section on performance, but «.walk» is really all about notation, about a deeply conceptual take on art.

This work seems to build a bridge between the approach of early conceptual art exhibitions with titles such as «Information» (1970) or «Software» (1970) and the work of artist programmers today. [38] Besides his efforts to construct walks from computer code, to «program a pedestrian computer», Houjebek also is developing code, a mark up language, which takes the pedestrian’s experiences as a basis. This code is called PML: Pedestrian Markup Language. He is also developing something called OOP, Object Oriented Psychogeography, which he calls «software for landscapes» that «will crash your sneakers».

«.walk» is a form of artist software that is art in the public domain in two ways: firstly as a notation, a code which could be run on a computer and is a space of activity and interaction on that level; and secondly as a physical interpretation of an information space. I would even say it is a programming course for the digitally illiterate (and the following is not in any way meant negatively), as its playful approach of code reminds one slightly of a recitation of the alphabet in Sesame

Street. There is, as with a lot of new media art, also no possibility to judge the project from the outside alone, like a traditional art audience would. «There is no audience in the common sense, either you are a participant or you are not,» writes Wilfried Houjebek. «Watching other people «.walk» must be as boring as watching a sleeping ant.» Software art is the semi-claustrophobic technical equivalent of the intimacy of new media cultures. It is part new media cultures, part individual art practice, and part user interaction or execution. It renders a partly public and partly private art experience. The software art space makes users or audience look beyond standard interfaces or procedures and can also be inviting enough to get people to put their hands on some code themselves. Software art, both as a whole or as an individual piece, offers new perspectives on art in the public domain. Art in the Public Domain 2.0, like the public domain itself, can be tangible and intangible, portable in the physical and in the metaphorical sense of the word. It does not necessarily have a real fixed place or form, and most importantly it has extended into the home or private sphere.