WALK ON Highgreen: Path of Least Resistance

Path of Least Resistance
Tim Knowles

Path of Least Resistance is a mechanism used to dictate people’s route on the walk in an unknown, uncharted way. Whilst the start and finish point is known, the route is directed by a set of rules and the landscape itself.
Participants walked as if they were water running off the land, trying to find its way down to the sea pulled by gravity. The artist set people off at the same time from starting points at 200 M intervals along the watershed of the Pennine Way 10 people will depart at the same time from different starting points along the valley’s watershed. As the walkers each took their own path of least resistance, routes varied considerably. However as the walk developed they dropped down into the same folds of the landscape, joining in different valleys, following streams downhill until meeting at the same finish point and ending up at Highgreen.

Each individual, or group acting as an individual carried a GPS logger that recorded their paths and, on Sunday afternoon after the walks were completed, Tim uploaded this data and then drew the lines of the walks recorded onto a screen using a projector.  The multiple tracks taken by participants reveal the nature of the landscape.

Tim Knowles is an artist whose work utilises external forces to direct its outcome. By making use of these forces to produce drawings of various forms, the works trace previously unseen paths.

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