Artist Statement
                                                Ilija Vukasovic
These days, people are obsessed with recording life as though simply living is not enough. At any event or monument you can find tourists with cameras full of all the same photographs which, with the digital media of the day, will likely never be printed to a physical surface, and will remain as data on a memory card for years to come. I can’t help but think that the act of recording has become a universal compulsion, and I wonder what that means for us as a collective world of people. What does is mean that we fail to realize how much we miss out on by trying so hard not to miss out? I personally photograph very few events, though I do take a few snapshots here and there to document my whereabouts and sometimes post them on Facebook for my family and friends. This video was created as an exploration into the art of documentation. I recorded one of the most mundane events of my life: walking. I edited the video to mark my path and my relationship to the path. The video is a digital map of my favorite places along roads I often take throughout Siena. The drawings incorporated signify my personal documentation of some of these locations.
check youtube video… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws0RGDIDfLw&feature=youtu.be

Reactions to video:

X said: I like the juxtaposition between the moving pictures and the frozen images. It makes me think about the way I look at my surroundings when I travel, and the way I perceive the world.

X2 said: The video makes me think about the importance of the cat of walking compared with the importance of location. In the video, most people would not be able to make out where the location is, especially if they aren’t from Siena. It says something about life in general—that it is more about the journey and the transformations than the milestones and destinations.

X3 said: The video is subtle in its message which is good because it allows more room for interpretation by the viewer. It’s a video that doesn’t even necessarily need to be interpreted because in and of itself it is a piece of art that depicts a simple part of life.

The author of this paper makes a strong point about the importance of walking. It is interesting that she calls it art, and I think that I agree with her that it is. Art is a way of communicating, and it is incredible how powerful of a message simply walking can send. People walk for so many different reasons. I walk to calm down when I am stressed out. There have been many times when I have left for a walk in a bad mood and come back feeling like a new person. This paper made me look at walking as not only beneficial for an individual, but as a way of sharing the experience in order to understand the world better. Walking is something humans learn to do when they are young, something that is important because it allows us to move from one place to another. We take is for granted because we have walked all our lives. But there it is important to remember not only that the simplest things shouldn’t be taken for granted, but that the simplest things are often the most important. Walking not only is a means of traveling, but it is a way of being a part of a world that is constantly changing. There is a big difference between thinking while you are sitting and thinking while you are walking. When you are walking, you are in a state of motion along with the world, rather than letting the world just carry you along. I think that walking is an underrated action, and a beautiful form of art.