Left Foot, Right Foot

Abstract

How can experiences found in ordinary moments of sauntering fuel artistic activity? Yiannis Christidis and Efi Kyprianidou are involved in an experimental collaboration using digital media to explore the relationship between repetitive bodily processes, such as walking, and the mental experiences of mind-wandering and focused reasoning.

The present artwork aims to critically examine the special relation of walking to mind-clearing and thinking, focusing on walking’s repetitiveness, drawing on White Dog by Charles Bukowski, and attempting a conceptual parallelization with the above twofold model. Left foot, right foot. Left foot, right foot: during that otherwise monotonous procedure the body is active without at the same time demanding the mind’s concentration or significant cognitive control. This continuous and automatic performance of the body – a kind of “flow” experience – frees the mind and directs attention away from the self and toward the outside world, or facilitates a concrete mode of self-reflection. Recently, research in the fields of psychology and neuroscience provided evidence that avoiding self-focused attention may have positive affects to overcoming negative memory and symptoms of depression (Brockmeyer et al 2015).