Last year, I read Walden for my English class and it helped me understand performance art and how I want to approach college. Walden is a book by Henry David Thoreau that chronicles his decision to live on a small farm named Walden away from the constraints of society, searching for “higher life.” I expected to read a morality tale about how we should all go back to pre-civilized times and leave evil technology behind. It’s the same presumption I had for art. I thought art was always supposed to have something to say to its audience, preferably something indignant and difficult to decode. When I happened to watch Man On the Wire, a documentary about Philippe Petit’s unauthorized decision to walk a tightrope between the twin towers, I realized
