Good Medicine ✚: End of the Year Walk Planning

I feel that a lot of my works in extended practices have had an underlined humor about them. I think humor is important to me because it helps me avoid getting swallowed up by everyday stresses; humor keeps me grounded.

I cannot stop thinking about our 'going against the plan' task.

I like to get rises out of people by going against the norm. I like the idea of not fitting in and being different. I think this notion is the fuel for my next and final walk of this year.

Here are some works/artists I admire and will be keeping in mind

Kelly Mark
Hiccup
A form of not walking... but watching the world walk

7 channel DVD video: 15 minutes each, silent
photo credit: Emily Brian / video credit: Marc Piccinato

This 7-channel video entitled "Hiccup" is based on a 30 day performance that took place daily between 8:45 am & 9:00 am at Central Tech High School in downtown Toronto. Conceived as an orchestrated "ballet of the ordinary", the work pivots on the play of two differentiated timelines: my standardized routine of carefully choreographed body movements, juxtaposed against the limitless variables of the everyday world.

Everyday for one month I arrived at the front of the school at the exact same time, wearing the same clothes and sitting on the same step. Then as the students began to arrive, I began my performance of a pre-set routine of simple everyday actions. I smoked a cigarette, took sips from my coffee, looked to the left, stretched my leg, adjusted my hat, red the same 5 pages from a book and underlined the same passage etc... Although appearing to be moving and acting in a completely natural and spontaneous way I was in fact, with the aid of a pre-recorded and time audio track on headphones, completing the exact same actions and gestures everyday at exactly the same time. For one month I entered into the normal daily routine of the people around me as a background element... a small anonymous deja-vu experience.
During this month I had 7 days of this performance video taped from across the street, this is what was exhibited, and the effect of each video shows me moving in synch with myself from monitor to monitor while everything else around me is different.

exhibition history>
2003 Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery (Toronto, ON);

Taken from: http://kellymark.com/Hiccup1_1.html

Kelly Mark