Part 2: Mike- Walker to the Destination

"My role will be as your hands, your documentor. Whatever is collected or recorded we will send to Mik, so if you see or think of something you would like to pass on to him, let me know."


(phrases passed on)

"The next set of directions have been devised by Sorrel walking in Nottingham for you to follow here. After we find each landmark I will pass on the next direction."


(documenting security cameras)

"This set of directions will also be sent to Mik at the end of the journey, returning them to Nottingham."

Walk for Mike

"7. At the corner of the street bear left and head towards the autumn leaves."
"8. Cross the road you are on and keep going towards the shops with covered windows."
"9. Pass two signs that tell you how to behave."
"10. Head towards the building with rainbow colours on it; at the building turn right."
"11. Pass the marker of time we are both divided by and bound to."
"12. Now survey your surroundings for the tallest building in view; keep walking til you put it behind you."
"13. Follow the yellow lines uphill."
"14. At the crossroads (a system not designed by pedestrians), cross the road carefully."
"15. Now you want to take the slab stone pavement uphill passing a chicken and an old horses head."
"16. You are almost there-- take the next street left and left again and head for the red and gold sign."
"17. Take the next stairs down to your picnic bench. Here you'll notice birds fly constantly overhead. Sit and drink in your surroundings."

Part 2: Mik- Walker to the Destination

"The next set of directions have been devised for you by Laura walking in Edinburgh for you to follow here, as you find each landmark I will pass on the next direction. Mike has the same number of directions based on a walk i took in Nottingham, for him to follow in Edinburgh."

"We have left space on the page of the first directions for you to record the instructions I pass on. At the end of this journey we will send these to Mike, returning the route to Edinburgh."

Walk for Mik

"7. Walk to the end of the street leaving the sculptures behind you, where the garden begins turn left."


"8. Head straight past the bush with berries and a sign of higher education."

"9. Once you see three blue doors cross and head down hill (or right)"

"10. At the next driveway (after the rushing water) cross the road and follow the sidewalk left towards the patch of green."

"11. Pass the hall of mirrors and the master of the universe."

"12. Where the road zig zags turn right, looking for animals."

"13. .Keep straight till you hit the circle in the road cross left and head right."

"14. At the candy junction where the penny whistle stands cross right passing the trophy of honor and broken fence."

"15. At the next roundabout head for the houses and past two guards."


"16. Walk to the end of the wall covered in green and then hang right, when the wall opens up to show the sky you know you are close."

"17. Step on to softer ground and head for the blue; keep straight seeing the sky touch down to meet you."


For Mik, "the place where the sky touches down to meet you," was clearly the brow of the hill ahead of us on Mansfield Road. As we reach the brow, the sky itself stepped back to the new horizon beyond, but a church and grave yard took its place, maintaining the points connection with the sky (heavens).

Part 1- The Meeting Point: 3pm, at the right-hand side of the train station, by the steps, facing the art centre

"Hello. Welcome to Re:::lay Edinburgh : Nottingham. This performance walk has been created with you in mind. These walks are taking place simultaneously. Right now, Sorrel is meeting Mik at the right-hand side of the train station by the steps in Nottingham."


Mike with Laura in Edinburgh

"To get started, we four will be following the same six directions [...] This journey will involve a lot of interpretation which we will discuss, debate and navigate together. Shall we begin? Let's text them to let them know we're ready."

Directions

1. Start by the right-hand side of the train station, by the steps, facing the art centre.
2. Turn right and walk to the end of the street.
3. Where the street end, cross the road, go left, then immediately right.
4. At the next lights cross towards the bank and head left down the street.
5. At the corner with the railings, bear right-- cross the street and head for the trees.
6. Follow the pavement to the next street and then call.


Mik with Sorrel in Nottingham

" Ok now we are here, we will call Mike and Laura. When I put you on, find out where he is and then describe for him your view."


Mik and Mike find themesleves at Walker Street in different cities; the wind intruding on their conversation as they describe their views to one another.

The meeting point; Re:::lay Nottingham : Edinburgh

Last night we contacted Mike and Mik to arrange our starting point with each of them for the Re:::lay performance-walk today. Here are the instructions we gave them:

We will meet at 3pm. I will be waiting at the right-hand side of the train station, by the steps, facing the arts centre. I will be wearing jeans, a black jacket, a brightly coloured scarf and have a blue umbrella. If you can't see me call. We will not be traveling by train; it's best to wear shoes comfortable for walking. (If it's raining I will have an umbrella for you too.)

From here our journey begins...

to start with a question...

The first Re:::lay 1:1 performance will take place tomorrow 19/10/08, in Edinburgh and Nottingham with Mike and Mik. The journey and performance has been created specifically for their long distance relationship and the locations they are in (Edinburgh and Nottingham). To help us devise this piece, we started with this set of questions for each of them to respond to:

1. For you, what is a long distance relationship?

2. When did distance become part of this relationship?

3. How do you stay connected?

4. How much distance is there between you?

5. What does distance add?

6. What does distance take away?

7. What keeps it going?

8. Do you have a significant location you associate with your relationship - this might be the place you met or the place where you communicate from now, a place that reminds you of the other, etc. If so, where is it?

9. When was the last time you saw each other and, when you did, what did you do?

Their answers inspired the structure and dynamic for the piece. Check back for more details soon!

Cheers,
Sorrel and Laura

Your View

With our on-the-ground work for Re:::lay started, we're turning back to the web to open up this project with you! We're inviting you to join us in exploring new and playful ways of experiencing distance and space while connecting with others.

Starting today, in conjunction with Re:::lay, we will regularly be posting questions and activities for all of us to respond to and share (we're calling them 'Blog Projects').

Check back regularly to see the latest postings. We're looking forward to your replies and the correspondence that unfolds.

Happy exploring and best wishes,
Sorrel and Laura

Blog Project #1: Your View

Describe your view of the horizon line from your window. Make note of the time and place where you write this. Then, share your description with someone you know who lives far away (this definition is up to you). Ask them to reply back with their own view.

Share a copy of your response(s) as a comment below.

where do I start?

Yesterday was the first official day of walking research for Re:::lay, taking us to two different spaces to create a piece for our first participants, Mik and Mike, friends continuing to stay in touch over the last couple of years between Edinburgh and Nottingham. Laura is in Edinburgh and I (Sorrel) am in Nottingham.

Unlike Laura mentioned in her last blog entry, my first challenge was how to lose myself in Nottingham, a city I have lived in for well over a decade!

When I say lose I don't mean get lost so I can't find my way home but more; lose - so that I can absorb the streets afresh, letting go of the distractions of my own association, memories and familiar routes.

With a closer look, I realized my 'knowing eye' had been misnaming streets and dismissing others. Once on foot the distraction of daily jobs was certainly the first hurdle; how to walk through town without being drawn into shops for bits and pieces, that bag I really need or the stamps i meant to get yesterday! I found that it took huge discipline to ignore these pulls, almost denying my eyes their usual landmarks.

Keeping my nose to the ground I focused on the idea of Laura walking in Edinburgh, us both heading for the same location (a corresponding point on both city maps we had chosen to walk towards the day before).

I found my focus in keeping my attention on the present, aware of each step, the unfolding view and weather. This journey did take me to a street I have never walked down before. Its position and accent allowing me a new view of the city.

When I reached the destination, I called Laura to hear where she was, but midway through her description my phone battery died. I continued my walk, willing her to do the same.

The ground and air was damp with a misty rain (reminding me of the rain that we have been warned about by several of our participants). This rain is the type that just makes you soggy and your hair frizz but it also seems to make things shine, and as the daylight fades you see the lights caught by its wet sheen.

As I head through town with the light almost gone, I decided to walk up Queen Street, the very street that was the starting point for our first collaboration in 2006-- with me in Nottingham at the intersection of King and Queen and Laura in Toronto where her King St. West and Queen St. West also meet.

I paused at the bottom of the street behind a lady dressed in a raincoat and clear plastic hood. She was looking and standing where I wanted to stand and look up the street. We stood there for a few minutes. It was really interesting because we were both really looking, being really being present on Queen St. I took a picture and then I walked on. The rest of these pictures I took on that street.



I wonder how many times I have walked up and down this street without really seeing it?

Nottingham to Edinburgh 08.50

Directions in Nottingham

Much of the work Sorrel and I will be doing this month involves on-site research in different cities at the same time; navigating unfamiliar places on our own, alone. There is a sense of wonder, curiosity and alertness that comes with being in an unfamiliar place that I revel in: the experience of discovering what is around a corner for the first time and following instinct rather than routine. There is also a sense of vulnerability and disorientation that comes with being in an unfamiliar place that can be rather frightening. The work that Sorrel and I create thrusts us into situations that are unfamiliar-- that challenge is also the inspiration.

This is my first trip out of North America (for someone who loves mapping and walking-- I definitely have a lot of territory to cover).

Over the last two days in Nottingham, Sorrel has helped me test my 'homing instinct' by taking me into the city centre, following different routes, and having me lead us back home at the end of the day. I've accumulated a set of directions I'm going to try to recite here from memory. Many of the references are based on my first impressions of the spaces, others based on people I noticed in certain places. My landmarks and route may change over the course of my stay here. I'll keep you posted.

Best,
L

1. At the building with the clock tower, turn left. You should be heading uphill.
2. Keeping to the left, pass the bag shop.
3. Pass the tightly-packed gravestones.
4. Pass the beech stop.
5. Pass the pub with an animal in its name.
6. After the star bar and before the big store turn left.
7. Head straight along Egypt with the two-toned sidewalk.
8. Pass the spot where the kid yelled 'Moooooom!', then take the next left.
9. Walk to the end of the street, stopping at number 13 (the second-last door on your left). Home.

Re:::lay begins

With Laura now in the UK, we have begun to build our first Re::lay performances. We will be working with three pairs of individuals in long-distance relationships across the UK (between Nottingham and Edinburgh; London and Sheffield; Bethesda and Nottingham).

We are creating journeys for our participants to experience as a performance, that is uniquely devised for their relationship. To do this we will be getting to know them a bit better, initially through a few conversations via email and phone (the staple tools of any long distancer), then taking time to explore their local areas on foot, and finally writing journeys for them to experience when we meet them in person. Each Re:::lay performance will take place in two separate locations simultaneously. Beginning at the same time, each participant will walk with one of us in their home town. This is a new process for us-- intimate performances that have a direct relationship with their participants.

We are charting our travels and recording our process here over the next month and will also feature performance documentation. We hope this will give readers/viewers/ participants better insight into our work. We welcome you to add comments and pose any questions the work may stir up.

If you will be in the cities and towns we are visiting, and would like to meet with us or see more of our work firsthand please let us know.

Re:::lay

Developments in communications technology and travel have made us able to meet, move and connect over huge distances, but how has this distance affected our relationships and our sense of place? Is our perception of distance changing?

Re:::lay, is our new art project exploring the nature of long-distance relationships. Over the course of October 2008, developing the first phase of this piece, we will work one-to-one with pairs of individuals to create journeys that are specific to their relationships, location and the distance between them. These journeys will become performance-walks that we will take with the participants in the places they each live. The structure of these journeys will be defined through prior discussions with participants on the nature of their long-distance relationship (how it began, is maintained, modes of communication used, etc.) combined with our own long-distance perspective and artistic process.

The Re:::lay performance-walks in October 2008 will become part of an online archive and form the basis for a large-scale installation, including international versions of the project.

If you are interested in taking part in Re:::lay, please email us sorrelandlaura@gmail.com

We look forward to hearing from you

Sorrel and Laura

For more information on our past work see previous blog entry.

projects to date 2008

we are currently developing 2 new projects, whist continuing our climb skyward,

so we thought it would be useful to post a summary of our projects to date.

Current on going collaborative work
The climb in Nottingham and Toronto creating simultaneous performance presentations as we continue our climb to see each other over the horizon. our ambitious next step is to make it to 6.9 km up, a one hundredth of our grand total 699km (1km = 5000 steps climbed)

Encyclopaedic walk Banff in collaboration with Trudi Smith, ongoing text based work, under development to become an online project alongside three further texts for walking.

Exhibitions and Performances
To trail is not always to follow behind Sept-Oct 2007 presented during Walking and Art residency at The Banff Centre, Canada the process is archived online through this blog.

A sculptural map drawn with rope, initially wound around the perimeter of a studio space; the rope’s length representing a scaled version of the combined distances we have travelled to reach Banff. Gradually we unwound the rope from the wall to form peaks in the middle of the space representing our walks towards each other on the Marsh Loop. This height of the peaks was determined by how long it took us to meet, and the width of the base of each peak was determined by the number of steps we each took towards each other. This was our first work made in a singular location created during a Walking and Art themed residency at The Banff Centre, Canada.

The perfect place to meet: Banff Oct 2007 Banff Canada, text prints and performance walk.

From here to there in 19 directions Sept 2007 Walking life exhibition The Gladstone Hotel Toronto, Canada. These texts are directions are written from a walk taken in one location, that can be followed in any other – exploring the act of translating experiences and spatial relationships.


The climb- 3478 miles as the crow flies august 2007 performance walks Sept 2007 part of shifting ground, journeys across Nottingham and Toronto. Angel Row Gallery and Walking life exhibition The Gladstone Hotel Toronto, Canada

our ongoing attempt to climb high enough to see each other over the horizon we walk our cities climbing staircase to accumulate the height needed, 699 km up. during “The Climb” the audience joining us in this walk was asked to rediscover their home towns through our desire to climb stairs, this reframing of the city took us on new routes and to new locations, constructing a new perspective on familiar surroundings. This very physical experience was connected with a journey happening simultaneously across the ocean through telephone conversations, this interjection of their journey with ours created an imagined space but a very real connection. The next part of this work will take place this year. This performance walk and installation will mark our arrival at One Hundredth

The perfect place to meet: Toronto July 2007 a derive, a text and a performance walk. having always work at a distance, this piece was one of two works devised to potentially culminate in our first ever meeting in person. Both starting from Union station at 9.45am, not finding each other we both set out to find the perfect place to meet.


Working in proximity see you soon Toronto July 2007 site specific performance walk. this piece was devised around the street intersection that had first inspired our collaboration, the intersections of King and Queen Street. for this piece starting from opporsite intersections we set out to walk the loop until we met, leaving markers along the way.


3478 miles as the crow flies April 2007 performance installation Thingland studio and across Nottingham and Hub14 and across Toronto the culmination of walks taken for 5 hrs a day for 5 days, as we started our climb to see each other over the horizon.

Mind the map – Sept 2006 walking performance/documentary artist book of instructions shared and journeys taken.
Space in Translation - Intersection 06 July 2006 Installation at Bonington Gallery at Nottingham Trent University

Maps

Here is Laura in the print studio on our last day, signing our prints.
These silk screen prints record the maps we drew after each walk, the maps were drawn individually recording the route as we saw it each time. Rather than being geographically precise these maps record our experience of the space, from the perspective of walking though it.
Laura's routes are represented in blue
Sorrel's in red. These five different prints are limited additions of eight.

The Departure

the seven weeks is up
I have just seen Laura off, she is traveling back to Toronto by car, with another walking artist. an estimated five day trip.
last night when dismantling the work we worked out how much distance was left wound round our studio, 305 metres so x that by 175,000...
I am about to get to get on a bus to take me to a plane.
We will be working from a distance again but be sure this is not the last entry
we are yet to share the maps we have made and the new project we have stated in collaboration with Trudi Smith so much more to come...
thank you for your support and comments
lots of love
sorrel and Laura

Wolves and Cougars and Bears oh my! Again????

Sorrel here, I felt I just needed to tell you a tale from our Marsh walks as the plot just keeps getting thicker... (for pics of final work scroll down)

On October 17th, walk 16, i got to go on what was by then Laura's side (the side which skirts the river edge). I started out slow enjoying the new view, then at the first corner where the path turns almost a right angle to follow the river I scared a duck, who had been happily pottering on the sand, it flapped and splashed out to deeper water quacking as it went. I don't think I jumped on the outside, but this did set me off and a few meters down the path I found myself feeling very jumpy. In my mind I battled with it: "This is ridiculous, the big animals are so rare, this trail is too well traveled." Then my other voice would say "Ahh, but no one is here today, it's very quiet, it's next to the wildlife corridor... you have already seen a coyote and been told about how the wolves like it here out of season." Aaaggghh! I am not sure which of there voices is the rational one or which is romantic; after all, all the post cards here feature the animals, in fact I think close encounters are what draw a lot of visitors.

Anyway, I move on checking behind me periodically just in case there is something there. I also pick up two rocks as advised (by the Canada Park Rangers) and start to bang them together and sing. "I love you yeah yeah yeah I love you yeah yeah yeah..."
Then, I didn't want to sing. I kept looking at the bushes to my left, it felt like something was there; my imagination told me it was a cougar, my logic told me it was nothing.

At the next corner my eyes still scanning the under growth to my left, I saw a sandy round shape amongst the trees, it looked like the belly of a deer, a dead deer laying in the trees about twenty feet from the trail.

Then my heart was pumping and the pages of paranoia building advice chanting in my head.: "Keep walking...do not approach dead animals the killer may be near by...report all dead animal sightings...keep walking..."

I moved on at a quicker pace, hoping Laura (and Elinor who was taking her pictures that day) were close by, but they were not and as I kept going I decide it was probably my imagination, perhaps just a large rock catching the sun as it fell through the trees.

So then we met; they laugh, and we head back to the start; this time Elinor will travel with me.
We toss the coin again and I get heads, I am going right again. I try to perform my usual walk but my attention is on the bend ahead, I thought with Elinor there perhaps I could take a longer look and at least I would know if I was seeing things.

I was not, it was a dead deer; I could see its head and antlers too, which was simultaneously a relief and a horror.

Encouragingly, she suggested perhaps it had just wandered there, after being hit by a car.

After this we had two more walks to complete and with my luck the result of the toss meant I had to pass it twice more. I did, determined to face my fear. The last time round I could see magpies and crows feeding from the carcus, this said to me that what ever had killed it was not nearby; I could relax (but obviously not really because my camera was still shaking).

So, I guess I should explain why I am adding this story now. One of the other artists on this residency, Rebecca Birch, has been doing a work about Sulphur Mountain and interviewing lots of well informed locals and parks workers. On Tuesday, October 18th, she went down to the Marsh Loop and it was closed due to carnivores feeding. Then yesterday she discovered that it was a cougar that had killed the deer and had been feeding on it. I had not told anyone of my suspicions of it being a cougar because out of all the animals this seemed to have the most remote possibility, but as it turns out one lives on Sulphur Mountain (and was probably there watching me as I walked round banging my stones, guess it likes the Beatles).

To Trail Is Not Always To Follow Behind - Open Studio

Our landscape of meeting fills the studio or as one of our visitors described it, "a topography of effort."
Alowing ourselves 19.5 hrs the combined amount of time it took for us to travel to Banff (the hours it took us to traverse the distance wrapped around the studio in rope) we walked the marsh loop, sharing this time to walk towards each other, 19.5 hrs alowed us to complete 19 walks, (oh we love it when our numbers repeat!!!!!)
Each walk, quantified through steps and time, is represented by a peak.
Thank you to everyone who visited or sent us their well wishes.