3656—Three Timed Walks in Haida Gwaii

3656 initiates a clear process of distillation from personal experience to a poetic text supplied in tandem with the visual output of a custom software engine that utilizes it (the poetry) for input—a visual output created with the specific intention of accounting for the lost meaning of the text.

The poetic structure is a four line stanza defined by a prescribed number of syllables on each successive line—three, six, five, and six syllables respectively. The poem is written upon return to the studio based upon a set of stream-of-consciousness notes made immediately after the lived experience—a timed walk of one hour, one minute, and thirty three seconds—3,656 seconds—in line with the structure of the poem. Each new image is created automatically (algorithmically) by the engine, which may run indefinitely, or be rebooted, providing a unique output every time. For this first series of three works, the walks were conducted on three separate beaches on Haida Gwaii—an archipelago off Canada’s Northwest Coast. (Description continued below…)