Walking in Valhalla: Winter Solstice
An invitation to join me at 'Stonehenge' for the Winter Solstice sunrise on Sat 21 Dec + more about gaming as art.
Four times a year, thousands of people travel to Stonehenge to watch the sunset and sunrise to mark the seasonal solstices and equinoxes.
This winter solstice, if you- like me- are unable to make it along to Stonehenge in person, but want to mark the solstice collectively without having to head outside, I invite you to join me online at Assassins Creed Valhalla’s hyper-real version of Stonehenge!
It’ll be an early start of course, 7am, but as this year the solstice falls on a Saturday, perhaps some of you will be more able to join me.
Tune in to my Twitch on Saturday 21 December from 7am (UK time) when we will walk slowly together from the south coast to Stonehenge. Once there, as the sun sets and rises (this will take much less time in game-land!) We’ll do a short solstice meditation, and set some intentions before heading into the festive season. (And maybe even climb around the stones a bit, as this is something thats not possible IRL!)
You can watch the Twitch stream without an account, but if you want to join the chat room and take part you’ll need to set up an account. This is easy to do, and free. Sunrise IRL is at 9.20am in the UK and you can join the stream anytime before then of course.
Here’s a Facebook link if you want to get a reminder about the event.
More about ‘Walking in Valhalla’
Back in 2023 I ran ‘Walking in Valhalla’- an online mini-project that explored the joys of taking long, slow walks through intricately built digital landscapes in open world video games.
Over the winter, whilst battling inflamed joints due to my Colitis and cold-aggravated arthritis, and receiving treatment for newly-diagnosed achilles tendonitis, I became frustrated that long, or even fairly short walks were increasingly something that I couldn’t do. I found myself starting to explore the digital landscapes of open world games, and using this as a way to wind down and relax, and wanted to invite others to join me.
It was such an enjoyable project, and I’d been wanting to revisit it again.
Games as art
Since rediscovering gaming in lockdown after a friend lent me an old Xbox, jumping across rooftops of ancient cities in Assassin’s Creed, exploring the wastelands of Fallout, building parks in Jurassic Park Evolution 2 and hiking through the mountains of Skyrim, games have provided me with an important way to decompress. Due to my illness, I spend a lot of time alone and gaming helps me escape the four walls around me, and find game worlds much easier to navigate than the neurotypical world. A day spent gaming is a day of self-care for me.
Last weekend I went to see a screening of the indie film Grand Theft Hamlet: a documentary about a small group of out of work actors trying to stage a production of Hamlet inside Grand Theft Auto online during the UK Covid lockdowns. It’s an appealing premise, and is extremely chaotic and funny. But the main focus of the film isn’t the novelty of the idea, or the success of the production- it’s about finding community and connection in an unlikely place. Watching this film I was reminded of how my group walks in AC: Valhalla made me feel, with people joining in from different locations, and what we ended up talking about as we walked.
This weekend I also bought a beautiful cyanotype that jumped out at me at the Brighton Artist Book Fair by an MA artist called Kerry Holland. The person running the book stall told me that Kerry had created a series of cyanotypes using screenshots from Zelda- a game she loved spending time in and exploring. I’ve not played it myself, but I know many people who enjoy wandering in this game too, and I enjoyed the synchronicity of finding this artist’s work whilst I’ve been thinking about the way we inhabit digital worlds.
I do hope some of you can make it to join me online for a slightly different way to mark the winter solstice on 21 Dec :)
Upcoming dates
Sat 21 December: Walking in Valhalla: Winter Solstice (online) (Facebook link)
Tue 31 December: Gender Trouble, Brighton I’ll be DJing with Church of Italo for NYE here!
27 - 31 Jan: Making Space residency at Fabrica (info about how you can get involved with this residency I’m doing coming very soon!)
Links + resources
https://www.twitch.tv/kateshieldsart
https://mubi.com/en/gb/films/grand-theft-hamlet
https://www.instagram.com/_kerry.holland
https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/2/14787082/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild-review