I think that once I had an original thought, or at least perhaps it was an original thought the first time I thought it, but the path is well worn and beaten, and rehashed over time so that perhaps I've forgotten the original thought anyway.

There is a space between imagination and memory where the maniacal repetition of every day life is etched upon every self-aware soul. I used to think the hills would be my salvation and standing very still in the rain would provide some kind of revelation, but it only made me wet, and dragging myself through the dirt in order to experience a place would somehow make it more real.

But now that's just a memory and the bruises and scrapes have faded long ago, as though it never really happened.

I can stare blankly at a wall months later as I write this and barely acknowledge that this is time occurring too, a non-event which just took place. And at the beginning of the sentence was I really the person I am right now?

I guess that all I ever wanted was to negate a sense of time and place; to freeze time and dwell in the here and now;
the present.

Many years ago I became interested in landscape painting, and eventually with a lack of any discernible talent for painting, came up with the idea of dragging blank canvasses behind me as I walked through the countryside, allowing the scuffs and tears to form a physical rendition of the place.

This proved unsatisfactory.

I figured that I could remove the canvas and instead use my body as the surface.
Soon the process of dragging became much more important than the end product, not more than an indistinct set of scars. This was much more cerebral. There is an intensely physical process, which is easily describable and visible, but also a procurement of invisible knowledge, which is much less tenable.

I could say that being dragged around a field by a tractor has changed me, but honestly,
it's probably only taught me not to do it again.

It may seem absurd to the casual observer, but no more absurd than the-suffocating-on-a-Bank-Holiday-carbon-monoxide-picnic-on-the-central-reservation-outdoor-experience, which seems to be the choice of so many.

More or less everybody gets dragged through the dirt at some point in their life; it's just that I decided to take it literally.

This piece was selected for the 'Immediate 2' exhibition at the Site gallery in Sheffield during October and November 2001. This show was set up to highlight the diverse range of practice currently emerging from MA and post graduate fine art/media courses based within the north of England.
The selectors included artist Monica Oeschler and curator at the Tate Modern, Emma Dexter.

The video was installed in the foyer of 'The Showroom' cinema on an 8" flat screen LCD monitor. I intended the work to have a somewhat apparitional quality, lacking the monumentality of a large screen or projection.
By locating the piece outside of a gallery environment, I hoped to catch the audience unawares to further engage them with the imagined possibilities of a past event.

Special thanks to Ross Baker and Robin Hansell for technical assistance.
Thanks also to Mat and Kelli at the Site Gallery.

© 2001 Paul Anders Johnson