Walk 'til You Run Out of Water
This image essay brings together notions of dehydration and lostness in outback walking (based on personal experience) with its ecological counterpoint of the rapid change occurring in our world today. Analogical comparisons are drawn between the point where walking loses its rhythm (because of exha...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Published: |
Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd
2012
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/3549 |
| _version_ | 1848744262130204672 |
|---|---|
| author | Phillips, Perdita |
| author_facet | Phillips, Perdita |
| author_sort | Phillips, Perdita |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | This image essay brings together notions of dehydration and lostness in outback walking (based on personal experience) with its ecological counterpoint of the rapid change occurring in our world today. Analogical comparisons are drawn between the point where walking loses its rhythm (because of exhaustion) with ecosystems that, too, appear to have lost their way. Questioning whether it is only through rhythmic walking that positive states can occur, it is proposed that walking out-of-step leads to contrapuntal adjustments that can reinvigorate creative practice, utilising the same ‘adjustment to failure’ strategies critical to the experimental nature of contemporary art practice. The continual fine-tuning required for traversing rough ground also reflects the dynamic nature of ecosystems, which are permanently adjusting to change. Recent ecological theory's focus on complex adaptive systems – and resilience rather than stability – means that our responses to ecosystems and the pressures we are placing upon them, must be dynamic, responsive and contingent. Does the sharpness of being without water focus us on the shifting socio-ecological conditions ahead? Walking and bodily sensitisation to place opens us up to different spatial and temporal scales. In making linkages with disability philosophy and research into community inaction in the face of climate change, it is argued that the inflection or break-in-step of a resilient style of walking can also be employed for creative socio-ecological change. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T05:58:40Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-3549 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T05:58:40Z |
| publishDate | 2012 |
| publisher | Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-35492017-09-13T14:44:02Z Walk 'til You Run Out of Water Phillips, Perdita This image essay brings together notions of dehydration and lostness in outback walking (based on personal experience) with its ecological counterpoint of the rapid change occurring in our world today. Analogical comparisons are drawn between the point where walking loses its rhythm (because of exhaustion) with ecosystems that, too, appear to have lost their way. Questioning whether it is only through rhythmic walking that positive states can occur, it is proposed that walking out-of-step leads to contrapuntal adjustments that can reinvigorate creative practice, utilising the same ‘adjustment to failure’ strategies critical to the experimental nature of contemporary art practice. The continual fine-tuning required for traversing rough ground also reflects the dynamic nature of ecosystems, which are permanently adjusting to change. Recent ecological theory's focus on complex adaptive systems – and resilience rather than stability – means that our responses to ecosystems and the pressures we are placing upon them, must be dynamic, responsive and contingent. Does the sharpness of being without water focus us on the shifting socio-ecological conditions ahead? Walking and bodily sensitisation to place opens us up to different spatial and temporal scales. In making linkages with disability philosophy and research into community inaction in the face of climate change, it is argued that the inflection or break-in-step of a resilient style of walking can also be employed for creative socio-ecological change. 2012 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/3549 10.1080/13528165.2012.671078 Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd restricted |
| spellingShingle | Phillips, Perdita Walk 'til You Run Out of Water |
| title | Walk 'til You Run Out of Water |
| title_full | Walk 'til You Run Out of Water |
| title_fullStr | Walk 'til You Run Out of Water |
| title_full_unstemmed | Walk 'til You Run Out of Water |
| title_short | Walk 'til You Run Out of Water |
| title_sort | walk 'til you run out of water |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/3549 |