Footed Explorations
I have the habit of walking the orchards and to let that which I encounter lead me through them; allow for the sentiments experienced via sounds, sights, smells, and touches, sometimes even tastes and most definitely textures, take my feet step by step through hundreds of plants. I get lost, in many senses. In some sense found, too, for few things get my head work while remaining relaxed the way that walks through these enchanting fields of oliveti secolari do. The happenstance of these explorations, encounters, and experiences most often occur almost as random as my walks within them, for I many times just happen to drive by, on my way to or from somewhere, when something for some reason catches my attention. It is usually a peculiar trunk, which there are many of here, and if I not have the time to allow myself one of these footed explorations at that specific moment, a note is taken and a deliberate excursion made at a later date. This week, all of the footed explorations were deliberate, me working with my second field report, thus being in need of focused clearing of the head. Intentional in their mode of excursion as they were, the place of them, as well as my being in these places occurred, as most often, in a going-with-the-flow mode of attention.
All of the visuals are from three different orchards that I this week got lost and found in through footed exploration. I had prior to this week never experienced these specific orchards before, and there is truly little wonder about that, for there are thousands of orchards in this place. However, I will most likely walk them again, for another habitual practice of mine, additionally to that of walking the orchards to begin with, is to return to orchards previously visited. For instance, to experience them at different times of the day and year and to, through modes of recurrences, widening and deepening my experiences. By way of example, to encounter any given plant from another direction may open space for other dynamics — let alone, perspectives — to transpire, thus consider.
Some photographs and videos do these places and plants more justice than others. That is at once a merit and regret on my behalf; to be able to capture the sublime — enchanting really — presence of some but not that of others. That said, I am currently in the practice of experimenting with for instance video and tape recordings to create a mode of interaction that represent the matters featured in such a way that the audience may sense the environment and make own interpretations of it. It is an exploration much resembling those of my footed ones, embodied and explorative in character as they are undertaken.
