World-Wide-Walks@40 (Selected Works, 1973-2012)
Peter d'Agostino
2012, 63:53 min, color and b&w, sound
World-Wide-Walks@40 (Selected Works, 1973-2012)
Peter d'Agostino
2012, 63:53 min, color and b&w, sound
In this early, performance-based work, d'Agostino experiments with perceptions of landscape, time and point of view. The Walk Series documents three different "walks" (on a roof, a fence and a beach) that the artist took in the San Francisco area, while recording with a hand-held camera.
After initiating The Walk Series (1973-74) in San Francisco, d'Agostino produced pond/pass/peak as video "documentation/performances" while backpacking in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains. These early walks were the beginning of a process of exploring natural and cultural environments that has continued to evolve as the World-Wide-Walks over the past four decades.
This video examines the many paradoxes of natural, cultural and virtual identities. Peter d'Agostino's cross-cultural interests led directly back to the personal histories and cultural memories of his Italian American roots. The video moves back and forth in time by juxtaposing iconic images of his walks on Mount Vesuvius and through Pompeii, near Naples the birthplace of his parents, with places in the Italian American community of The Bronx, New York, where he grew up. Volcanic eruptions such as that of Vesuvius in 79 AD serve as powerful metaphors for the upheavals of human displacement and disembodiment.
During an artist's residency in Spain, Peter d'Agostino performed video walks through Cordoba's three architectural monuments: The Great Mosque, Alcazar, and Synagogue, looking up with the camera toward the ceilings. When he began to edit in September, 2001, the events of 9/11 were unfolding on television. Reflecting on a 'culture of tolerance,' d'Agostino provides a rich blend of cultural, historical and aesthetic associations meant to resonate with viewers during two key historical epochs: Spain during the the 10th century and during the present era of global crises at the outset of the 21st century.
Between Earth & Sky: MX I / pyramids is a video triptych from a suite of ten walks Peter d'Agostino performed in Mexico City and its surroundings, the east and west coasts, and the U.S. border. Created in the form of a video triptych, MX I is composed of juxtapositions- looping, repeating and repositioning of sounds & images to accentuate and combine the natural and cultural aspects of the walks.
Peter d'Agostino performed video walks throughout the city of Sofia, Bulgaria during 2008-09. Completed two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the SOFIA project focuses on east/west divides of the cold war. It is one of a series of projects mapping a range of...
This nine-channel video is composed of Peter d'Agostino's walks in the Irish landscape, along the coastlines and at cultural sites. The video walks performed on County Donegal's northwest coast, Arranmore Island and at some of Ireland's most important pre-historic megalithic sites including Newgrange (circa 3000 BCE) and the Grianan of Aileach, an ancient circular stone fort linked to Irish history and myth. The video is part of an installation that includes a large green tent for the video projection, an interactive website, solar cells, a photographic mural of an electric generating wind turbine and a walking post.
The Bilbao walks were performed from the city center to coastal regions, specifically referencing aspects of Basque geography and culture. This post-industrial city has gained notoriety for the globalization term "Bilbao Effect" after Frank Gehry's world famous Guggenheim Museum was constructed there in the late 1990s. D'Agostino's project metaphorically weaves his direct perceptions of Bilbao's old and new landscape and unique "siri-miri" weather together with elements of the region's philosophical thought, most notably that of Miguel Unamuno.
Description
Peter d'Agostino's World-Wide-Walks have been performed on six continents over the past four decades. Initiated as video "documentation/performances" in 1973, The Walks Series evolved into video-web projects during the 1990s and mobile-locative media installations in the 2000s. World-Wide-Walks explore elements of natural, cultural and virtual identities: mixed realities of walking through physical environments and virtually surfing the web.
