NOTES ON MOORING
How to moor oneself:
To an object, to the ground, to the horizon. Stand on one leg and close one eye, an object of linear perspective; singular, monocular and positioned.
The horizon is virtual and continuous, slipping over fences and hills and tops of buildings
Latch onto a vanishing point, mirroring my body as a beginning, look down at the singular geolocated dot following me from above. Both are steady and unreachable. Notice the in-between
Map out a path on a GPS, diagonal north east along the grass path that runs behind the houses.
Determine a location between the ground and the horizon, find a space for myself. As a thing amongst, I continue on my walk.
Notice:
Three slanting planks push against the fences that line the nature-strip; holding them up. Leaning from the fence to the path to as the lawn heads diagonal north east. Up and up from the creek to the reservoir.
The fence holds back the houses, the planks hold up the fence. Holding steady the in-between, the grassy no-mans-land. I latch on to chance landmarks, pauses; extending upon moments of noticing as I walk, locating, fastening, following the powerlines.
The strip of lawn takes 40 minutes to start to finish, an overgrown blip, hidden behind backyards.
Part the houses like the sea, like a hike. Touch, lean, push, keep walking forward, see an end point.
Count the horizons
Horizon 1- the top of the fence. Everything else beginning just above head height. The nature strip is a backbone and so are the planks that hold the fence, walk through them like a vein between muscle, move diagonal up and out. Embodied but flat and separating, a literal blocking, directing.
Horizon 2- depending on which way I face, holding back the houses, keeping the sea parted.
The lawn from the creek to the reservoir, the fence converging at a vanishing point, then at a hill. The imagined continual end point holds steady as it changes along the walk. Central in my vision, it gives me a position, a mirror of my body as the start point.
Horizon 3- Look down at myself to see how far I’ve walked. The map moves me in a flat diagonal upwards, left to right. Look down as I’m looked down upon, disembodied and outsourced, moving with my steps, solitary but impersonal. The flat-framed view loops up and through and back around. GPS as an anchor and a map and a narrative; a virtual leaning.
A diagonal connects two variables, use the diagonal to moor yourself between horizons- lean against this slope. Prop up against, hold up, hold back, oriented by a diagonal, by my view of ground and the ground under my feet. pressing closely from each end, becoming stable, mooring oneself to an object, to the ground, to a dot on a map, to a horizon.