Tomorrow, Saturday November 28th I will walk approximately 50 miles from Succasunna, NJ (zip code 07876) to my apartment in Manhattan at 67 East 2nd Street. I will begin around 10 P.M. and will continue without sleeping until I reach my destination. I estimate this walk to last between 15 and 20 hours.
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I am taking this pilgrimage, first and foremost, to reestablish my gratitude for being able to live in New York City. I am inspired by the extreme forms of Himalayan pilgrimage where the pilgrims do not just walk great distances to reach a holy site, but offer their thanks by moving forward in a continuous series of prostrations. My walk is similar because I am erecting an arbitrary obstacle to reach my destination. I would usually drive or take the train. As a performance, this piece is informed by artists like Tehching Hsieh (see Outdoor Piece) and Marina Abramovic and Ulay (see their Great Wall Walk), whose works of endurance and extended duration comment on the nature of time and attention. Through this lens I ask: what is the relationship between “lost” time and artistic sacrifice? In other words, can we turn anything we want into art/performance if we give it a certain type of attention? This walk also lies within the lineage of endurance athletes like Dean Karnazes and Reinhold Messner, though no doubt in a tamer situation. Its tameness (in relation to these other acts) brings up another question: how does extremity affect an act’s importance or relevance? Does it matter that I, myself, have never walked such a distance?
I see this walk, and its accompanying video piece, as part of a larger intervention towards an understanding of lived experience. That is, performing or living a piece might not add to existing stores of human knowledge, but it does add to the stores of human experience. Or perhaps what I mean to say is that human performances are investigations into the limits of the body and mind that cannot be accomplished without a performer willing to sacrifice their time. In contradiction to the scientific question, “What would happen if…?” is the performative question, “What would it be like?” The problem with documenting this type of investigation is of course the question of how to share experienced action with others. What are the possibilities? My attempt constitutes an effort to transfer my experience through narrated film, text (blog writing), and oral history.
But what are the textual and filmic vocabularies for lived experience? Can I possibly represent these memories, dreamlike and incomplete? When someone describes their dream, do you listen? Do you interpret? When I write you a letter telling you about my life, what do you see in you “mind’s eye”? Do you experience my life through your own eyes or by comparison? In other words, do you understand the love I feel for others by comparing to the love you have felt? Do you fill in my emotions with your own?
Do you feel as though the vocabularies of psychology, biology, performance, philosophy, or religion accurately describe your lived experience?
The real “documentation” of this work is the remark. It is when you off-handedly mention my act to a friend or relative. It is the few words you include when you introduce me to an acquaintance. It is your certainty that it has-been-done, and that I am the one who has done it. This is the real work, because a remark is all that is needed to awaken in the listener a series of endless associations. These associations contain my piece because lived experience is nothing but a mixture of contiguity and disconnected bits of anything at all that lives within the memory.
You can contact me at 973 479 8917 during this piece to check my location.
