morning with a post that will appear in its entirety on Matt's big M60 walk blog.
'Like any significant experience, or even just the passage of time - even only hours - the walk's sparked a lot of new creative whims and driven out a lot of the old.
So about half an hour ago I wanted to start on a short, unfinished, rubbish novel borrowing from Kurt Vonnegut. I also want to make a three-dimensional abstract comic using paint and jars. And a room, in which every book and object is created or modified by me and creates an impression of fictional people and events. And a film using just stills and frames flooded with single colours. And to cast a section of street, scatter twigs, stones and broken glass on it, paint it over in vivid impasto, and encourage weeds to grow in its corners. And probably the only idea I'll realise [...]
None of which has anything much to do with walking around the M60 in a day. Nor even much to do with anything I thought while on the walk. At best, and only tangentially, it illustrates one of my challenges in organising the walk. I'm easily distracted and find it hard to concentrate on a single task, frequently abandoning projects unfinished or not even begun.'
Which brings us to 'probably the only idea I'll realise', detailed later yesterday in tweets. I was walking on Pomona Island after work, and suddenly recognised that my ambitious idea might form a useful framework to create my artwork around. I can be dreadfully slow sometimes.
Those tweets (with added links):
I think I have an outline for the art I'm planning to make from my recordings on the walk...
...I'll walk the route once more, in reverse, in two sections across different days and get more audio & video...
...for now, pending a title, I'm calling it 'Possession Project'. It will draw from a number of influences...
...the Possession Project influences include Jeanette Winterson's The Daylight Gate, The Fall's Hex Enduction Hour...
...the film Häxan, Marianne Faithfull's album Broken English, and Derek Jarman among others...
...I want Possession Project to be fragile, vulnerable, possessed. A small amount of supplementary material will be used...
...material recorded outside the walks, but used to help glue the piece together. I've already done some recording & note taking.
Should've credited Häxan to Benjamin Christensen, but he takes up a lot of characters. And it's done now.
Obviously (and unusually for me) this is likely to take some time. I'll have to plan and expend some actual effort. Which given that I've committed myself to this Porthmadog to Skegness walk in five weeks time isn't going to be easy. Especially as it includes a two further walks to retrace the circuit in reverse.
But that's where I'm at. That and arriving in work late today because I had a bright idea to write a blogpost...
Photos all from yesterday's Pomona Island walk.
Seriously, I now have to go through what I filmed and recorded and start to come up with a shape for it. Except an idea crept up on me from nowhere.
It started yesterday morning with a post that will appear in its entirety on Matt's big M60 walk blog.
'Like any significant experience, or even just the passage of time - even only hours - the walk's sparked a lot of new creative whims and driven out a lot of the old.
So about half an hour ago I wanted to start on a short, unfinished, rubbish novel borrowing from Kurt Vonnegut. I also want to make a three-dimensional abstract comic using paint and jars. And a room, in which every book and object is created or modified by me and creates an impression of fictional people and events. And a film using just stills and frames flooded with single colours. And to cast a section of street, scatter twigs, stones and broken glass on it, paint it over in vivid impasto, and encourage weeds to grow in its corners. And probably the only idea I'll realise [...]
None of which has anything much to do with walking around the M60 in a day. Nor even much to do with anything I thought while on the walk. At best, and only tangentially, it illustrates one of my challenges in organising the walk. I'm easily distracted and find it hard to concentrate on a single task, frequently abandoning projects unfinished or not even begun.'
Which brings us to 'probably the only idea I'll realise', detailed later yesterday in tweets. I was walking on Pomona Island after work, and suddenly recognised that my ambitious idea might form a useful framework to create my artwork around. I can be dreadfully slow sometimes.
Those tweets (with added links):
I think I have an outline for the art I'm planning to make from my recordings on the walk...
...I'll walk the route once more, in reverse, in two sections across different days and get more audio & video...
...for now, pending a title, I'm calling it 'Possession Project'. It will draw from a number of influences...
...the Possession Project influences include Jeanette Winterson's The Daylight Gate, The Fall's Hex Enduction Hour...
...the film Häxan, Marianne Faithfull's album Broken English, and Derek Jarman among others...
...I want Possession Project to be fragile, vulnerable, possessed. A small amount of supplementary material will be used...
...material recorded outside the walks, but used to help glue the piece together. I've already done some recording & note taking.
Should've credited Häxan to Benjamin Christensen, but he takes up a lot of characters. And it's done now.
Obviously (and unusually for me) this is likely to take some time. I'll have to plan and expend some actual effort. Which given that I've committed myself to this Porthmadog to Skegness walk in five weeks time isn't going to be easy. Especially as it includes a two further walks to retrace the circuit in reverse.
But that's where I'm at. That and arriving in work late today because I had a bright idea to write a blogpost...
Photos all from yesterday's Pomona Island walk.
Comments