In this exposition we want to share one of these lines of performative 'Non-local walks'. 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.
The following series of transformations embark from the score below (pdf), serving as a protocol to perform actions from. As the score suggest, the post processing of the non-local walk is left open tin order to experiment with possible further assembles, configurations and constellations of the work.
The maps above show the routes of our walks across four different cities: Sao Paulo, Basel, Copenhagen and Mlamö.
Objects [slideshow, right] collected along the non-local walks, shown here "in-situ". The photos where taken when found, before picking up, in order to track the timings of the found objects across cities.
During physical gatherings in our study group, we would bring together the findings from our walks. When assembling the objects, different constellations where investigated. As below (slide 1) where the ojects are placed in grids according to the order in which they where found, and (slide 2) placed according to the time in which they where found, creating different relations between the objects.
As a further reconfiguration of the objects, they were assembled in mobiles as to create non-linear formations, both moveable and moving, un-settling the resonances from their different locations.
A mix of non-local materials, bearing witness of both human and non-human traces, origins and histories, that resonates of yet a different dynamic. Here it should be noted, that the Danish word for mobile is "uro", meaning un-quiet, un-settled. Still, balancing, floating, dancing together - in quietly dissonating polyphonies.
As part of our investigations of the objects, both in their individual state and across the various ensembles, we experimented with the signs and symbols that the objects communicated in, in order to assemble a collection of words, all somehow stemming from the objects. The approach was to not ponder nor contemplate to lenghty with each object, but to (re)visit them, a little in the spirit of the walks, in more immediate encounters. 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 words, 40 consecutive cycles of breath).
