Description of the work

The motivation for this work originates from the historical legend of the soldier of antiquity Philippides (Pheidippides). There are two versions that imply his achievement. According to the first legend he was an Athenian runner who ran 42 km
from the city of Marathon to announce the victory of the Greek army to his people when arriving in Athens. Legend says that he fell dead once he gave the news. In the second version, Pheidippides received the order to run from Athens to Sparta (a
distance of approximately 220 km) to ask for a military support. The essential motive in both versions of the legend is the performative long distance running interpreted by the main character. Inspired by this thematic content, I applied to participate in the “Skopje marathon”, which contains an athletic sport discipline reconstructively formed and motivated by the achievement of Pheidippides. After applying to run at the “Skopje marathon” in the discipline semi-marathon, I started with the personal esthetic conceptual performance action. Firstly, I would like to stress that I am a person who has never had previously any sport activities, such as work out in a gym, running etc., but after applying at the semi-marathon I have been preparing myself with running and physical work out in the course of four months. Over this time period, thanks to the physical activity, my athletic stadium of development and physical predispositions enabled me to run longer distances during trainings. On 2 October 2022 I performed my main esthetic presentation, i.e. performance, which was interpreted with the act of participating in the semi-marathon race. I did not succeed in finishing the race; however, the several kilometers that I ran were an event that enabled me to identify with Pheidippides for a moment.