Walking as epistemology: the map is not the territory

White, R (2017) Walking as epistemology: the map is not the territory. In: Elastic Spaces Third International Symposium 2017, 11 - 13 October 2017, Bath Spa University, UK.

Abstract

Sweet Waters: walking as epistemology. A walking arts practice exploring intra-action of body and place. The walks are ephemeral pieces performed live by the walking participants, whose presence resonates and is extended via social media. The social media forms part of a materialising of the experience that seeks to extend its presence. This presentation focuses on the Sweet Waters cycle of walks hosted by Richard in June 2017. The walks set out to sense legacies of slave-ownership in Bath and along the River Avon, culminating in a 30 mile walk from Avonmouth on midsummers day. My focus is on body and place in the context of intangible cultural heritage, my creative practice involves walking and digital media, specifically social media. My PhD research experiments with a networked, performative, participatory walking arts practice exploring how and in what way we can attend to, articulate, reveal and engage with obscured or reluctant heritage. Working with the technology many people have in their pockets, I make social media trails. I use two interlinked platforms to access social media geo tags and to link and aggregate posts to a map, thus both enabling other networked users to follow a walk live whilst generating a mnemonic record of the walk. The presentation will focus on this aspect of my walking practice and I will discuss the use of this networked mapping activity in the context of my recent walking projects. I will report on experimenting with social media and the socio-technical practices of the mobile device as strategies for materialising, capturing and archiving. Our bodies intra-act with places: I argue for walking as an onto-epistemological practice.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) N Fine Arts > NX Arts in general
Divisions:	Bath School of Art, Film and Media
Date Deposited:	27 Nov 2018 10:58
Last Modified:	06 Jan 2022 19:36
URI / Page ID:	https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/10329

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