Seeking alternatives to the received lifestyle of instantaneousness, productivity, and “getting there” (the straight line), Suzon Fuks and I make the deliberate decision to slow down, allowing our bodies—and our digital devices—to absorb the landscape and the moment. Unhurriedly, we walk “the way of the water” (the meander), in creeks throughout the state of Queensland, Australia.
In Fluidata, a resulting installation-performance, we seek to reflect a way of being that can invigorate a sense of wonder, and wondering, in what exists, even in our own backyards.
Themes include time, presence, and embodied connection to environment and to the moment. Imagery, atmosphere, environments and audio cues all aim to encourage visitors to adopt a sense of self-reflection through embodied awareness, and reflection on how our lifestyles pull us away from connection with the present, and by extension, connection to environment.
While walking in this way, I try to make each moment count—that I am present in that moment and there is a sense of stillness. When performing long stillness in a previous work ‘Anyone Is Free To Do Nothing With The Artist’, I invited audience to remain still with me, and realised that some found it equally engaging—and found their own stillness—simply watching me being still and present.”
This project fits into a new genre of walking-based art practice, which is growing worldwide, particularly in the UK. Artists are pointing to ways of finding embodied connection between self and place, as alternative to the pace and fragmentation of contemporary life.
This project breaks unusual territory in the genre of live art by developing conscious movement practice grounded in awareness, materiality, and presence—which is proving to be conducive to embodied relationship to environments, both natural and built.
It seeks to encourage people to take time, tread lightly, acknowledge the present moment and interact sensitively with their environment.