'RIGOROUS THOUGHT'

Another book I obtained from the library was Walking in Relation To Everything by Hamish Fulton. I thought it would be a good form of torture seeing as that's the one thing we can't do right now. I reeeaallly don't like this book and I'm not a big fan of the outcomes either but the 'actions' of the works I can get behind, I just don't like the delivery.

My favourite from his oeuvre was a walk on The Pilgrims Way from Winchester to Canterbury - where Fulton lived at the time. He had two clear ideas; walking for several days on an existing legal public route and the experience of literally walking all the way home "up the road and in the front door".  Fulton repeated this walk a total of four times in 1971, 1991, 2008 and 2010. The third walk had an added purpose, to complete the walk with no sleep. Fulton designed the walk to take place at the rare time of a winter solstice full moon. On the third and last dawn the artist was "treated to magical hallucinations," not something he had anticipated. The local-ness of the walk was important to Fulton and upon further research, The Pilgrims way was superseded in 1978 by the North Downs Way - 131 miles from Farnham to Dover. I've obviously seen the big installation by the station which marks the distance of the walk but I'm struggling to find the actual starting point. I've downloaded the leaflet which also says nothing of the starting location but I've sourced the book North Downs Way, by Neil Curtis and Jim Walker which hopefully, once delivered, I can attempt part of the walk myself. Looking at the route, I could potentially walk to visit my friend who has returned to the country for isolation. The walk would take about 9 hours each way. This would have a clear resemblance of Abramoviç and the now late Uley's overly dramatic divorce ritual on the Great Wall of China.

The annotations of the book are chaotic and have no immediate correlation but now visualising myself doing one of these walks, even if only a small section, I can completely relate to the thought process. Having 'self isolated' for periods over the past few years (although then with a cocktail of drugs) I too kept weird notes that I'm sure make no sense to anyone else but complete sense to me, much like aforementioned in my previous post on Jackson Pollock. On the other hand, again drug induced but also sleep deprived and not socially isolated, the notes I come back with after a week at a festival have a similar cryptic clarity to them.

Door Road followed the first Pilgrims Way. In this walk Fulton started to experience synchronicities, as he started his walk every morning at 7:40am he saw the same red car approaching. Similarly, in my isolation, I have noticed a robin perching at the same point in the garden every morning around 10am.  Fulton expands on why this is worth noting,

"This kind of situation laws to my phrase - 'is it yesterday, today or tomorrow?' These walks with a more dominant physical aspect are a way of blending: mind with body with land. Experiences in the alteration of body chemistry, distinguishing dehydration from the emotion of irritation. CHANGE PERCEPTIONS - NOT THE LANDSCAPE. THE LANDSCAPE AS LOCATION - NOT RAW MATERIALS... I am not a conceptual artist - I TRANSFORM IDEAS INTO EXPERIENCED REALITIES." 

Dehydration is an issue I overlooked - I will definitely not be walking for more than one day as carrying that amount of water is frankly impossible.

Fulton's work is repetitious, free and results in little physical stuff. All three of these things are extremely appealing to me at this stage in my life and point in cultural upheaval.

"Simple in means - Rich in ends."

-Arne Næss, philospher, mountaineer, deep ecologist.

The foreword of the book Fulton discussed how he related more to mountain climbers than artists and I'm now starting to understand that point. It's also making me think if I was to repeat walks, who could I walk with or walk to? And would there be any restrictions if we were to walk together ie no talking? People I'm thinking of right now: Livi, Ellen, Avery. I thought of Ellen as her current practice references climbing mountains and is very intriguing. Before the workshops closed, I developed some old rolls of film and the images that survived were mostly of Livi. I think that Livi is a great person to walk to because both of her English locations are on the Pilgrim Way route and it could become a much more expansive project when quarantine is lifted as she frequently travels the globe. Another main hinderance to our friendship is the cost of travelling to each other so walking the entire distance would eliminate that.

Everest by Ellen Ball

Darkroom attempts by me of Livi Anning and co.

Surrounded by the memories of six walks. This piece was conceptually kinda insanely cool. Fulton did five coast to coast walks and then the sixth walk started at a coast and ended in the centre of Spain on higher ground. He was 

"Surrounded by the memories of all 
six walks, spanning 16 years. 

IT'S NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE, 
IT'S WHAT IT'S ABOUT."

The sense of hindsight and monumental conclusion to this piece is perhaps my favourite. So much has happened and he reflected on it all yet there is no way he could communicate all of that so he didn't? All that's left is a kind of map that you could follow but probably wouldn't because even though you know you'd experience more than you ever had from a piece of work, he's already done it and came back with nothing of value so why would you bother?

Kora: Tibetan for the devotional practice of walking clockwise around a holy place.

Miscellaneous Quotation Notaions: