Walked works

Background: Critical attention to mobilities makes the social sciences different, according to the sociologist John Urry (2007). 'Walked Works' was a commissioned performance contribution to an international symposium exploring the role of performance as a means of asserting, constructing, negotiating and making sense of a range of mobile identities, including those relating to migration, tourism, international labour markets, art-making and spectating. This audio-visual installation and performance work took the form of a performance lecture to reiteratively bring together walking art projects of the author into a live immersive encounter with speech, screened image and sound. The work is situated amongst a line of contemporary art enquiries from the 1970's onwards concerned with walking as a mode of art practice, experiential event, and embodied aesthetic experience in relation to land and ecology, that has emerged from the UK from artists such as Richard Long and Hamish Fulton, now the Walking Artists Network (www.walkingartistsnetwork.org). Contribution: The work builds a hybrid connection between practice research modes of 'walking art', 'site-specific performance installation', 'live art' and 'performance lecture' to performatively transmit walking art research that is commonly only to accessible to audiences through static forms of representation. The development of the performance lecture as communicative methodology demonstrated the capacity of performative modes of engagement to surpass the limits of representation and provide audiences with immersive engaging experiences that produce affects. Significance: Being invited to develop and present 'Walked Works' brought Douglas' walking art practice into a high profile engagement with the UK tradition of walking art and its artists and scholars. (continued on coversheet - att in Documents)