Visual Art Aug 5, 2010 at 4:00 am

A 40-Mile, 40-Person, Radically Open-Ended Experiment in Public Art

Aaron Huffman

Comments

1
thanks for this thoughtful piece Jen. one note - the Trails Project is a joint commission by 4Culture and King County Parks.
2
Tamar: Thanks much. Getting correction up!
3
I go on bike rides on these roads all the time. Maybe some urban backpacking to Tolt-Mcdonald campground is in order? Thanks for the inspiration.
4
I pass by that spot in the first two photographs every day on my bike commute to work. Your escape from the every day *is* my every day.
5
Banal and forced, this is not "art" of any kind. Shame on 4Culture for funding it. Had you done it in silence or blindfolded I might feel differently.
6
Reminds me of my own experience walking from Spokane to Seattle to celebrate the opening of Lambert House back in 1991. It took two weeks through wheatfields, cornfields, high desert and mountain passes.

Traversing the landscape step by step over such a long distance changes you ind od and subtle ways. Not the least in your sense of time and distance. As you said, Jen, seeing a day's exhausting trek effortlessly whiz by in a ten minute car ride can be a stunning revelation of how technology mediates our perception of the world.
7
What, no pic of the gorgeous blond guitar player?
8
@blackhook: Right here.
9
Hmm, messed that up somewhere. How about here?
10
"We didn't stop long enough for big explanations; we had walking to do."

Hmmmm. I guess that kind of pinpoints the problem with snooty high concept art right there. The explanation and enjoyment rests primarily with those participating. Kind of like everything else in life. Except this select group calls it art. And managed to get it funded.
11
This 'art' project was called 'The long walk' - 13.33 miles a day is not a long walk ( 4 times round Green lake) - only if you are a typical lazy, fat American that circles the Walmart parking lot for 10 minutes looking for the spot by the front door. Blisters? These participants sadly must be those people that spend 16 hrs a day in front of a monitor/ipod/blackberryt/cellphone whether at home or work. When they look up from one of their screens, they are so moved at what they see, it must be ‘ART’ Jen called this stroll an ‘endurance event’ Really ? This is why it was so important to pass universal health care for Americans. This publicly funded art project seems to be what most people (other than Jen) do when they travel to a new city – get a map and walk every where for days – easily covering the monumental 13.33 miles per day –and as Jen described this long walk or the rest of us in a new city – ‘We were not producing anything at our jobs, we were not cleaning our houses or feeding pets and children—we were not living the lives we have made for ourselves,’ Ohhhhhh soooo PROFOUND ! ! !
12
Ravenna had an art walk once

http://vimeo.com/10770647
13
Ravenna had an art walk once

http://vimeo.com/10770647
14
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjiciSb1r…

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