Departing from the concept of non-locality we have been investigating how to establish new ways to entangle our practices and collaborate across urban spaces transnationally – to produce works together, at the same time, while not in the same place – reducing physical displacement.
'Non-local walks' is thus a collaborative method based on walking simultaneously in the different cities we inhabit by following a score composed by the group. For each (scored) experiment, we depart at the same moment and walk for an agreed amount of time, experimenting with different modes of moving, reading, listening, seeing, sensing, sounding and thinking through these urban spaces. While digitally mapping our routes and paces, we physically perform defined tasks in order to later assemble, analyse and experiment with our findings in further configurations. The performed tasks can include photographing, reading, writing, recording sounds, collecting objects, drawing shadows, etc.
Sharing here a line of performative 'Non-local walks' where the following series of transformations embark from the scores below (pdf), serving as protocols to perform actions from. As the scores often suggest, the post processing of the non-local walks are left open in order to experiment with further possible assembles, configurations and constellations of the work.
Assembling mobiles as a further configuration of the objects in spatial, non-linear formations. Transposing the objects into a reciprocal, interrelational dynamics, resonant of both human and more-than-human traces, origins and histories. Here it should be noted, that the Danish word for mobile is "uro", meaning un-quiet, un-settled.
As part of our investigations of the objects, both in their individual state and across the various ensembles, we explored the signs and symbols communicated by (and associated with) the objects, in order to assemble a collection of words, all somehow resonating from them. The approach: to not contemplate to lenghty with each object, but (re)visit them in more immediate encounters, in the spirit of the non-local walks. The actions were performed as such: For each object we breathed in simultaneously, and during the outbreath, we instantaneously wrote down words relating to our immediate associations. We wrote these associations in the same thread on a shared chat, in order to track the timings of the words, creating lines of their own (40 objects, 40 consecutive cycles of breath, a resonant myriad of words).
Touching the tactile surfaces of the city with graphite and charcoal pencils. Various kinds, qualities and sizes of paper are laid upon the surfaces, as a careful veiling to be drawn upon. The practice points to a tactile imaging that does not reveal photo-perfect vision, but gives but an imprint of the shades, curves, contours and other nuances of surfaces that were visited along the walk.
In a series of reading practices we attempt to bring the writings of various voices along on our walking. Reading while walking, working on the balances between an omni-present awareness of the city in its continuous dynamics: traffic, people, animals, vehicles, objects. Reading while keeping other senses open, less depending on sight. As such, this reading practice calls for a perceptive and proprioceptive awareness, potentially awakening the text in alternative (more-than-intelligeble) ways.
... in its calling, yearning, desiring, despairing. Listening with the city is a listening practice situative of manifold nuances, resonances and dissonances. Performed together with others, non-locally, the listening practice engages listeners to be wakefully present where ever they are, while at the same time bringing awareness beyond one's local situatedness, toward one's collaborators in other urban spaces.
