Being
In walking we do more than see: Solnit states how
“walking, ideally, is a state in which the mind, body and the world are aligned, as though they are three characters finally in conversation together, three notes suddenly making a chord. Walking allows us to be in our bodies and in the world… free to think without wholly being lost in our thoughts” (Solnit, 2000, p. 5).
Walking involves observing and negotiating an external environment, but is also connected and dependent on internalised and subjective ways of seeing and knowing unique to the walker.
Landscape is made of human constructs: a record of human action, mediated by ongoing activity. It is a network of things in relationship, where self and 'other' interact and the walker is found 'being-in- landscape'. In the context of this thesis, here the term other refers to those things that are outside of ourselves: made by other people, by processes and things external to us and our accepted norms. Through active engagement with the materials and processes experienced along the path, the walker is brought into a new realisation and made part of a wider whole.
This next step of the research is principally concerned with exploring this relational view and learning what may become known when observations consider what is sensed and what is perceived through the use of ‘sensing walks’.
3.1 The Practice of Being – Other Senses in
Observation
Sensing walks explore a world enriched by process (natural and cultural) and the world experienced through human senses and perceptions. The walks aim to explore the interface between walker and the landscape and how we might ‘know’ from an internalised perspective. How much does the walker’s internal position and conditioning influence observing and knowing? Sensing walks study the walker’s relationship with landscape and review the walker as an agent of observation. The walks seek to gain insight into how the walker/landscape relationship might be
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mediated along the path and explore possibilities found in this relationship.
Sensing walks begin with a study of walker engagement and attention. The first sensing walk explores how the walker might ‘be’ when walking the path. Records are used to principally assess the walker, in addition to the external landscape walked upon. How much does the walker engage with the spaces around them? What programme does the walk take and what is subsequently made known? What stimulates and focusses attention?
The second sensing walk acts as a counter reaction to the previous exercise. The walk seeks to review the role of external guidance and purposed observation. If the walker is presented with a set of prompts or a schedule of activities what outcome results? What is the influence of restrictions or limitations when walking?
The final sensing walk looks at what is possible and what might be recorded if the walkers sensing is focussed and refined. What can be observed and what is omitted if we bypass sight and focus on tuning in interactions and observations through other specified senses?
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3.2 Sensing Walk Stage One - A Mind Map of
the Walker
Sighting walks revealed how the physical position of the walker and their approach to site influences the type and particularity of things seen. Sensing walks explore the influence of the walker in closer detail. My observations reflect me: my ability to see, my history, my training, my culture and my current condition. What is the influence of my culture and positioning?
Philosopher Susan Bordo states how “if the body is a metaphor for our locatedness in space and time and thus for the finitude of human perception and knowledge, then the post-modern body is no body at all” (Jacks, 2004, p. 5). The walker, while having a physical body, walks as if out of the body. Jacks describes this post-modern condition as empty, as absent, as a frame which questions the role and position of the body (Jacks, 2004). In this frame, we exist as body-less beings, objects moving in space with no contact, not truly seeing or touching. This first study reflects on what is actually being observed along the path, and enquires as to the focus point of the observer and questions how I contact and connect with the path. Am I a body-less observer, a voyeur of landscape or does my walking align and connect me? Do I walk and record automatically?
The first sensing walk seeks to explore the walker’s connection to the path in a study of the walker’s actions and thinking. As with sighting walks, field notes and a walk journal were used to record inventory and observations taken during a day’s walk along the Monument Track from Purau Bay to the summit of Mt Herbert (Figure 13).
Figure 13: Location map - Sensing Walk One.
Activities for the first sensing walk were undertaken at a series of sites while on a journey from Purau Bay to Mt Herbert Summit. Green line indicates walk route.
[IMAGE AUTHOR’S OWN:PURAU BAY TO MT HERBERT MAP]
Cue/Interest Point Study Section
Natural Feature/formation Reserve boundary (DOC)
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A series of self-reviews were undertaken at regular intervals. Using set time intervals, a short writing and diagramming exercise was
undertaken in order to capture thoughts and focus points. This questioning process was directly focussed on recording and examining the walker’s thinking and response. What was seen? What was thought? The journaling exercise questions actions and norms and reveals
distractions.
Recorded Observations:
The walk record becomes a series of moments observed in walking where the attention of the walker is elsewhere, away from the immediate path or focussed intently on specific objects. The exercise made me, as observer, critically aware of the multiple angles and trajectories my thinking was capable of taking, and of the potential for my focus to be pulled away by elements found on the track or occurring elsewhere in another space and time.
I am able to recognise my distractions and my thoughts are revealed and contained as I am forced to stop at regular stages. Can I recall the last 15 minutes of the path? What did I really see in the last two minutes of walking? Was my mind focussed on the path or elsewhere? This stopping interrupts, recalls and refocuses. It forces me to ask and engage with the present situation: what am I looking at (right now), what am I thinking (right now), and do these two elements correlate? Sketches articulate think patterns and responses: the ebb and flow of thoughts and influences is expressed. Barriers and filters which alter interactions and engagement are revealed. Figure 14 contains three diagrams which represent and interpret observed thought patterns.
Figure 14: Filters and lenses. Words and thoughts surround me as I walk. They act as a filter, a barrier, a wall between me and the physical-material space that I walk in. Words, thoughts, impressions pave my path, they frame and orientate. The left image depicts how scenes and substance come to me from outside my frame. When centred in place my outlook is permeable, my senses bring awareness of materials and understanding and I project and receive information. The central image is a response to my awareness of words and conceptual positioning. I am separated from landscape by a particular worldview made of lessons, theories and experiences. The final image depicts a stronger barrier. Landscape is seen and experienced through narrowed viewpoints and specific channels. My seeing and knowing is filtered, screened and obscured by projections or emotions.
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The exercise reveals the drift of thoughts and focus that occurs when walking. Images capture responses and reveal the influence of thought and feeling. Walking up a track in the heat, all I want is shade, a cool drink… My skin is hot, the water in my drink bottle is luke-warm, and I become more irritated and more focussed on my own condition. I have little regard for the surrounding landscape. My thoughts drift of the cool water encountered elsewhere. The path is dusty, the only present thing I have been looking for is shade, all else is seems irrelevant.
In stopping to record my thoughts I am critically aware of this strong frame of view. How I react against the path and its current conditions, how I do not stop to notice details, rather I am focussed solely on this present condition. I recall walking this same path in winter. Tramping with the threat of worsening weather. Snow and ice on the ground making terrain uneven; the roughened terrain and impending southerly gale makes me alert for changes. Every gust of wind, every slippery step is noted. Walking up Mt Herbert in the summer heat I am oblivious to all. The track is broad, the heat seems relentless and consumes my thinking.
Occasionally my thoughts are interrupted by events or features along the track. A sharp high-pitched sound off to the side, a walker approaching from the other direction, rough and rusty fencing wire encountered when crossing over a stile. Such elements cut through my thinking and pull me back into the present moment. At such moments I may turn aside and wander off my original course, a pause point or a deviation to explore a particular place or discover.