Telegraph (Prespa) is a video art work, result of the participatory artistic project with the same name, by the artists Christopher Kaczmarek and Deirdre Macleod and executed over the course of the International Walking Arts Encounters/Conference Prespa 2021.
Open for global participation, the project consisted of interrelated isolated segments of contribution and interaction between individuals in Prespa, Greece and locations around the world who come together to form an integrated whole. Particular to the work was the idea of creating an interconnected, shared space of walking that is global in scope, but tethered to specific individual geographic areas. Through this project, Prespa became a hub of connection forming remote intimacies between distant locales where experience of place was encountered through walking, and the transference of place through observation, exchange, and performance.
Through the use of walking as a structure to explore the specifics of place, this artistic project allows for the entwinement of local and global participation as the observations, transferences, and recreations occurred in the spaces that were occupied by the participants. Together they created new stories and formed points of local and remote intimacy and connection through exchange.
The enactment of the work requested participants to engage in an exchange of walks, while following the below prompts:
Part 1: Go for a short walk in your locale, at the farthest point of the walk, capture (through video) an observed gesture. Translate that gesture into a written prompt that can be recited within a single breath. Upload the video of the captured gesture, and your written prompt
Part 2: Receive written prompts describing a gesture to perform. Go for a short walk in your locale, at the farthest point of the walk, perform the received prompt and capture your performance (on video.) Upload the video of the performed gesture.
The third part was completed by the project artist/organizers who collected the uploaded videos and written prompts, and edited them in a sequence that reveals and connects the spaces through a collective composition. As the captured gestures are paired and connected with the performed gestures through the written prompts, the spaces become conflated through an association of activity and participation.
Telegraph (Prespa) participants:
Herman Bashironlerjentours, Agency for Walking CultureEllie BerryRebekah EdwardsFaye TzanetoulakouFay StevensPatricia MirandaLydia Matthews
With special thanks to the conference organizersGeert Vermeire and Yannis Ziogas