“They will discover out of ordinary things the meaning of ordinariness. They will not try to make them extraordinary but will only state their real meaning. But out of this they will devise the extraordinary”, Kaprow’s 1958 Prophesy in The Shape of walk. This reading seeks to uncover the idea behind our ordinary ritual, walking, and inspires us to visualize it as a form of art. Walking not only emphasizes the body, but also acts as art, and the artists that were mentioned in the reading amplified the role of process of presentational modes of action. “One such gesture- an ordinary one from which the extraordinary can be derived- is walking”. Andre’s idea, “ a piece of sculpture is a road”, “ That is, a road doesn’t reveal itself at any particular point or form any particular point, they appear and disappear”, this idea to me changes my perception when walking on the streets. Living in an Urban city such as New York, my perception of the streets turns to the idea of Vertical walking, watching everyone pass me through the vertical roads and talk skyscrapers, I see nothing but what’s ahead of me. Just like what Lippard describes New York to have “color and light beyond traditional impressionism by adding the elements of distance and time taken to perceive it”. However in the reading, it inspires you to create that as a form of art, a living museum that you are walking through and absorbing the environment.
The notion of the Chinese tradition of the “Four dignities” in that ‘they are ways of being fully ourselves at home in our bodies, in their fundamental modes’, similarly to meditating in these four postures.
