Sarah Choi – Looking Outwards – 09

Browsing through the Looking Outwards assignments, I chose Julia Nishizaki’s Looking Outwards-06 about Tim Knowles’ Windwalks project. This London based artist focuses on using different mechanisms to form wind patterns directed by a series of walks. Filmed and plotted with a GPS, the line drawing below was the outcome of the design. This immediately stood out to me given my interest in art portraying natural forms of our world. I completely concur with my peer’s assessment of Knowles’ art as she explains the incorporation of the randomness of wind patterns and how this creates a more meaningful experience for the audience.

However, I feel this creates more than just “deeper relationships between individuals, their cities, and the wind itself.” I believe Knowles was trying to recreate and appreciate impalpable aspects of nature such as the wind by involving people in his project. He creates a series of walks starting in Taylor Square, Sydney and allowing people to disperse and walk through city routes for a full hour. By creating this interactive but calculated schema, he was able to bring people not only closer to their environment and nature but also gave them more an appreciation of art in general. Most of the time, people are unaware of the empirical research involved in creating art forms to a wider audience. Knowles was able to use his greatest passion to depict aspects of life that often gets forgotten and underappreciated in the nature of a physically focused group of people.

http://www.timknowles.co.uk/Work/Windwalks/tabid/496/Default.aspx