Considering the consideration

 While one of my works was being (ostensively) executed in Leicester I myself was taking the waters at one of Europes traditional Spas without being Spa itself... Chance had it that I was there at all - since it is not in my usual itinerary even though it is something i would like to do more often.

 

 

Reconsidering considerations

Though taking part in an unnoticed presentation in Leicester UK with a work done for the Nieuwstraat in Dortrecht NL before I decided it was not opportune to travel there myself but let the organizers do the execution with the help of their crew of performers – instead I decided to indulge in my preferred pastime of pitching up in unexpected places – this time in the wake of a series following the history of water – more specifically the rather obscure group loosely attached to Emile Goudeau's hydropathes and based on the the 'buveurs d'eau' of a generation before around Henry Murger (1840's) a splintering that was related to the 'incohérentes' but blended in perfectly with the higher society's penchant to 'take the waters' at various Spa towns across Europe. In fact so much so as to go mainly unnoticed... by their compatriots but also by history.

Originally coined 'waterdrinkers' because they didn't have money to by (more than one) glass of wine, once part of the 'poètes maudits' and their entourage, they evolved to become absorbed by high society in the end... a metamorphosis that intrigued me...

So considering that the action I proposed was being performed unannounced, unnoticed and nu-documented in far away Leicester, I stopped to (re-) consider taking the waters – unnoticed, unannounced and not quite undocumented... for here is a report of this uncanny moment: the one in which the thought came to e, and shortly after, the moment of reconsideration. Whereas this took only a minute or so, the reconsideration involved the timespan between the original waterdrinkers of around 1840 tot the latter-day followers in a completely different guise and social make-up... in fact hardly to be compared, and then the contemporary considerers such as myself -

zut alors

so I dropped an old 50 centime (belgian frank) coin as homage – the other 50 centimes to be deposited elsewhere.

 

 

The Dort

 

On the way to Dordrecht we visited the village of Moerdijk which is slated for disappearance.... this sympathetic little enclave of nature and maritime tradition is being eaten by the inexorable appetite of industry spreading like cancer,,,

Anyway...
This time decided to combine with two aspects and try to keep the reference in the middle... ’marking equidistances’ an intervention for two... meeting in the middle as it were... point of departure being the encounter with Turner at the local museum: on the occasion of a visit of works from the Yale center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut with the centerpiece being "Dort or Dortrecht: the Dort Packet boat from Rotterdam becalmed" which Turner had painted after a visit to the city in 1817/18... along with other fascinating works skirting the tumultuous seas of the diffuse line between naturalism and abstraction...
Quite a few interesting works by Turner, compared & contrasted with Dutch counterparts that inspired him... an exhibition that worked well and worth the visit... and, as if to stay in the maritime surrounding, the practical significance of equidistance is essential for the defining of boundaries in otherwise unclear waters...

(state at) point of departure

One o’clock. After having left the point op departure on the steps of the city hall, we proceeded between balustrade of the bridge over the canal connecting the various ports in the city... and the first lamppost on the corner of the square... from there we zigzagged along the Groenmarkt street from planters and corners, posts and bollards tto the next bridge, the Visbrug with the monument for the De Witte brothers...

Across the bridge then to the Waalse kerk... formerly a church founded by Waloon  (and French)  reformist (Calvinist) refugees from the south... later (edict of Nantes) more hugenots also departed from these parts (VOC and WIC) to various continents .. onwards to the back of the city hall where we encountered a defibrillator... this had to included in the process as homage to the performance space in Chicago that so kindly executed our work a few years back...

Around the corner and we were back on the bridge.. another zig-zag and back where we started with only a couple of minutes to spare... a well rounded intervention to be sure.

(state at) arrival

Again by going walkabout (last time a couple of thousand steps backward) we didn't see much of the other participants aside from our traditional drink after.... more involvement next time... on tge way home a quick visit to Pictura, which is always a fine and interesting experience.  

 x marks the spot (locus) equidistant from/to