Art installation explores the act of walking

“The Walkings,” a music/video installation with texts by Arthur Sabatini, videos by Robert Kilman and music by William Duckworth, will be on display from March 21 through April 5 in ArtSpace West, Room 228 of the University Center Building at ASU’s West campus, 4701 W. Thunderbird Road.

ArtSpace West will be open from noon to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday (except for a 1:30 opening time on Thursdays). An opening reception is set for 6 p.m., March 20. The exhibit and reception are free and open to the public; visitor parking on campus costs $2 per hour.

“The Walkings,” for which “every walk is time itself,” is a meditation and exploration of time, cities, trees, death and voices from lost worlds to our own. The installation is drawn from two of Sabatini’s theater works. Sabatini is a faculty member in ASU’s New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, the core college on the West campus.

“This is a project that follows from a number of sources and experiences and terrific collaborations,” Sabatini said. Over the years, he has written a one man play, “Certain Explanations: Magical Walking,” and a dance/sound/video production, “Who Walks” (with composer Peter Price, choreographer Megan Bridge, and video artist Robert Kilman).

Walking is a theme that was also part of Sabatini’s performances as a character featured in large-scale performance works, “Cathedral” and “iOrpheus,” with music by William Duckworth and digital design by Nora Farrell. A number of these pieces were premiered at ASU’s West campus before travelling as far as Tokyo and Australia.

“The Walkings” combines traditional media with contemporary innovations. It will be presented in two parts simultaneously on the West campus. In ArtSpace West, a music and digital media display will allow visitors to hear a recorded narrative with voice by Sabatini and music by Duckworth and digital media effects developed by Kilman. Viewers also will be able to use their cell phones to download images, videos and texts by scanning QR coded postcards in the gallery.

Outside of the gallery at numerous sites on the campus (including Fletcher Library and the hallways of the University Center Building), QR coded posters will allow people walking by to capture images, videos, texts and music.

“The experience is meant to be at once solitary and social, a walking for all,” Sabatini said.

For the installation, Kilman developed a visual concept and created digital media and Sabatini recorded texts that fit in with Duckworth’s work for solo piano, “The Time Curve Preludes.” The texts create a poetic series of recollections of places, friendships, and time passing.

“’The Walkings’ is meant to be a reflective meditation of what is now a trilogy that revolves around themes of certainty and unknowing, intimate relationships, time, love, death and the idea of walking in other eras as well as now and into the future,” Sabatini said.

For more information about this and other arts events at ASU’s West campus, visit http://campus.asu.edu/west/events or call (602) 543-2787.