Navigation often depends on tools that allow the user to get a long view. The act of being lost disorients the user and negates the usefulness of those instruments. What remains is anything directly in front of the nose and all non-mapped information roughly known about the situation at hand.
In this lecture, the two performers attempt to navigate from the spot they are standing to the Northwest Passage. With so much mediation already distancing the mind’s eye, the distance between here and there is uncertain.
The lecture took as it’s starting point the oddly thorough 1943 Arctic Field Manual, prepared by the Army Air Corps. Ostensibly a guide to navigating and surviving in the Arctic in case of emergency, the two volume set begins in philosophy - with an overview of the classical Greek understandings of the world’s regions - and extends into the potential for economic development in the high north.
The lecture was presented as a part of Transport at Proteus Gowanus, in conjunction with a short video program:
