From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
The Circuit at Nobbys (Site-Specific Participatory Walk)
This article is about the Newcastle-based participatory installation. For walking tours, see Walking tours and Beach Surgery.
Not to be confused with Newcastle itself, though the piece uses specific Newcastle locations.
A twice-yearly participatory walk along Newcastle Beach and the breakwall, organized by local artists, that recreates the three temporary injuries as embodied stations. Participants are guided barefoot or with bandaged eyes through stations marking blindness, immobility, and the arrested heartbeat.
At the first station (the lighthouse), guides blindfold participants and lead them across uneven ground, accompanied by the low Kármán drone. At the second (the breakwall's midpoint), participants sit while guides read passages from Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, feet submerged in tidal pools. The third station (the baths) involves lying still while guides place hands rhythmically on the chest — a tactile re-staging of the external pacemaker.
The walk circles back at sunset to a shared meal. Participants report a cyclic sensation — the path returns to its beginning transformed. The piece stages the three temptations as sensory rituals, mapping the interior's structure onto the Newcastle coast.