Ready to go

This animation setup has been in my head for over a year. I can't believe it's taken so long for me to buy all the equipment and get it going. I know that holding off on this setup has has been blocking certain fields of exploration. Ideas would come into my head, and the thought-process would arrive at this setup, and I'd shelve the idea. I have a hard time spending money on myself for this kind of thing. I'm glad I finally went out and did it. The floodgates are open.

The camera tripod will be bolted to the wood that the watercolour paper is stretched on, so there's no problem if I jostle the table. The camera will still be in the same place relative to the paper.

The lights are really important - I need even lighting over the entire sheet of paper. I've muddled around with all kinds of cheap lighting setups in the past, but this is going to be so much crisper looking - and it's simple to pack up and move, too.

When I'm working on the paper, I'll have a remote for the camera so I don't have to stand up and press the "take picture" button. Using the remote also prevents me from jostling the camera, so everything stays nice and still.

I also have a USB cable that connects the camera directly to my laptop, which runs a piece of stop-motion software called Dragonframe. I can have another little table beside me with my laptop on it, and while I'm working I can play through the animation I'm creating.

The watercolour paper is drying right now. Once that's done, I'll bolt in the tripod and get working! This is very exciting. I haven't animated since I started my Master's program at Emily Carr. Partly it's because I didn't have this setup, and partly it's because I hadn't found anything worth investigating with animation until recently.

I'll explain more about the object(s) of my exploration eventually.

Next Project, Maybe, With Dog

The third iteration of Walking East will take place between February 17th and 23rd.

This time, I hope to bring a close friend along as a research assistant :

Rowan has been one of my closest companions since I first brought him home from a Whitehorse animal shelter, seven years ago. He now lives with my parents, where he gets more exercise and access to open space than I can offer him.

My way of perceiving my surroundings when I walk with Rowan is difficult to describe. It often seems like we’re a collective sensing body. I see him smelling the air, and so I stop to smell the air. He perks his ears and halts suddenly, and so I halt and listen. I can rarely hear what he heard, or smell what he smells, but I can imagine it, and I react to it regardless.

In the same way, Rowan will stop and look around attentively when I stop to look at something. I am his long-distance colour-detecting eyes at a six-foot height; he is my ears and nose and motion-sensing eyes at eighteen-inch height.

I feel him bounding through the ferns with my own legs; his joy becomes my own, and transmits into my own legs. We often find ourselves lost in the woods, jogging, crawling, climbing, or sitting watchfully for long periods of time.

I am already feeling the urge to start this walk further outside of the city. The incessant sounds of the traffic and the hard sidewalks are going to be doubly uncomfortable with Rowan alongside.

I suspect that the rules of this walk will change somewhat to accommodate Rowan’s comfort levels and sensitivities (which are different than my own), but I suspect that the way I perceive my environment will be far richer, far more sense-conscious, than in the previous walks. I had a glimpse of this towards the end of my last walk (see my previous post).

…

In the meantime, I’m doing more work that reflects and builds upon Walking East 002. I’m looking forward to sharing some of that soon.

Walking East 002 - Results

(see previous post for a description of the parameters of this project)

Passing-Between-Place

Digital Photograph

Site For Dialogue

Digitally Manipulated Digital Photographs

Swimming With Sea Turtles - Call From Hawaii

Digital Photograph

...

So I’ve decided that this is not weather to move in, or at least not weather to move fast in. I’ve got a can of chili for lunch. I have a whole bunch of Cup-A-Soup, I’m going to have some right now, and I’ve got Kraft Dinner. So I think what I might do is just hole up here a while longer because that feels like… the thing to do. Moving on means what, uh, getting into the rain, the wind, and that’s just going to… I think things are going to end quicker down there. This – I can be comfortable up here. So that’s what I’m going to do.

 Origin of the above thought: 

I was standing tightly under the lee side of a hemlock, out of the wind and rain. I stood for a long time and drifted off, daydreaming, half-looking, semi-conscious. I was reminded of deer that I’ve observed in the past – I thought about how I was like a deer standing under a tree in the rain. I wondered how similar their perception of this kind of moment would be to my own – a kind of alert quietness, shifting weight, aware of the moisture in the air and the temperature, thinking about food and water, but content to just stand for the moment. 

My breath, a cloud of moisture.

 And that led me to consider that what I should probably do is to stay put like a deer does. To act like a deer. To stay dry by staying put. 

This was contrary to what my habits told me, which was to get down off this hill and get back into an area of human habitation. 

 Conclusion: 

 Deer taught me something – to listen to the weather, to act according to what it tells you.

Waiting out the Rain - Deer Teaching

Digital Photographs

Unititled

Digital Video

Light is Falling Batteries are Dying

Still From Digital Video

...

There is a fascinating negotiation between species happening here. I’m sleeping in a large undeveloped lot, big cedar and ferns, in between houses. I can hear dogs barking all around. There’s sign that some large animal has been through here – the ferns are trampled rather than walked-around. A lot of animals having been sleeping under the cedars here – the ground is smoothed into hollows – and there are more trails than I think dogs would make. There’s chewed-up-and-shat out cardboard on the other side of the tree I’m camped under – I can’t tell if it’s bear shit or what, there’s deer shit, and there’s also the dogs in peoples’ yards. So I’m thinking about what the dogs are barking at, whether the dogs are doing to hear me, and whether the dogs keep away the bears. I have to cook, so I have to consider whether bears or dogs will smell it, and how I have to ‘bear bag’ my food now.

Whereas most of my conscious decisions were based on visual sensations in the city and suburbs, now I’m consciously negotiating on visual, olfactory and auditory levels.

The sun is setting now, the light is changing and a police siren is going off in the far distance. I don’t know if it’s the howl of the siren or the falling light that started it, but the coyotes just started howling (their sound is in tune with the police siren) and the dogs in backyards are barking in response. Now I realize that the trails and hollowed-out areas under logs are from coyotes. They obviously sleep in this lot. It’s going to be an interesting night.

...

...

Coming back is really fuckin’ hard, I tell ya.

Standing here, waiting for a bus and being completely inactive and passive and waiting for something else to transport me, something beyond the actions of my own self.

I haven’t done that in the last four days.

Time is completely different as well.

It’s all one big time.

Now I’m whipping by in one of these same vehicles that have been battering me with their sound and movement for the past four days.

Time is no longer subjective.

I’m back in this big illusion of a ticking clock that’s subject to nothing but itself.

No weather, no sunrise, no sunset, no tired feet, no wind.

Walking East 002

Friends, Family, Colleagues, Mentors, Internet-Strangers,

I'd like to let you know about a walking project that I will commence this evening (Wednesday, November 28, 2012) at 6:00 pm.

This is the second of a series of walks I plan to undertake over the next ten months. Each will start in downtown Vancouver and head eastwards, according to some rules that I've listed at the bottom of this message.

In the first walk, I was struck by the vastly different perspective I had of an area that I've lived in for so long. I was also struck by the complete distance I felt from the people in my immediate vicinity, and of my inability to share what I was experiencing in an immediate, direct and personal way. So this time around, I am inviting you to give me a phone call.

I invite you to call any time between sunrise and 9 pm, and I invite you to share the phone number, and/or this email, with anyone else who might be interested. My cellphone number is 778-319-2405. No pressure! I don't expect you to call, and if you do, the conversation doesn't have to be a long one.

Walking East - First Walk – Second Night

The walks have a variety of meanings for me: They are an excuse to get outside, a means to use my whole body and mind to learn, to come to new understandings of the landscape and the beings that surround me. I'm also seeing it as a part of my art practice, as a means to create art, as art in itself, and as a program of research for my Masters of Applied Arts degree. Above all, it is something I enjoy more than I ever would have imagined.

Here are the parameters of the walk:

- Start at Emily Carr University and walk Eastwards.

- When I don't know which route is more East, choose between them completely randomly.

-A route can be any linear trace created by human and/or non-human: road, sidewalk, deer trail, stream bank, ridgeline, gully.

- Do not knowingly trespass.

- Buy food along the way, but do notstray from the random route to buy food.

- The walk ends when I miss a meal or become exceedingly uncomfortable.  

Map of First Walk

Wish me luck!

- Jay White

After Walking East

A couple weeks ago, I did a random walk eastwards, which I called Walking East. Every time I couldn't tell which route was more East, I would randomly choose between the routes. I considered a route to be any kind of linear path, including roads, sidewalks, streambanks, deer trails and ridge lines. I decided that I would stop as soon as I missed a meal. I don't want to give too many details at the moment, except for what I'm posting below:

Ways of acting...

No image today.

My bag is packed for my Walk East (described in the previous post). I'm very excited, but there's an odd feeling as well. I don't want to overdramatize, but it's a different sensation to any kind of trip I've done before, for a couple reasons:

1) I have no idea where I'll be going. Literally five minutes into the walk I'll already be somewhere I didn't expect. The earlier variations will make the most difference as well. I keep looking at maps, guessing where I'll sleep tonight - zoomed out on google maps looking for the green oases of parks with enough trees to hide myself. Which takes me to the second reason:

2) I am aware that I will be encountering the city, suburbs, towns and rural areas in a different way. I've been reading an anthropologist named Tim Ingold lately, and paraphrased one of his ideas and added it to my desktop background:

"Ways of acting in the environment are ways of perceiving it."

I think this is a part of what got me interested in doing a random walk like this. I'll be acting differently in areas I know very well, and I expect that it will lead to a different perception of my environment. I'm already anticipating a number of realizations:

- Parks may be oases of privacy, and areas to sleep in.

- Fresh running water to bathe in may be nonexistent. It will be difficult to find a place to hole up for a while to wash and dry clothes as well. I'm fine with washing shirts in gas station sinks (as long as my shirt doesn't touch the sink - gross!), but then where do I hang out and dry it off?

- Large suburban and rural areas may be like deserts - no privacy, no gas stations for water.

- The above problems will be reduced when I get to wilderness areas, but lack of food source will then be a problem.

The last point is another part of the reason why I wanted to do this project. In the past, I think I've had a romantic notion of being able to 'rough it' in the bush for extended periods of time, but the truth is that it's almost impossible for one person to do such a thing alone. We count on technology and tools and each other to sustain ourselves.

Walking East

My art has been a little different these days. Painting, drawing and animation are still a part of it, but my art practice is blurring more with the rest of my life. There are many reasons why I've gone in this direction - some aren't conscious, and some I probably don't yet realize.

One thing I'm doing is called "Four Stories" - a part of it is shown above. Every day, at six random times, I'm doing a drawing in a random direction, at a random "zoom level". There's no intention to make a nice composition. I'm doing it for one hundred days.

Another thing I'm doing, starting this Wednesday, has no name yet. Lets call it "Walking East". At 4:00 pm, starting at Emily Carr University, I'll be walking eastward. At every intersection where I can't tell which way is more "east", I'll randomly determine which route to take. I won't just be using roads - for me, a "route" will be roads, paths, ridgelines, river edges, streambeds, deer trails... anything that is linear and easy to follow, I guess. Maybe I'll make new definitions of "routes" as I go.

During this period, I'll still be doing "Four Stories" - so a part of this project will be contained within Four Stories. I will also be shooting random video footage eleven times per day, on the hour, between sunrise and sunset. I don't know what I'll do with the footage yet - probably edit it together. I'll also be tracking my path on a topographic map. (No cellphones / GPS, but I'll have a compass just in case.) I'll also have my backpack, tent, campstove, camouflage tarp, lots of raingear, a fishing rod, and other camping necessities.

This is the first part of the project - the next parts will be reflecting on the journey, maybe writing about it, and doing something with the  footage. Who knows, it could expand into a larger project, or it could lead into thoughts on another project to undertake. All I know is that I'm very excited about doing it, and it feels more "me" than any other artwork I've done up to this point in my life.

When will I stop? This is, I think, one of the more interesting parts. I'm not going to start with any food, and will only buy food at places I walk past. Fortunately, there's a market at Granville Island, so I can stock up somewhat (but with fairly heavy food). So the project will end when I get hungry. There won't be any stores out past Chilliwack, so unless I get lucky with buying good lightweight food, or people give me food (which I would never ask for), the project will finish within a week.

If you see me on the side of the highway, toss me a cracker!