Walking (as a Method) in Artistic Research
Online discussion with Justin Bennett
09/03/2021, 19:30-21:30h
Free admission
The act of walking is a familiar and well-theorized research methodology in the social sciences, especially geography. Its value for new forms of situated, embodied, relational, and material research is also increasingly recognized in the field of artistic research. Whether they wander, stroll, dérive, crusade, trespass, or consciously follow the coordinates of a map; whether they bring with them a camera, audio recorder, facial recognition software, pen and paper, or nothing at all; walking can provide designers and artists with ways to think and make in solitude, to talk and exchange with others, or to simply co-exist with non-human companions.
In this session Dr. Alice Twemlow and a panel of artistic researchers working in different media explore the cross currents and the points of differentiation between their various approaches to walking as a research method. Among other topics, they will address the relationship between walking and other strategies and tactics, such as writing, mapping, image-making, archiving, sensing, speculation, listening, and place-making, as well as the relation beween walking and rhythm, public space, climate crisis, the Anthropocene, and slowness. The session also invites a discussion on how walking could be situated more critically in what theorists Stephanie Springgay and Sarah E. Truman have labelled a “more-than-human” methodological discourse, with the potential to engender “solidarity, accountability, and response-ability.”
Participants:
Justin Bennett, teacher at the Institute of Sonology at KC, member of Interdisciplinary Research Group (KABK, KC and ACPA) and member of Jubilee, platform for artistic research and production in Brussels.
Rebecca Dunne, alumna, MA Artistic Research, KABK
Stephanie Springgay, director of the School of the Arts and associate professor at the McMaster University; co-director of WalkingLab and co-editor of Walking Methodologies in a More-than-Human World.
Alice Twemlow, Design Lector at KABK and associate professor at ACPA, Leiden University