Artist Antti Laitinen continues his Walk the Line art project as a live performance on October 27th, 2008.
Live Herring has invited artist Antti Laitinen to Jyväskylä (Finland) to continue his art project Walk the Line. In Jyväskylä Laitinen will realize this self-portrait for the first time as a live performance. The performance will start on October 27th, 2008 at 12 p.m. Helsinki time (gmt +02:00) / 10 a.m. London time (gmt +00:00) and it can be followed on the internet. Performance will last around four hours. Performance can be followed here.
In the Walk the Line project, Laitinen will walk his portrait with the help of a satellite recorder (GPS). Laitinen will first print his portrait on a map of the city of Jyväskylä. Then on October 27th, he will orientate himself in Jyväskylä according the lines of his portrait with satellite recorder (GPS), which will draw a digital path. After walking the line of his portrait, Laitinen will print these images: the actual map with the picture and the drawing of the path that he has walked. The printed portraits will be revealed at the opening of the exhibition on October 29th.
In Jyväskylä, the “walking” of the portrait will be realized for the first time as a live performance so that everyone with internet connection will be able to see how the portrait develops. The software that is used for this performance is called GPS-seuranta. It has been developed by software designer Pekka Varis, from Jyväskylä. This software tracks the satellite recorder live. Previously, this software was mainly used for sports events but it will now be used in an art project.
Laitinen started the Walk the Line project in Athens, Greece in 2004. Later on, he also realized the project in Gateshead, Helsinki, Kielder Forest, Newcastle, Oulunkylä Forest, Pontburn Woods, Warsaw, Krakow and Luukkaa Forest. In the Live Herring ´08 exhibition, several previous portraits will be exhibited in addition to the portrait realized in Jyväskylä. Laitinen has drawn attention to the differences between the portraits from different places. Each portrait varies from the others depending on the ground that he has walked on (the accessibility and formation) but also depending of the route choices he has had to make quickly while walking. There is also, of course, the possibility of taking a wrong turn.
