"The Walk" by Tony James
An experiment in how we as a culture view video on a computer screen

Originality is dead! Dada is a joke! A modern-day artist can’t just say a piece of work is Dada. Dada was a movement of art, not a be-all and end-all of what relevant art is today. That would mean anyone could create art and make it relevant in today’s critical society. It's 2009, and the world culture has been taught how to view the digital. They’ve been taught how to experience art online. The world has become a tip-toe through the digital abstract. Art can only be abstract in order to be thought of as new! Everything else has been done. My work in this class is an “EXPERIMENT” in working with the most basic of digital forms. I used my iPhone to film everything the audience needs to see. I walked the same way home every night after class and began to see concepts we were talking about. Everywhere I looked were words talking to me; there were words everywhere wanting to sell me something. There was designed literature everywhere in my urban world! A stop sign became a piece of social literature. A walk symbol became a lit moment. Everything in my life was pointing to a video about the habitual everyday experience of living as a modern day techno-pagan urban world. This walk was created to show how simple a digital work of art can be made relevant in today's over-thinking of “KNOWING” a program. It works with the idea of many moments all happening at once. Moments piled upon moments. Spoken word integrated with video. Music incorporated to support the overall emotional element of the work. It may be basic in its digital application, but it's strong in its content. It’s a comment on “How does the world view video online?” In most cases today it comes in spurts of YouTube bliss. It comes and goes as fast as a click. (Change the channel people, there are many programs to watch.) In the end why should a work of digital art matter? It dies if the electric dies. It lives only in cyberspace. Even if it’s printed out or recorded it still lives only in the world it was created for. This project proves that with a little know-how an artist can create for a digital world. An artist can attempt to create something of meaning in a society that has gone mad over the digital life. They want it fast and perfect! This art is made for them. It’s made to capture its viewing pry and hold them. If it does not, it means nothing. The people that see it may never think about it again. They may tell their friends and family about it. They may even book mark its URL to their computers. They saw it. That’s all I wanted. They looked, heard, and experienced it. I plan to use what I learned from this process to incorporate simple video into my future stage productions. The lo-fi has become interesting to me. It challenges the world of high definition. It takes a few steps back to become something new. With very little know-how one can create something interesting and simulating to its audience. My work is done. It speaks for itself. It lives to die.

Melting Native's perspective on "The Walk"

It all began as an experiment. An intent initially created to reach the man-made standards of the elite and latest technology, leading to the exploration and preference of a lo-fi literary experience. "The Walk" came to be as a realization of everyday encounters, a visual and literary demonstration providing proof upon a true fact regarding high def: IT IS NOT NECESSARY. Tony James’s urban walk is relevant to the study of literature today due to the art of poetry incorporated in his video, including the ultimate truth which arises from his encounter of the everyday reality: ART IS ART; there is no specific medium or video to create, simply a matter of creating and sharing "The Walk." The production and process of "The Walk" by James changed and developed as the course unraveled. Beginning with the idea of sharing a walk and exploring urban surroundings, to relational aesthetics working towards the exploration of a culture and incorporation of art into it, instead of against it. “In the beginning I was planning on doing interviews, but then it all changed, as I constantly walked from place to place and realized that no verbal interviews were necessary. Signs and graffiti for instance! We are daily bombarded by literature outside of ourselves trying to tell us something,” James said. "The Walk" did not only prove to me how in life one can create (whether you are a lo-fi or high def person), but also how as human beings we seek to incorporate ourselves and set ourselves aside at the same time. There are no limits; there are just ideas with potentials.

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