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Nothing really happens in this city: Walking a Tree Home (2023)
Performance wherein I walked a tree to my backyard. Triggered by the forlorn appearance of a tree trunk (1) in my backyard (likely cut down before I moved in, given its proximity to the neighbor's fence), I decided to bring the tallest tree I could find in the neighborhood and plant it next to the cut trunk.
On the day of the performance, I handed a video camera to a volunteer to record my action. None of the plans for the action were shared before the event. The target tree, located about a quarter of a mile from my yard, was discovered on my way back home from filming the performance 'Digging holes and filling them back.'
Since the target tree (2) was situated beyond a road with considerable traffic, filming had to be paused twice (on the way in and out). I instructed the volunteer on these pauses during the event.
The first knot, tying one end of the thread to the tree (3), was secured with a quick-release knot (later identified as the 'Highway knot' with the help of Google). This knot could be easily released with pulls of a certain force in case of traffic interference or for further action in the performance.
The other two knots (4), tying the other end of the thread to the next ball of yarn, were tied in the typical way (the method of tying two ropes together, I couldn't find the name of the knot). I used three balls of yarn in burgundy, beige, and gray to cover the distance from the tree to my backyard. I held the end of the thread, following the journey from the tree to my backyard, and then tied it to the trunk.
*The finale of this performance, which involved withdrawing the whole thread by pulling and wrapping it around the trunk, couldn't be completed since the thread was cut in the middle. There were two cuts in total, one in front of my house (5) (I don't know how it was cut), and the other one from the road I passed at the beginning (probably by a car). Additionally, the burgundy thread from the tree to the second cut was found collected right next to the road (6).
The three cut parts of the thread were later rolled back into a ball (7) and were placed on top of the tree trunk.
While retrieving the thread, fallen tree leaves were also collected. They were mostly hooked by the tied knots and been dragged together with the thread composing the ball of yarn.
Below is the pictures taken after the event on my journey back to the tree to retreive the cut threads.
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)Succesfully collected all the threadsmarked the end of this performance.