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A Cardio-Cartography of the Threshold for WAC25
The Founding Gesture
This performance was born from an intuition just before my departure from Paris. I decided my journey would not be just a trip, but the very beginning of the artwork. On my chest, I affixed this butterfly-sensor. It is not just the "Butterfly of Prespa," but the "Butterfly of the Periple" (The Butterfly of the Entire Journey). It started collecting the invisible traces of my path from the first step out of my home, carrying the dust of Paris and the vibrations of the plane.
Its journey culminates in the 55 km approach-walk from Florina to Prespa—an inverted reactivation of a key stage of my 2022 performance, Ex-tracés. It is the thread that connects the spaces of my Greek diptych, serving as the embodied introduction to my main performance, "A Line to Cross, A Voice to Follow".
Its journey culminates in the 55 km approach-walk from Florina to Prespa—an inverted reactivation of a key stage of my 2022 performance, Ex-tracés. It is the thread that connects the spaces of my Greek diptych, serving as the embodied introduction to my main performance, "A Line to Cross, A Voice to Follow".
The capture device, in its raw form. A 10 cm wingspan Monarch butterfly, cut from a double-sided adhesive paper. One side is meant to be affixed to the walker; the other, exposed to the air, becomes the sensitive surface ready to collect the invisible memory of the path.
The Protocol: The Dual Capture of the Living
During this walk, I implement a protocol of dual sensory capture:
The Skin of the World (External Capture): The device is a Monarch butterfly cut from a special double-sided adhesive paper. One side is affixed to my clothing, while the other, exposed to the air, acts as a passive sensor that, over the kilometers, collects the invisible particles of the landscape: the dust of the path, the pollen of the flowers, and the micro-fragments left by the wind. It becomes the physical imprint of the territory upon me. The butterfly is a symbol of migration and resilience, echoing the cross-border nature of the Prespa region.
The relic of the path. The Butterfly-Sensor after several days of walking, bearing the physical and invisible traces of the journey: dust, pollen, fragments from the air from Paris to Greece.
The "martiste" equipped: the relic-tshirt, the WAC25 participant's badge, and the Butterfly-Sensor, ready to begin its collection of traces in Prespa.
The martist and his tools. The body, bearing the butterfly relic, is in dialogue with the smartphone, the interface that records the pulse of the path. A moment of focus where physical capture and digital management meet.
The walk as an act of capture. The body moves forward, the staff gives the rhythm, and the butterfly, affixed to the chest, becomes laden with particles from the Prespa landscape.
The Pulse of the Path (Internal Capture): In parallel, I perform a continuous digital capture of my heart rate. Each beat becomes the fundamental unit of measurement for the journey.
The kilometer, an abstract and universal measure, is hereby abolished in favor of the pulse of the living.
I am no longer measuring distance, but the intensity of the path: the effort, the emotion, the response of my body to the landscape.
The Trace: A Two-Faced Memory
Upon my arrival in Prespa, this performative gesture produces two distinct and complementary relics that answer each other:
The Trace of the Territory: The butterfly itself, now a unique artifact carrying the physical and invisible memory of the landscape.
The Trace of the Body: The final record of thousands of heartbeats, a digital archive that quantifies not the distance traveled, but the emotional and organic cost of the walk.
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