‘Sploring – 30/8/03

A Drift with Daniel, Rachel, Stephen and Video

What I found remarkable about this – watching

the uncut video of 80 minutes of drift - is the
shape:

Explaining to Rachel and Daniel that at each

junction they would take it in turns to choose the
direction. Their sprinting off down Howell Road.
And then once we’re into less familiar territory
they slow for a half hour exploration of the
texture of a railway bridge wall and some shrubs.
Then the focus switches to the gutters and the remains of lots of
balloons. Then we slip into the rail system and finally loop back
through the Hoopern Valley path as the rains begin to fall.

Stephen edited it for a talk to artists in Cornwall.

In December Rachel and I walked some of the drift again and then
we peeled away – through a multi-storey car
park, up the ramp to the side of which a hidden
piece of roof over a stairwell has been stenciled
with footprints, one inner wall of which is
covered by large, resonant, primary shapes.

Rachel: It feels like they’re giants and they’re

going to run over you.

Me: Is that what it looks like?

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Rachel: That’s what it feels like.

The Z World in the city wall found on the February DRIFT we re-
found in December. It still has the Z Smarties top I found and put
inside it; a small repository for fragments of its own sculpture of
limitations. The Z World of agricultural decay found on the Buller
Walk was a working model of the velocity of a
waiting botany too quick for animals. Accessible
via disruptions. These Z Worlds can be high
concentration zones on a forthcoming
mythogeographical ‘map’, a hybrid of place and
key.

Stephen: Do you… Daniel, I’m going to

interview you now…

Daniel: I wanna see…

Stephen: Have you seen TV interviews, like on the news…

Phil: Stephen’s going to talk to you… you talk to Stephen…

Stephen: Daniel, do you go on many walks like this…

Rachel: No. He doesn’t.

Stephen: … where you choose different directions to go in…

just randomly?

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Rachel: Not normally. He’s only done it once.

Stephen: Have you done it much, Rachel?

Rachel: Yeh, lots.

Daniel: Ow!

Phil: You watch the camera…

Stephen: What … where have you

ended up before?

Rachel: Um…

Daniel: That’s Daniel?

Rachel: One time we ended up at

the student part…

Daniel: I want to see!

Rachel: Where the students were…

Stephen: In this type of walking does it really matter where

you end up?

Rachel: No.

Stephen: What’s it about then?

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Daniel: O!

Rachel: It’s about finding stuff.

Stephen: Stuff you don’t know is going to be there?

Rachel: Yeh.

Stephen: What sort of things have you found before?

Rachel: Big towers and buildings and stuff… and… (drowned

out by traffic)

Stephen: Sounds interesting…

(transcribed from video recorded by Stephen)

Phil Smith