Contemporary artists beginning with Guy Debord and Richard Long have returned again and again to the walking motif. Debord and his friends tracked the urban flows of Paris; Long trampled a path in the grass and snapped a picture of the result (A Line Made by Walking). Mapping is a way for us to locate ourselves in the world physically, culturally, or psychologically; Debord produced maps like collages that traced the “psychogeography” of Paris. Today, the convergence of global networks, online databases, and new tools for location-based mapping coincides with a resurgence of interest in walking as an art form. In Walking and Mapping, Karen O’Rourke explores a series of walking/mapping projects by contemporary artists. Some chart “emotional GPS”; some use GPS for creating “datascapes” while others use their legs to do “speculative mapping.” Many work with scientists, designers, and engineers.

O’Rourke offers close readings of these works — many of which she was able to experience firsthand — and situates them in relation to landmark works from the past half-century. She shows that the infinitesimal details of each of these projects take on more significance in conjunction with others. Together, they form a new entity, a dynamic whole greater than the sum of its parts. By alternating close study of selected projects with a broader view of their place in a bigger picture, Walking and Mapping itself maps a complex phenomena.

Karen O’Rourke is a multimedia and communications artist whose work has been exhibited in Europe, the United States, and South America.

“Walking and Mapping celebrates walking, but it also challenges walking – with things, prostheses, blank placards and audio walks tripped up by maintenance works. It is full of lovely vignettes – how Janet Cardiff came to make audio-walks or how the protocols of the Autonauts of the Cosmoroute worked out in practice – but it never gets caught up in any one journey for too long, soon sending the reader spinning off into new ambulatory possibilities. A must have.” (Mythogeography)

cloth hardback cover with beautiful matte-printed flap, 352 pp.