A walk for remapping and re-contextualising the notion of love

Context

This is a walk about creating your own desire lines, lines that trace deviation from conventional paths. It is also an invitation to defamiliarize with existing familiar lines and get more familiar with the unfamiliar ones. Last but not least, it is about reencountering the notion of love out of the line of thought of the economic system of exchange value.

Instructions for the walk


0. Set a timer or choose a way and start tracking time (in case you still did not do so).

1. Find your individual starting point for a walk(indoor or outdoor).

2. Take a moment to consciously place your awareness to your body, sensing your breath and the ground that supports your weight.

3. Place awareness to other human and non-human bodies (plants, trees, objects, animals etc.) that surround your body.

4. Whenever you are ready start walking in a direction of your choice.*Whatever walking means to you and your physicality.

5. Trace what is happening in your body anatomically while you do so.

6. Sense the style of walking that distinguishes you.

7. Start noticing the lines around you and the relationships you build with other bodies through them.

8. Place your awareness on lines that were intentionally constructed.

9. Start looking for possible unintentional lines.

10. Let the smells, sounds, or textures that make you curious or evoke a pleasant sensation in your body direct you, while tracing the lines you create.

11. Find an unfamiliar texture of an object or tree or any other terrain surface and pause to observe it or even touch it.

12. Place the small white paper over it, and trace it by pushing the white paper gently against the surface and color it with the pencil over and over again.

13. Repeat in a different spot with a different paper.

14. Collect the papers for later.

15. Continue walking.

16. Use your chalk or any other (natural) found material to leave an impermanent love note or mini "installation" for a stranger(human or non-human).

17. Take a photo of it and send it to the group chat.

18. Continue walking avoiding main roads as much as possible and observe the path you create.

19. Note, or take pictures of different words that are written in your surroundings, or words that pop up in your mind from sounds you hear.

20. Save them somewhere for later.

21. Start heading back using the same route, passing from the spaces you have encountered before.

22. With your mind's eyes trace the line of your path while you walk back.

23. When you arrive at your starting point, take a moment to listen to your heartbeat. Then:
Option 1: Think of the first love song that pops up in your mind, adjust its rhythm to your heartbeat's rhythm and record yourself singing it.
Option 2: Translate the rhythm of your heartbeat by creating a different sound(f.e through simple body percussion) and record it.

24. Send the track to the chat.


25. Come back to the studio (in case you left it).

What you need

- A pencil
- Small white papers
- A piece of chalk
- Your phone
- Comfortable shoes and clothes
- Jacket in case you choose to take this walk outdoors

Instructions for the studio

26. Take your outdoor equipment off (in case you were out).

27. Have a short moment of rest and sip of water. *Whatever short means to you.

28. Take your pencil and the small white papers you have used in your walk and join the center of the space.

29. Use the big white paper in front of you to cartograph your route next to the routes of others by creating lines with words/sketches/drawings that relate to your walk experience.

30. Use your white papers as bridges between lines in spots that you think they fit.

31. Use the words you have collected in point 19 to create street signs that you would love to see in the streets and that would make anyBODY feel safer to walk outside.

32. If the words you have gathered are not enough/adequate feel free to recompose the letters and make your own words or borrow words that exist on the paper.

32. Place the invented signs on the paper.

33. Observe this paper as a collective map. How are your thoughts/sensations/emotions orientated by it?

Tips on How to navigate this

Read the instructions one by one as you take your walk, following your pace. The instructions in the yellow box are invitations (meaning you could say no to the execution of any of them).
The walk lasts 30 minutes and it leads back to the studio where another 20 minutes are planned for cartographing and sharing the individual experiences within a collective process in the form of an exhibition. You can choose your strategy of tracking time according to your needs. Follow your own pace according to your capacity/needs and make the duration of the walk shorter if need be. Feel free to take breaks, pause or abandon completely the procedure if you are bored/uninterested or if need be. In case of emergency, you can send a message or call to +35799784949. At several points, you are asked to bring back your findings or document them and send them to the group chat that was created for this happening. In case you choose to share your findings with the group, is important to know that your data and the whole group chat will be deleted after the happening.