This is the definitive edition documenting Janet Cardiff's audio "Walks" in Paris, London, and New York. For these walks, Cardiff provided gallery-goers with walkmans which led them through the cities relying solely on the acoustic guide. The urban environment thus became the scene of a mysterious narrative in which the visitors became ever more involved. An artist's book with a CD that "guides" readers through the book with regards to text and illustrations.
The Walk Book sits nicely in your hand and can be taken everywhere. It works like a garden, inviting you to follow its paths that branch off in different directions. Like a labyrinth, the book has more than one entrance. You may enter it to read the texts, or to look at the pictures, or else to hear Janet Cardiffs voice on a CD included in the book as it leads you through the texts and images. Its about the disappearance of places, and memory loss, but also about offering something unique to whoever takes the book in their hands, something to take along with them in time.
The Walk Book collects and rescues some of Cardiffs words and dialogues that are part of her walks, transposes them in a literary form and yet, as it is a walk in its own right, it dissolves all possible determinations and codifications. By resisting definitions, asking questions and engaging audiences, The Walk Book offers different approaches to the nature and the experience of an artistic practice that has revealed itself as one of the most potent and thought provoking sites in contemporary culture.
