The great dilemma in the tiny adventure of walking around a city block was deciding what was preferable:
For the actor to:
a)direct and inform, like a cultural tourist guide,
b)remain silent,
c)merely indicate “directions” (in three ways: cardinal points, itinerantly, and regarding buildings).

I ended up choosing the last option.

The walk was based on these two utterances: “Toward the left”- on approaching each corner- and “To the left”- pointing toward the edges of the buildings or spaces that were part of the block.

I was clearly looking for a real stimulus (which will always be found to our left), even if it was minimal, to arouse the inventive qualities of people who come up with new ideas.

We started, prior to the “little stroll”, with a brief introduction that I intentionally loaded with pressures in the sense of a special vision of artistic expression.

Here is a transcription of that introduction:
“First, I must point out that it is necessary to pay attention to the circumstances, because all circumstances present opportunities. Each of us is a circumstance that interferes with others.

But there are circumstances even closer than oneself. Inspiration is found in what lies close to hand.

So let’s keep our eyes open and take advantage of what there is.

But we must also draw on what is not there. In other words, we must bring what usually goes unnoticed into the spotlight.

I have shown you two presuppositions of creativity: what is there and what is not. If there is anything additional on top of that, it is simply culture.”

After returning from our circuit, those who had taken the walk were able to see a map of the urban setting we had walked through. They also heard a second brief speech, which also contained a succinct ideology. It was this:
“Technology, the only word that seems to foster progress nowadays… and progress, the only word that seems to have a place in our thinking nowadays… leave empty spaces everywhere.

To call attention to one of those empty or hollow places was the purpose of this “walk”.

For me, the circumstance of the rain had an influence because it sped up the walk (which lasted five minutes less than expected) and lent a certain air of intermingled lyricism.

During the discussion afterward, issues arose that were more ethereal than usual. It is clear that, having come back wet from the rain, people’s perceptions had been stimulated and the experience had become especially imaginative, in contrast to the colder approach I had transmitted.

What I mean is this: creativity had gone beyond just “what was there”. And in that sense, this writer feels great satisfaction.

Returning to the first subject I brought up -whether one ought to reveal the functional roots and motivations of artistic work-, my impression is that, generally, being too explicit usually helps to invalidate or dissipate the conceptual content of creative work. However, in this case, I committed that supposed error twice: by explaining the purpose of the title and letting others know what the structural scheme was for the work. In fact, afterward, I was congratulated for having done so but I still see it as something I did only in this particular situation. I don’t regret what I said, though!

Perhaps I should add as an important fact that I was pleasantly surprised by how almost all of my companions stayed with me stoically in the face of conditions that were uncomfortable to a certain point. I have almost come to wish it had rained harder, so as to prove the value of the test… then I would have had even more reason to thank my companions for their cheerful attitude.

Expressions of the spirit usually require a warrior’s strength. People enjoy making them and even, as someone said during the discussion, find that walking helps one to think.

That is surely additional proof that the old adage is right: “the hand made the brain”. It is equally plausible that art, which is so irregular, fosters rational thought, which is so respectful. That is still true even though, in this case, art was rationally planned out, because art triumphed in the end.

Clearly, when I decided to go ahead with guiding this walk, my approach was as low-tech as possible, while not forgetting that all mechanics aspire to perfection.

During the final stretch, we tried to make either shoes or umbrellas into the tools (the word used so often by people who are really into technology) that, to a greater or lesser degree, were fit to rub shoulders with a good computer program.

Inevitably, a dilemma between old and new methods arose. Someone alluded to illiteracy in a strict sense. I accept my own where technology is concerned. I merely aim to show that using the methods of the first social literates (paper and pencil) or using the latest ones (screen and keyboard) makes no difference if what one writes is worthless, something only fools would read.

One should always aim for the same thing: to expand the field of creation, not plow the field of repetition.

In the end, the battle was not bloody and we agreed that that all expression is one. And for the rest of it, is there anything that runs deeper in the blood of innovation than art, whose main and perhaps sole obligation is to move forward?

Now I am wondering how many steps it would take us to finish this nighttime urban odyssey. Personally (as perhaps was my unavoidable obligation) I should have given at least twice as much as the others, trying to describe the evidence.

In conclusion: I was asked for remarks amounting to a thousand words. I think I’ve written that exact amount.

 

Bibiography that Isidoro Valcárcel Medina recommends:

Azorín, Pueblo (novela de los que trabajan y sufren). Editorial Espasa Calpe, Colección Austral, Buenos Aires, 1949.

Colli, G. Zenón de Elea. Editorial Sexto Piso, Madrid, 2006.

Platón, La República. Alianza Editorial, Madrid, 1999.

Salinas, P. "Seguro Azar" en Poesías completas 1. Alianza Editorial., Madrid, 2006.

Sarraute, N. Entre la vida y la muerte. Alfaguara, Madrid, 1985.