I have been walking the boundary of the exhibition – Art:Language:Location is sited across Cambridge from Newnham College in the West to the Museum of Technology in the East and from Plurabelle Bookshop and Sculpture Garden in the South to Whitworth House just across the river to the North. I've counted my footsteps with a tally counter pressing its lever with my right thumb each time my left foot hit the ground, documenting the space of the artwork that will inhabit Cambridge for three weeks. At each venue, facing the threshold, I took a compass reading with a hand held compass and a photograph on my iPhone to retrieve the GPS data.
I would have liked to walk the boundary of the exhibition in a piece – beaten the bounds – as if this were a parish but there were constraints: not knowing all the venues so having to walk it piecemeal as the shape revealed itself
Distance: 9300 paces (two steps/pace) = 13950 metres (one average pace =1.5 metres) = 8.67 miles.
| Abbey Street | Fitzroy Street | Mill Lane | Riverside |
| Abbey Walk | Freeschool Lane | Mill Road | Round Church Street |
| Addenbrooke's Site | Godeston Street | New Park Street | Senate House Passage |
| All Saints Passage | Gonville Place | New Square | Sidgwick Ave |
| Bateman Street | Granta Street | New Street | Sidney Street |
| Beche Road | Green Street | Newmarket Road | Silver Street |
| Botolph Lane | Gwydir Street | Newnham Road | St Andrews Street |
| Bridge Street | Hills Road | Norfolk Street | St Edwards Passage |
| Brooklands | Hobson Passage | Northampton Street | St John Street |
| Brookside | Hobson Street | Park Street | Station Car Park |
| Burleigh Street | Homerton Business Park | Parkers Piece | Station Road |
| Castle Street | Hooper Street | Parkside | Sturton Street |
| Cheddars Lane | Jesus Green | Pembroke Street | Regent Street |
| Chesterton Lane | Jesus Lane | Pettie Curie | Tennis Court Road |
| Chesterton Road | Kettles Yard | Portugal Place | Trinity Lane |
| Coe Fen | Kings Parade | Puddicombe Way | Trinity Street |
| Devonshire Road | Kingsland Street | Purbeck Road | Trumpington Road |
| Downing Street | Lensfield | Queens Lane | Trumpington Street |
| East Road | Little Street Mary's | Queens Road | Victoria Avenue |
| Fair Street | Magdalene Street | Regent Street | West Road |
| Fen Causeway | Midsummer Common | River Lane |
During my visits I’ve thought a lot about where "here" is. When you are a visitor – the "here" you see on the map, as in "You Are Here", accompanied by an arrow to show the spot you are standing on, is the place you are trying to get away from. I picked up a copy of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Routledge Great Minds Edition, 2014) and read, in the Foreword, about Wittgenstein's distinction between what can be said and what can only be shown and it occurs to me that this is what interests me and what I am doing here: making maps, marking thresholds, showing.
© B.A.Zanditon 2013