100 Up

The “Hundred Up” is an exercise invented by WG George, the fastest miler of 19th century, which consists of a drill to perfect running form. The drill consists of either walking or running on the spot, over a fixed series of parallel lines marked on the floor. Alternating legs are raised by bringing one knee to the height of the hip, bringing the foot back down again to its original position, touching the line lightly with the ball of the foot, before repeating with the other leg. The exercise should be repeated, maintaining perfect form, 100 times. As the drill is practiced, proprioception (the awareness of the relative position of the body in space and the strength of effort being employed in the movement) is improved over a surface area of approximately 1 square metre. One’s own body can be considered as a sculpture in the round. The variation in attempting to maintain perfect form over 100 repetitions, by translating my own body as a series of data points is manipulated in three dimensional space via the experimental RGBD film making process. An ongoing piece of research, initially presented at OMM - One Metre Measured, at NN Contemporary Art.