Category: Engineering
Excuse me Sir – You have to Imagine it
On entering the room, there it was, a submarine so it seemed, all big round and rusty as I recall, and really filling the space, standing tall close to the ceiling, and wall to wall, almost corner to corner. It looked more like a massive piece of war junk, a bomb perhaps, long not exploded after being left behind. A modern day artist had found it and installed it in this rather white room of the art gallery. How long had it been there ? How did they get it in ? Not sure – it looked familiar, yet impossible to really comprehend as something of any use whatsoever. How heavy was it ? It kind of looked solid, but I should have been too heavy if it was solid all the way though maybe.
The room seemed too small for the object and you could not the whole thing from where I stood near the entry. I started over to the left side, and tried to crab my way down the side wall – trying to see behind the thing, to see if there was a nameplate or something.
“Excuse me Sir”, came the command of the supervisor.
-mm.. but there was no line on the floor indicating the viewing limits — I thought..
I tried a bit further in, just a peek behind it is all I wanted..
“Excuse me Sir” !!
I backed out, oh well – I would just have to imagine it, since I could not see behind it.
How will the egg remember it’s me
(who backed out with care in the gallery)
when it has to remember
a rusty old chicken
It’s laid there to be
Later I ventured into another small room, an alcove hidden from view and the only thing in it was a square hole in the wall. The hole in the wall was pitch dark. I poked my head in. There was nothing in there. Gradually my eyes became accustomed to the dark inside the hole in the wall. I still could not see much. I closed my useless eyes.
It smelled rusty !
“Excuse me sir !” I yelled into the void. A dark metallic echo came back !
Now I remember what I imagined.
A short recollection – written in response to a experiencing the sculpture MEMORY of Anish Kapoor.
A Bridge in the Fanfare for the Workers of Sydney
It’s made of iron and rivets and paint. Tons of it. It crosses the beauty of Sydney Harbour and spans two sides of the emerald city of Sydney, NSW. It’s orientation catches the light of the sunrise to the east and frames the perfect sunsets in the west. When you cross it at night the light zooms up from below to catch the strong arch, home to thousands of bats and insects which fly around up there. The Australian flags fly at it’s zenith and seem to state something for the nation of Australia. You see flags are a rarity in Australia, compared to the USA, where everyone has one. In Australia only important buildings have a flag to fly. Up on the bridge there are flags flying on the great creation of the workers 80 years ago today. Dr John Bradfield’s original idea and masterpiece developed from around 1900, it opened on 19th March 1932 amid much fanfare. Notably in true Australian style, someone stole the show on a horse and cut the ribbon with his sword.
Today 80 years on the sun was shining in the morning, as I crossed the bridge on the train. It is the feast day or St. Joseph patron saint of the worker. It took about 100,000 man years of work to create it. No computers calculating the odds, no adding machines, it was all done on slide rules and rooms of drawings and sketches all calculated down to the point where expectedly the two sides of the bridge met.
Of course everyone has seen the bridge, it really gets a birthday every year on New Year’s Eve when it acts as the mounting bracket for thousands of fireworks to help celebrate the new year. Yes, although originally set up to carry traffic linking the two sides of Sydney Harbour, the bridge has developed into a performance space for the common man.
As I was crossing, looking up into the arch this morning, musicians from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra were scaling the bridge and getting ready to play. It was their anniversary as well I understand. A fitting choice of piece being Aaron Copland’s “A Fanfare for the Common Man”. This piece was in fact originally commissioned by Eugene Goossens whilst he was conducting orchestras in the USA, who eventually became the first permanent conductor of the Sydney Symphony. I like the piece, I wish I had heard it, but the wind and the rain probably carried the sound to where only the seagulls and St Joseph and maybe Dr John Bradfield, who conceived the design and who made it his own quest in the early part of the 20th century. Happy Birthday Sydney Harbour Bridge !!
Blogubarra 