Annette Weintraub: Pedestrian: Walking as Meditation and the Lure of Everyday Objects

Screenshots from turbulence.org

Title:

Pedestrian: Walking as Meditation and the Lure of Everyday Objects

Artist(s) and People Involved:

Exhibiting Artist(s):

Annette Weintraub

Symposium:

ISEA97: Eighth International Symposium on Electronic Art

Artist Statement:

Pedestrian is a layered work which evokes the special resonance of urban space through the experience of walking, and in an encounter with ordinary objects. Part of a larger project which will include a interactive multimedia CD-ROM, artists book and still images, Pedestrian is a meditation on perception and place, and on the capacity of ordinary objects to trigger altered states of memory and reverie. Taking the form of a series of episodic elements which examine particular intersections of place, time and substance, Pedestrian employs the mundane to reveal the magical.

This Web-based work uses the interplay of text along with image, sound, and video to explore architectural form, mass culture iconography and oddities of human interaction as occasions for surprise and revelation. Pedestrian uses the metaphor of walking, as a means of navigating memory and consciousness. A walk through the City becomes the trigger for a rambling meditation on space, time and human interaction, seen through chance encounters with evocative objects. The narrative of Pedestrian Is composed of several discrete regions, each region providing a distinct visual and textual experience. From a hommage to the noir city films of the 50’s, to a ballet of everyday objects, or to an examination of store windows as shrines, Pedestrian provides an opportunity to explore the hidden meanings of the everyday.