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'The Manoeuvre’ – A paper on art walking

Brennan was selected to undertake one of six national commissions developed for artists who involve walking in their visual art practice, instigated by the Radar contemporary arts commissioning programme hosted by Loughborough University. ‘Roam: A Weekend of Walking’ invited an analysis of the relationship between current theoretical debates in ethnography, tourism, geography and anthropology and visual arts practices that involve walking.

Brennan's research and practice extended his methodology of working with the guided walk form as a discursive mode, further establishing it as essential to any understanding of ambulation as art.

Brennan developed a walk, ‘The Luddite Manoeuvre’ performed with participants through the streets of Loughborough, which made specific reference to the historical account of Luddism in the town.

‘Tim Brennan's new walk for Loughborough retraced the route taken by the town's Luddites on an infamous evening in June 1816. The route dropped into a number of pubs in which the Luddites drank, shoring up their nerve prior to their notorious night of machine wrecking. Using a broad range of quotations, which revisited or undermined historical facts,’ (http://www.arts.lboro.ac.uk/radar/project/roam_a_weekend_of_walking_spring_2008/tim_brennan/)

A themed issue of the Routledge published, peer-reviewed journal, Visual Studies ‘Walking, Ethnography and Arts Practice’ (Vol. 25, Issue 1, 2010, published on behalf of the International Visual Sociology Association) focussed exclusively on the programme and Brennan’s work formed the basis of his contribution and the content of Misha Myer’s article, ‘The Art of Conversive Wayfaring.’