Richard Long – A Line Made By Walking

In this early performance art work, Richard Long visualizes a simple gesture: walking backwards and forwards in a field. He repeats this gesture until a visible mark appears in the grass below his feet indicating his path. In this 1967 work, Long aims to materialize an otherwise fleeting gesture through a durational performance. One imagines this line disappearing over time, becoming grown over. The line is a ghostly indication of what was once there.

Pathways at the University of Calgary

Thinking about a similar kind of performative data visualization, I thought about the paved pathway system at the University of Calgary, where I studied for my undergrad. The pathways were not laid out according to any sort of Cartesian plan. Rather, they were laid overtop of paths worn in the grass by students taking the same routes, etching them out in the ground the same way Richard Long did. There is an interesting democracy in this sort of method.