Wednesday, 3 October 2007
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Our 'dividing point' at the Marsh Loop Trail
Taken during the first part of our attempt to climb enough stairs to see each other over the horizon
Our artworks deal with journeys, distance and translation of space. At the root of our artistic practice is a cartographic process constructed through walking, exploring and composing an understanding of our physical and psychological topography by foot. This blog acts as a growing archive of our process and also a site for discussion and participation.
About us
- Sorrel and Laura
- We have been working with each other since summer 2006, usually with an ocean between us—Sorrel in Nottingham, England, Laura in Toronto, Canada. Individually, our practices have always responded to our preoccupations with human geography and site specificity. Collaboratively our works explore how people understand and connect with their surroundings and how we develop and communicate this sense of place. The transatlantic nature of our collaboration has changed our own sense of space; suddenly our environment and locality has had to expand to meet each other’s. We create performance walks and installations that explore our locality, using a task or rule based structures to re-map our surroundings. The installations can be appreciated as both an abstract form and quantitative or narrative maps of our journeys. Through this space we want to share with you our projects and progress as we embark on our latest projects. We can be reached at: sorrelandlaura@gmail.com
Articles
Blog Archive
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2007
(22)
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October
(14)
- Wolves and Cougars and Bears oh my! Again????
- To Trail Is Not Always To Follow Behind - Open Studio
- Our last day of walking to meet
- A Peek At The Peaks
- The First Cuts
- As the walks acumulate the erosion begins...
- It starts with the toss of a coin, The Marsh Loop ...
- The Marsh Loop: Laura's Side of the Story
- The Maths
- reboot
- Scale 1: 175,000 Metres
- A pinch, a rest, a landscape of meeting...
- A Cartography Of Distance
- Wolves and Cougars and Bears oh my!
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▼
October
(14)
Walking as a process
We are intrigued by anticipation and routine in the act of walking, with creating actions that echo the transforming processes of geology and human geography. Our collaborative methodology is evolving through practice and research inspired by writings of Solnit, De Certeau, Debord and Baudelaire.
Walking being the main feature of our artistic process, we create site-specific projects focusing on different qualities of this practice:
• Walking directly and sensually engages walkers (both performer and audience) with the environment/space they are in, at the time they are in it.
• Walking accommodates self-awareness and escape, one's mental focus switches (almost as expertly as an eye in its visual field) from one's body, to the landscape and beyond.
• Walking is a physical and personal experience that in the act of sharing is translated (distance traveled, number of steps, directions, stories) or recorded in visual forms (patterns, imprints, maps).
Walking being the main feature of our artistic process, we create site-specific projects focusing on different qualities of this practice:
• Walking directly and sensually engages walkers (both performer and audience) with the environment/space they are in, at the time they are in it.
• Walking accommodates self-awareness and escape, one's mental focus switches (almost as expertly as an eye in its visual field) from one's body, to the landscape and beyond.
• Walking is a physical and personal experience that in the act of sharing is translated (distance traveled, number of steps, directions, stories) or recorded in visual forms (patterns, imprints, maps).
interesting connections
Re:::lay
Re:::lay is a performance and installation project exploring the nature of long-distance relationships. The first phase of the project, developed in October of 2008, involves us creating performance-walks for participants between Nottingham and Edinburgh, London and Sheffield and Nottingham and Bethesda in the UK.
As Re:::lay develops, we will pose questions to you, our online audience, and suggest creative instructions and activities for how to connect with others over distance. We encourage you to share you opinions and results here.
As Re:::lay develops, we will pose questions to you, our online audience, and suggest creative instructions and activities for how to connect with others over distance. We encourage you to share you opinions and results here.
Re:::lay is supported by
To Trail Is Not Always To Follow Behind
Our 'dividing point' at the Marsh Loop Trail
699km up/3478 miles as the crow flies
Taken during the first part of our attempt to climb enough stairs to see each other over the horizon
this blog is a space for us to document and share our collaborative artworks as we make them, bringing together our transatlantic actions and audiences.
1 comment:
hi all,
i'm leaving a copy of a back and forth set of messages my friend Susie J and i sent each other via facebook (where i have also been posting pictures of our Banff experience). i thought the conversation might be of interest to others visiting the blog.
cheers,
Laura
Susie J (no network) wrote
at 8:06pm
Love it! I think it's really cool and beautiful. I do have a question though though- is why is there little mountain like things in the peice? Is this to represent the elevations or for artistic purposes. Also what is the reason behind this being 16 ropes wide ( think thats how many I counted) ? p.s the video on your blog really shows how huge this is.
Laura Nanni wrote
at 9:01pm
hey Susie,
all great questions.
i should give you some background... (this might take more than one reply on here due to space)
:)
Sorrel (my collaborator) and i usually work with an ocean between us--her in Nottingham, myself in Toronto. a lot of our collaborations deal with distance, mapping and translation of space. our installations can be read as abstract forms as well as visual representations and narratives of our journeys.
for this piece we're creating in Banff, we started with a calculation of the combined distance Sorrel and i had to travel in order to meet here from our home cities. we then calculated what this number would be using a scale of 1:175,00 metres-- this equaled 555.8 metres which is how many rope you see on the video. the 555.8 metres of rope is made up of 27 used ropes collected from Nottingham, Toronto and Banff, tied together and wrapped around the perimeter of our studio.
Laura Nanni wrote
at 9:03pm
yup-- part 2:
so, when we started, we estimated how many times the rope would wrap around the space, but didn't know for sure until we were finished. it circles a total of 18 times.
the curves in the rope began as a result of us responding to the material actually. originally we envisioned a straight horizon line being created by the wrapping, but, since the ropes are used, there were many kinks that influenced how the ropes wanted to bend. once we started hanging the rope while following the natural curves in the rope peaks and valleys began to form. we decided to allow the ropes above to continue following and echoing the shape of the curves and knots below-- somewhat the way layers of land sometimes form and settle. i must admit our current surroundings, the mountains, exposed rock, etc. did end up having an influence on how we allowed this part of the piece to develop.
phase 2 will involve 'eroding' the landscape we have created on the wall and creating a new one. more to come.
Susie J (no network) wrote
at 9:13pm
Wow thank you for that detailed explanation. I got all the answers I could not wait to get. Why erode the landscape (even though I am all for destructing to create)? This is one of those instalations that I would just want to see build over time and eventually take over a space. Oh well, I can't wait to see what the future brings!
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