#sensorial #urbanwalk #choreography-of-attention

Part of the transdisciplinary focus Rural-Urban Relations.

“I wondered for a moment if this was how the universe felt before it expanded.”

An encounter between two people and a fragment of a city, at a specific moment in time.
Led by the gentle yet reassuring touch of a performer, we embark on an hour-long walk with our eyes closed that allows us to experience the city and its urban spaces anew – nothing like what we have ever experienced before. A choreography of attention by internationally acclaimed artist Myriam Lefkowitz who presents her work in Hungary for the first time.

Walk, Hands, Eyes (a city) is a walk in the city that involves two people: one with the eyes closed (called the "visitor") and one with the eyes open (called "the guide"). The visitor is being guided through a specific mode of touch during one hour in silence. At different moments (maximum 10 times in an hour) the visitor is asked to open their eyes in the moment of a flash to encounter different ‘images’ chosen and shown by the guide along the way.

“Open/close”, “step up/step down” will be the only spoken words of the walk.

The path is based on the notion of contrasts: contrasts of rhythm, of touch, of all the elements composing the fragments of the city the walk is happening in (lights, sounds, floors, indoor and outdoor spaces...).

This walk has no route apart from having nowhere to go. It expects nothing. It is only the encounter between two people and a fragment of a city, at a specific moment in time.

Walk, Hands, Eyes (a city) invites visitors to slide into a different mode of perception that involves temporarily suspending vision and noticing how this might affect our sensorial and imaginary activity.

What bodies and cities are we walking in?

This walk is a mobile observatory of the urban space it traverses. It consists of a study of a specific site based on direct perceptions. It does not impose itself on a site, but rather exposes itself to it, attempting to approach it as an unknown space.

A duo of witness-walkers, gleaners of images and perceptions who, through the amplification of their sensitive attentions, draw a mobile portrait of the environment they have traversed. Questioning the relationship between the act of perceiving and the act of imagining, the experience of this walk suggests other possible uses of urban space.

The city is no longer seen and felt as a fixed environment, but as a space in transformation.
It is no longer about what is there, but what could be.