The New Walking, as I call it, is one of the
themes I will be exploring in Gathering.
New it isn’t: Nan Shepherd was proposing proprioceptive – awareness of the body in space, its parts, and their relation to a location – ways of perceiving the landscape in The Living Mountain, written in the 1940’s. Shepherd sees the mountainscape prone, lying down, or topsy-turvy, looking out between the V-frame of her legs – a point-of-view taken up by Alice Ladenburg in her handstands project.
New it isn’t: Nan Shepherd was proposing proprioceptive – awareness of the body in space, its parts, and their relation to a location – ways of perceiving the landscape in The Living Mountain, written in the 1940’s. Shepherd sees the mountainscape prone, lying down, or topsy-turvy, looking out between the V-frame of her legs – a point-of-view taken up by Alice Ladenburg in her handstands project.
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‘For the fleeting seconds of a handstand a
different sort of world exists … Thoughts don't exist as processes, just
sensations … The ground and the sky and whatever might be in between are seen
without thought.
As the balance fails, awareness is drawn in. Falling
back to the feet, the world spins round and resumes as usual. The
down-side-up.’ (Alice Ladenburg)
The New Walking isn’t walking
either, in the conventional sense of striding ahead, and satisfying Naismith’s
Rule. The practices that have been introduced, or revived, include as much
looking and stepping slowly as walking at standard pace. Deirdre Heddon and
Misha Myers Walking Library,
Lydia Ashman, Ania Bas & Simone Mair's The Walking Reading Group,
Hamish Fulton’s slow walks, and the place-aware walks and conspectus that I have presented on
the Isle of Skye and in Galloway
are a few examples of this movement.
This post is a
collaboration with Alison Lloyd, self-styled ‘walking artist’. Alison and I
first worked together on the Isle of Skye,
where she and Luke Allan walked to Rubha an Dùnain, a location my legs couldn’t
reach – walking for is another aspect
of the New Walking. Alison then led a guided walk as part of a series of field
events commissioned by Atlas. In 2014 she led a silent walk as part of a series
of commemorative walks I conceived for the centenary of the outbreak of the
First World War.
The sentences below were composed after conversations
and observations drawing upon Alison’s work, as well as the thinking of the
mountain guide, Sue Harper, who is based in Braemar. The three photographs were
made on Dartmoor, during a walk made in 2015.
In the first photograph Alison is enclosed in a stone circle, having contoured across from Yelm Head – a reminder of the strong affinities between the New Walking and Ancient landscape cultures, or, more typically, the antiquarian imagination of the relics those cultures left.
In the second she is checking her compass on Green Hill – being hesitant, lost, or confused are acceptable in the New Walking.
Finally she is pictured above her destination, Wistman's Wood, on Longaford Tor. This walk was in part a homage to Nancy Holt’s ‘Trailmarkers’ (1969).
In the first photograph Alison is enclosed in a stone circle, having contoured across from Yelm Head – a reminder of the strong affinities between the New Walking and Ancient landscape cultures, or, more typically, the antiquarian imagination of the relics those cultures left.
In the second she is checking her compass on Green Hill – being hesitant, lost, or confused are acceptable in the New Walking.
Finally she is pictured above her destination, Wistman's Wood, on Longaford Tor. This walk was in part a homage to Nancy Holt’s ‘Trailmarkers’ (1969).
contouring
is the practice of awareness of map contours projected onto the features of the
land
contours are neither up nor down: contouring is equilibrium
contouring is practiced in your mind and beneath your feet
contouring throws the eye ahead, on the level, to a feature in the future
contouring values burns and rivers as a measure of rhythm and decline – or street crossings, if you are in a city
in mist or darkness contouring sees what’s there if only you could
contouring walks a line through you
contours are the curves of a body
contouring is a form of energy conservation
contouring is the body meridian of the mountain
contouring follows sheep around the mountain
after Alison Lloyd and Sue Harper
contours are neither up nor down: contouring is equilibrium
contouring is practiced in your mind and beneath your feet
contouring throws the eye ahead, on the level, to a feature in the future
contouring values burns and rivers as a measure of rhythm and decline – or street crossings, if you are in a city
in mist or darkness contouring sees what’s there if only you could
contouring walks a line through you
contours are the curves of a body
contouring is a form of energy conservation
contouring is the body meridian of the mountain
contouring follows sheep around the mountain
after Alison Lloyd and Sue Harper
AT INNUMERABLE
POINTS WE ARE EQUAL : CONTOUR
Contouring is used to navigate around a hill following a contour ring. Altimeters determine which ring a person are on; timing is based on William W. Naismith rule of thumb for walkers in fair condition: allow 1 hour for every 5 km walking forwards; add 1 hour for every 600m. ascent. By learning their own pace a walker is able to estimate their location.
Alison Lloyd uses this mental technique to lead guided walks visualizing absent landscapes, or bringing a deliberate, patient human attention to a particular terrain.
The contour poem is after the writings of Charles Hutton who devised contour lines as a means to survey Schiehallion (1774) – a true monad, or monadh, the mass of this singular mountain was used to estimate the density of the earth. Alison and I are currently developing a future walk contouring on Schiehallion.
bibliography
photography
Alec Finlay,
‘conspectus’: Jan Hogarth, 2015
Alice Ladenburg: handstand project (Ludadzi Bridge, Malawi, 2013)
Walking Library for Sweeney’s Bothy: Luke Allan, 2013
Other photographs Alison Lloyd, 2015
Alice Ladenburg: handstand project (Ludadzi Bridge, Malawi, 2013)
Walking Library for Sweeney’s Bothy: Luke Allan, 2013
Other photographs Alison Lloyd, 2015
Gathering was commissioned by Hauser & Wirth, for the
Fife Arms Hotel, Braemar; the project was launched in 2015 and will conclude in
2018.
The artist
residency at University of Aberdeen is funded by The Leverhulme Trust; the
project was launched in July 2016 and will conclude May 2017.