SHADE WALKING:

personal interpretation and analysis of encounter

Shade Walking is a project exploring further understandings of the relational experience between what happens in reality and what happens in memory after a short time has passed. It is an experiential-based catalogue of my encounter with the setting of the White Mountains at the WMRS. I have made a Flash animation in an effort to capture what I have in my memory of the trip.

What is the end result of this project? What does the viewer of this project do with what I have made? My hope is that the animation I produced sparks interest in the area where the performance took place, and that viewer can then go and compare their own experience with what they found in my animation. Further, I hope that any viewer would be urged to compare the experience of reality versus what is captured in your memory. It seems that so often we fail to revisit what is experienced and examine what is lost or gained in the time in between, if anything.

View the annimation here!

I had originally thought that I would mentally capture all of my favorite parts of the trip and artfully piece together a representation. However skewed, it would have taken me back to the physical space of the mountains. Though that was my original thought on how the animation would go, I have decided that it is more important to be true to my memory. I create the Flash animation in a way that is visually accurate while still evoking the sentiment of your original experience with the memory of that experience. Thus, my Flash animation is a clear and brief portrayal of what I have with me in my mind, after departing from WMRS. It is a fleeting picture of the gnarled, long-lived bristlecones and briefly of the stars that I seek in all places.

Whether my work is indicative of what others hold on to of their experience with surroundings or not, I have come closer to finding the constant I take with me when I leave a place or a collection of events. It is what I find in me when I am left alone. In the Flash animation, I draw colors and shades to different sentiments because they so strongly and automatically call to mind corresponding feelings. In short, it represents the transformation of experience to memory. So maybe I wasn't walking to capture shades of color, as much as I walked to find myself with shades of feeling at the end of the trip to the White Mountains.

BRITNI WENCK

Britni Wenck is an artist with interests ranging from the deep impact of color on conciousness to exploring the stigma of mental illness within society. Graduating in June 2007, she will continue to embrace creative endeavors in her day to day life regardless of occupation or location.