A Few of the Images from the Aleatoric Country Walk

The final route consisted of 24 images and on this aleatoric journey I decided to measure the subjects for display purpose. After speaking with my peers I had decided to display the images on plinths, elevating the image to its real size in the real world. The 24 plinths would be placed as the images had been taken in a 6 ft x 4 ft sculpture.

Aleatoric Country Walk Rules

‘Aleatoric Country Walk’ is an alternative way of selecting imagery and this was achieved by making some rules. The rules were influenced by ‘The Boyle Family – World Series 1968 – on-going’  mainly by their selection of this body of random chosen subjects. For this work mark and Jill Boyle invited random visitors to their studio, were they blindfolded them and asked them to throw a dart at the map of the world. They ended up with 1000 locations around the world, which they started to visit the sites and made selection of the earth in a relief form.

Another main influence was the ‘MAMA – the Movement of Aleatoric Modern Artists’ a movement of approx. 50 members that pays tribute to the Dadaists of the early 20^th Century. The members are selected for their relinquishment of partial control of their creative process to the hands of fate, the laws of physics. 

I had previously worked with dice and maps to decide locations for projects, so decided to incorporate this within this study. This time I wanted the dice to predict the amount of time I walked around the familiar walks. So when rolling the two dice I decided to multiply the dice together to gain the walking time to each location, I would then hold the camera on auto setting approx. 2ft above the area directly in front of me. The subject’s height was then measured and documented. The dice were then rolled again and the process repeated until the walk was completed.

Rules

1.     Pick a route by lucky dip selection.

2.     At starting point roll the dice x 2 dice

3.     Multiply dice rolled to determine the amount of minutes to walk

4.     Start stopwatch

5.     Stop when the time has elapsed

6.     Hold camera approx. 2 ft. above subject directly in front of my feet

7.     Do not look through the viewfinder and take an image

8.     Re – roll the dice and start the process over again until route/work completed

This process removed me from any decision-making and the decision to take the image directly in front of me allowed me to see new fragments of these walks that I had previously not noticed. I also decided on a few rules for postproduction. I was only allowed to use auto levels and sharpen. So the images are what they are. 

Everyday Views on Walks

Living in the countryside I frequently take walks around my immediate area enjoying the beautiful scenery, however, I became aware that I was possibly overlooking small fragments of the environment. I had regularly taken the same walks on certain days falling into a bit of a routine.

Everyday Views Taken prior to Aleatoric Country walks

My objective was to devise rules that dictated the walk I took and the images I took to represent the countryside. Allowing me to see the world through fresh eyes.