Do Your Feet Hurt? Part II

After a bit of tweaking, I think I got 1000 miles down to my liking. I used a total of 24 images created by walking through diatomaceous earth across black paper that were then scanned into digital copies.

I originally just worked with the copies as is and created a video that features 1000 images played at a steady pace, but it didn't feel right.

I watched it and it made me feel as though it was a tightrope walk, so I decided to do some additional work on the piece. 

I decided to take the images into Photoshop and widen the images (area to the left for a right foot, area to the right for left foot). This allowed a feeling of steps being properly aligned instead of walking the tightrope. 

For the revised version I also played with timing. I varied the playback speed randomly throughout to mimic the varied patterns of gait when we walk. Our walk speed depends on so many things: energy level, terrain, shoe, weather, etc. Our walks change constantly - from minute to minute even. 

I considered doing a bit of data bending to add some audio to the video but didn't find that the sound output enhanced the video in anyway. 

As I watched through it several times, it made me feels as though it was a silent meditation on the journeys we take every day. Remember, this distance was not as though I set out to reach it. In fact, the times I was out doing things that would have boosted my mileage the most, I was not wearing my tracker at all.

These miles are the accumulation of the mundane. Going to the grocery store. Going to school. Even going to the bathroom. 

We don't often observe the small details of our lives. In some ways, personal trackers allow us to observe the small details after the fact. Personally, I think the tracker has made me more mindful of what I do.