#312 Pace

I did this work by pacing the edges of a panel with wet filler, 99 laps wearing plastic clogs.

For me, the work is about how the physical limitations of existence shape our bodies and patterns of movement. Economic power is applied from the outside and influence our lives to a greater degree than our inner motivations. The vast majority belong to the working class, i.e. everyone who is employed - earns a living through wages or benefits. Their freedom of movement is, to a large extent, dictated by external conditions beyond their control. The shape of their tracks is primarily characterised by monotonous repetition. Many attempts to break this pattern take the form of crime, leading to further spatial confinement. It is no coincidence that the prisons are full of people without financial resources. The prisoner's movements are restricted to pacing the walls of the cell.

Nevertheless, submission to external circumstances is something that characterises the whole subject on a fundamental level. Being an independent, self-conscious individual, capable of making free choices, depends on a boundary between the mind and the environment. The subject's primordial state is alienation. It raises a desire to break this isolation and dissolve the closed circuit of the subject and create a connection to the body or other entities outside one's self. It can involve complete devotion and denial of one's own will, but just as often mean applying extensive self-discipline and total control of inner impulses. As, for example, through different meditation techniques.