The Courtyard
These are some stills taken from the latest video footage from my work in La Pedrera. The movement in the courtyard is based upon repetition and the natural reactions of people as they enter this space. Because of the sheer height of the building, nearly everyone who enters the courtyard looks up. At this stage in the development of the work, I plan to stand in the courtyard space and repeat the action of looking up for about 15 minutes. To an observer who watches over time, the meaning each repetition of the action changes, as the people in the space change and the physical organisation of the people in the space change. Whist repeating the action I am aiming to maintain a dual awareness – a sense of inside (focusing on my breath in reaction to the physical movement of my body and my breath in reaction to the visual stimulus coming from the space) and outside (remaining open to others in the space, holding an awareness of their reactions to me and their reactions to the space). This task, as I discovered upon my last visit, is impossible to achieve. However, the intention to keep my thoughts directed in this way, fills the movement (and this can be seen by observers) with something more than a mundane action of looking up. The pictures below capture how others joined me in looking up…whether conscious of it or not they joined me the replication of movement, an intersubjective characteristic of lived-experience. The man (seated) in the first photograph looked up with me for over two minutes! While his family sat passively, resting in the space. It was only after they got up to leave that the mother stood and looked up with me (second photograph).