The Ghost in the Pedometer
Like everyone else, I’ve been thinking about AI. Often on my walks. OK, it can render a perfect map, predict the geology under my feet, summarise the history of the towpath. But it cannot feel my jolt of irritation as a Deliveroo cyclist swerves around me, or the painful realisation that the sandals I haven’t worn all winter are giving me a blister. Nor can it pause in wonder at the confetti of petals falling from an ornamental cherry tree.
For the walking artist, the work exists precisely in that friction. In a world of frictionless, automated content, the irritations and small joys of 'being there' become the point. The body is the instrument; the footsteps are the method. Conversations, glitches, wrong turns, the sudden peach-tint in a cloud after rain, these are textures no prompt can generate.
Yet the new generation of "agentic" AI like Mythos can plan, reason, anticipate, act. It will sharpen the question already circling among creators: is this replacing what we do? The response is often a mix of grief, anger, scepticism, and occasionally, curiosity. I find myself leaning toward the latter. What if AI is not a rival, but a potential companion, a ghost on the path?
These systems are trained on the traces we have left behind: maps, diaries, photos. The ghosts of our own experience. Charles Dickens walking at night, hearing the cries from Bethlem Royal Hospital. Virginia Woolf slipping out to buy a pencil so she might dissolve into the swirl of strangers. For better or worse, AI has absorbed these traces, and can recall them to us on the road.
Maybe these new AI are like ghosts longing for what we have: a body. And maybe they have something to offer us too. I want to know what they 'see' when they look at the same traffic-strafed road, the same gloomy alley or canal path as I do. What do they remember? What do they want to whisper? Can they give us their own imperfect translation of the birdsong, the insect chorus?
Perhaps the ghost is not here to replace us. Perhaps it wants to communicate with us, to haunt us back toward what we keep walking past.
The only way I know to think any of this through is to keep walking. This seems like the right moment to remind you of our Pilgrimage Poetry Competition: Solvitur Ambulando. Deadline midnight Monday 27th April. Pilgrims send us your poems!
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Writer, walker, digital storyteller, psychogeographer
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Placecloud
Researchers use Placecloud to mark sites of significance with short podcasts.
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Do not miss this!
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2026-05-05 18:00 UTC
· Online
Faith-based, radical and community-led paths Today pilgrimage destinations and routes are not limited by faith alone, some not even constrained by an existing route, but carving a new route drawing attention to contested sites and issues sometimes of global significance. Art has been entwined with pilgrimage from the o... Keep reading
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We have been on the ‘look-out’ for a poetry competition or prize that is exclusively focused on walking and to date we haven’t found one (apart from our own). The poetry universe is huge, there are prizes awarded for hundreds of themes, and many of the more general ones have chosen walking as a theme Keep reading
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Free for supporting members, open to everyone
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2026-05-05 18:00 UTC
· Online
Faith-based, radical and community-led paths Today pilgrimage destinations and routes are not limited by faith alone, some not even constrained by an existing route, but carving a new route drawing attention to contested sites and issues sometimes of global significance. Art has been entwined with pilgrimage from the o... Keep reading
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2026-05-11 18:00 UTC
· Online
In association with the Urban Tree Festival, we welcome Marlene Creates award-winning photographer and long time supporter of walk · listen · create, as our café guest. Marlene will discuss some of the work she has done over the past 24 years in her outdoor studio, which is a six-acre (2.4 hectares) patch of old-growth... Keep reading
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In this episode, we continue our conversations with Dr. Tamara Russell. Tamara is a clinical psychologist, neuroscientist, martial artist and mindfulness trainer. S... Start listening
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Upcoming events
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29 Apr - 26 Jul, 2026 UTC
· Carl-Schurz-Straße 49, 13597 Berlin, Spandau, Germany
Opening: 29.04.2026 19:00
Exhibition: 30.04.–26.07.2026 Wednesdays to Sundays 12:00 – 18:00
Galerie Historischer Keller
Carl-Schurz-Straße 49, 13597 Berl... Keep reading
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2026-05-02 08:30 UTC
· Online
The session introduces oral history, storytelling and “walking archives” as decolonial and sensory methods. Participants design and facilitate a Collective Memory W... Keep reading
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2026-05-02 17:00 UTC
· Sherbrooke, QC, Canada
[A Chorus of Footsteps](https://aifoon.org/en/onze-projecten/geluidsdrager) is an urban, immersive sound walk that explores how sound shapes the identity of our sur... Keep reading
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2026-05-02 19:30 UTC
· 74 Rue Albert, Sherbrooke, QC J1H 1M9, Canada
[A Chorus of Footsteps](https://aifoon.org/en/onze-projecten/geluidsdrager) is an urban, immersive sound walk. Twenty walkers move through the city, collectively ca... Keep reading
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2026-05-03 17:00 UTC
· 74 Rue Albert, Sherbrooke, QC J1H 1M9, Canada
[A Chorus of Footsteps](https://aifoon.org/en/onze-projecten/geluidsdrager) is an urban, immersive sound walk. Twenty walkers move through the city, collectively ca... Keep reading
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2026-05-03 19:30 UTC
· 74 Rue Albert, Sherbrooke, QC J1H 1M9, Canada
[A Chorus of Footsteps](https://aifoon.org/en/onze-projecten/geluidsdrager) is an urban, immersive sound walk. Twenty walkers move through the city, collectively ca... Keep reading
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2026-05-03 13:00 UTC
· Lumb Carr Rd Car Park, Lumb Carr Road, Holcombe, Bury, UK
Mark-making walks on the moors, every Sunday afternoon in May led by artist and PhD research Neil Greenhalgh. Keep reading
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WALC
Walking Arts & Local Communities (WALC) is an artistic cooperation project, co-funded by the European Union, Creative Europe, starting in January 2024 for four years. With seven partners from five countries, WALC establishes an International Center for Artistic Research and Practice of Walking Arts, in Prespa, Greece, at the border with Albania and North Macedonia, backed up by an online counterpart in the format of a digital platform for walking arts.
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2026-05-02 08:30 UTC
· Online
The session introduces oral history, storytelling and “walking archives” as decolonial and sensory methods. Participants design and facilitate a Collective Memory W... Keep reading
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This is Part I of a two part series about footpath parking, based on the presentation and conference paper by LSA Treasurer Dr Chris Teo-Sherrell and Jeanette Ward,... Keep reading
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The street art festival which first took place back in 2017 is back with large and small works. Source: Street art: Everything you need to know about Aberdeen Nuart... Keep reading
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To craft her noisy compositions, the designer is drawn to everything that is at odds with playing by the rules. Source: Nao Lee’s posters are digital terrains that ... Keep reading
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Benches are microcosms of an expansive debate about who belongs in urban public spaces. When they are removed or made uninviting, we lose more than just a place to ... Keep reading
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