Bill Gilbert

Projects
> Physiocartographies < Mindlines < Land Arts  
< Collaborations < Installations < Ceramics  

Physiocartographies

Started in 2003 in the field with the Land Arts of the American West mobile studio, the physiocartographies  series combines the abstraction of cartographic maps with the physical act of walking the surface of the planet to create portraits of place. In the various works from this series I follow prescribed paths across the landscape using a gps unit to navigate and record points, a camera to shoot images and a digital recorder to capture sounds. The final works appear as reconstructed maps, videos and installations.

Terrestrial/Celestial Navigations, 2011 - 2014

Terrestrial/Celestial Navigations, 2011

Part of my ongoing experiment in constructing a portrait of place by walking the surface of the planet, terrestrial/celestial navigations honors the relationship desert peoples have with the sky by weaving together heaven and earth. Each walk inscribes the land with the patterns of stars earlier cultures created to project their world into the night sky. In this series, I employ pedestrian and satellite technologies using google earth to establish GPS points for each star and my body to then inscribe constellations by walking them onto the ground.

Part of my ongoing experiment in constructing a portrait of place by walking the surface of the planet, terrestrial/celestial navigations honors the relationship desert peoples have with the sky by weaving together heaven and earth.


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Morgantown Mundane 2010


Morgantown Mundane 2010

This work attempts to solve the dilemma of being a place based artist working in an unfamiliar location. In this case I was invited to do an exhibition at West Virginia University in Morgantown. My exploration of this new (to me) place became the piece. Following arbitrary lines laid out in the four cardinal directions from the Mesaros Gallery, I walked each day through Morgantown into the surrounding countryside recording in photography and sound my encounters along the way. Those recordings became the basis for a video map that I combined with an installation in the gallery of the four walks path marked in chunks of coal, the dominant theme of my encounters over the four days.

This work attempts to solve the dilemma of being a place based artist working in an unfamiliar location. In this case I was invited to do an exhibition at West Virginia University in Morgantown. My exploration of this new (to me) place became the piece. more >


Walk to Work 2009

Walk to Work

For twenty-two years I have made the hour long drive from my house in Cerrillos to my office at the University of New Mexico. For this piece, I decided to walk to work. I strapped on a backpack, headed out my door and walked as straight a line as possible (given the variations in topography, land ownership, etc.) to my office at UNM. Along the roughly 50 mile trek across ranch land, the Sandia Mountains and the northeast quadrant of Albuquerque I recorded my perceptions from the perspective of a lone hiker walking across the land.

For twenty-two years I have made the hour long drive from my house in Cerrillos to my office at the University of New Mexico. For this piece, I decided to walk to work. I strapped on a backpack, headed out my door and walked as straight a line as possible (given the variations in topography, land ownership, etc.) to my office at UNM.
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Walk/Drive 2008

From a series of works executed in the Land Arts of the American West program in 2006-2007 addressing the effect of different forms of motion on perception. In each piece from this series I walked a line from one Land Arts site to the next for the same number of hours it took to drive from one site to the next.  The final video map juxtaposes the two experiences jumping back forth each hour from walk to drive.

Lettuce, Koumi Japan, 2007

Koumi, Japan 2007

Lettuce was completed as my contribution to the Currently West exhibition in Koumi, Japan. Leaving from the steps of the museum, I walked an hour in each cardinal direction through the agricultural fields and forests of Koumi. I then installed the topographic lines of the territory traversed on the gallery floor in two colors of local gravels and marked the points of each hour long segment with boulders. The map of my walk hung on an adjacent wall.

Lettuce was completed as my contribution to the Currently West exhibition in Koumi, Japan.  Leaving from the steps of the museum, I walked an hour in each cardinal direction through the agricultural fields and forests of Koumi. more >


For John Wesley Powell: attemps to walk the grid, 2005-2007

For John Wesley Powell: attemps to walk the grid, 2005-2007

This body of work was created in the Land Arts of the American West program as a means to compile a portrait of the southwest through direct physical exploration of the land. The series is named for John Wesley Powell in honor of his failed attempts to organize the inhabitation of the west based on watersheds instead of the Jeffersonian grid. My interest here is in the disjunction between our abstract conceptions of the landscape (maps) and the physical reality of moving across the surface of the planet (walks).

This body of work was created in the Land Arts of the American West program as a means to compile a portrait of the southwest through direct physical exploration of the land. The series is named for John Wesley Powell in honor of his failed attempts to organize the inhabitation of the west based on watersheds instead of the Jeffersonian grid. more >

       


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