How to Take a Directionless Walk (2018)

performed in Salem, OR

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A reference to Guy Debord's Theory of Dérive (1956) -- an unplanned passage through a landscape, typically an urban space, in which the participant(s) try to release their everyday relations to the landscape and ”let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there.” I created a system to record a dérive, resulting in a map-like paper form that invites replication of my route, with reasonable confusion (where to start, how fast to walk, which end of the 'map' to start with etc.) The map simultaneously records and abstracts an individual experience of reality. If someone were to use this map to take a walk, they would likely have an entirely different experience of the real world than that of the initial record. To easily communicate an idea, we must have an agreed set of definitions. But how can we be sure of that agreement, when there's so much nuance in language and communication? This map intentionally communicates abstraction to provide many different perceptions and interpretations of one simple set of directions. The installation invites interaction and can be folded, moved, paper-clipped together however one wishes to explore it.