Friday, January 04, 2008
Turbine Hall Crack
Comments:
Oh wow! The contrast of the static crack with the blurred movement, the low perspecitive (were you in the crack, and if so, you must have received some stares) all give this a strange look. And the ability to see the strange colors in the crack and see it move meanacingly towards the people, as thought attacking, but they don't seem to notice. Run, people, run!
It's quite difficult to disentangle art object and photograph! First off is that Jana likes this.
I suppose that if I have any niggle it is with the fact that supposedly (what I have read!) the crack isn't more than 10" wide but here it leaves one wondering how you achieved it. But of all the images on the net, this one seems to have engaged with it better than the majority; it is also the only one that I have seen that shows the mesh, which is fairly central to Salcedo's artistic statement. Did you use flash to illuminate the depths of the crack?
To digress a moment: I was interested when reading about this installation to realise just how practical the British are. There is little about Salcedo's message and far more about the possibilities surrounding the construction and installing. I have seen a short video of the filming of one spot along the crack and one sees people surging backwards and forwards without any hint that they're wondering about it at all: interviews throw up the same. It's called 'Shibboleth' and I don't think that many people want to talk about the fact that it addresses racism and differences.
So, in this, I have looked at the people and tried to assess whether they are engaged or not. It is difficult to say but the man with his back to you looks as though he is photographing his child in a pushchair; but there seems to be some reflection going on. I'd be interested to hear how you reacted to the installation and how well it gets its message across.
Rex - I meant to ask in the earlier comment whether you saw 'picture this' on Channel 4 on Sunday night? There is more to come if you missed it and you can visit the site - channel4.com/picturethis
I'm a sucker for motion blur and this one has handled it very well (the yellow top working particularly well). I too would welcome a little explanation as to how this was captured. The crack has some wonderful hues going on inside it - the blue is such a contrast. An unusual vantage point and well captured.
This is a comment I put on MFT slightly updated
The crack is truly puzzling for me. It is like a magicians trick that I cannot explain. I am an engineer and I can tell you the following; it is not a false floor; it gives the appearance of being a crack in the original floor; there are no marks either side of the crack to indicate an initial trench; the surface finish of the cracked slabs is identical to those not cracked (there are even marks that go 'across' the crack; the features either side of the crack seem to match; it is a deep crack, I saw a parent put their child in and then get told off; the wire mesh is part of the sculpture not part of the floor; there are 'forks' in the cracks; The start of the crack is 'zero' some cracks end in 'zero'; If as an engineer I was asked to do this I would remove the original concrete slabs, break/crack them and then resize them to fit in the original hole leaving the crack; if asked to replicate the 'forks, starts/stops' I'd give up; I don't think it was done like that because it was done by an artist not an engineer.
I used a Zig, one can be seen right in front of the camera, as the point to put the camera on the floor with the lens hanging over the edge into the crack. I held the camera hard down on to the floor to get the camera stationary (This was 8s/f16). I took several images at each spot, as I couldn't control the other observers. I kept going until Nora got bored and wanted to leave! No flash was used, it was over 100 miles away.
Picking up on John's point I would say this fails as a bit of art but succeeds as a magicians trick (or civil engineers nightmare). I think everyone just thinks how did they do that? You would have to stifle you natural curiosity in order to start thinking why did they do that? I don't recall seeing any write ups, they were selling a booklet which I didn't buy.
Hear and See HERE
Yes I did watch that program and I will watch more.
On Saturday Nora and I went to Salisbury to see the SPF exhibition at the library. None of my prints chosen this year. We then went on to an exhibition of professional photos at a museum near the Cathedral. The landscape pictures were A2 size and £395 was the common asking price. Nora kept telling me to stop swearing. The 'artist' had taken little (no?) care over the quality of her prints, they were 'c**p'. It was a triumph of size over quality.
Thanks for the link - it is one that I hadn't come across! Salcedo is very articulate and her English amazingly good. That 'Shibboleth' is not conveying what she wants to most people could be put down to a lot of things but in some ways reflects the fact that Tate Modern is 'somewhere' to go to visit and is in itself iconic (hence the interest in the floor). It only goes to show how difficult it is for 'art' to engage with the cultural zeitgeist. But as Martin Parr put it last night: if the photograph needs explaining the photographer has failed!
It took me a while to realise that a Zig is not something that you buy from Warehouse Express! Surely a zig!
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I suppose that if I have any niggle it is with the fact that supposedly (what I have read!) the crack isn't more than 10" wide but here it leaves one wondering how you achieved it. But of all the images on the net, this one seems to have engaged with it better than the majority; it is also the only one that I have seen that shows the mesh, which is fairly central to Salcedo's artistic statement. Did you use flash to illuminate the depths of the crack?
To digress a moment: I was interested when reading about this installation to realise just how practical the British are. There is little about Salcedo's message and far more about the possibilities surrounding the construction and installing. I have seen a short video of the filming of one spot along the crack and one sees people surging backwards and forwards without any hint that they're wondering about it at all: interviews throw up the same. It's called 'Shibboleth' and I don't think that many people want to talk about the fact that it addresses racism and differences.
So, in this, I have looked at the people and tried to assess whether they are engaged or not. It is difficult to say but the man with his back to you looks as though he is photographing his child in a pushchair; but there seems to be some reflection going on. I'd be interested to hear how you reacted to the installation and how well it gets its message across.
The crack is truly puzzling for me. It is like a magicians trick that I cannot explain. I am an engineer and I can tell you the following; it is not a false floor; it gives the appearance of being a crack in the original floor; there are no marks either side of the crack to indicate an initial trench; the surface finish of the cracked slabs is identical to those not cracked (there are even marks that go 'across' the crack; the features either side of the crack seem to match; it is a deep crack, I saw a parent put their child in and then get told off; the wire mesh is part of the sculpture not part of the floor; there are 'forks' in the cracks; The start of the crack is 'zero' some cracks end in 'zero'; If as an engineer I was asked to do this I would remove the original concrete slabs, break/crack them and then resize them to fit in the original hole leaving the crack; if asked to replicate the 'forks, starts/stops' I'd give up; I don't think it was done like that because it was done by an artist not an engineer.
I used a Zig, one can be seen right in front of the camera, as the point to put the camera on the floor with the lens hanging over the edge into the crack. I held the camera hard down on to the floor to get the camera stationary (This was 8s/f16). I took several images at each spot, as I couldn't control the other observers. I kept going until Nora got bored and wanted to leave! No flash was used, it was over 100 miles away.
Picking up on John's point I would say this fails as a bit of art but succeeds as a magicians trick (or civil engineers nightmare). I think everyone just thinks how did they do that? You would have to stifle you natural curiosity in order to start thinking why did they do that? I don't recall seeing any write ups, they were selling a booklet which I didn't buy.
Hear and See HERE
On Saturday Nora and I went to Salisbury to see the SPF exhibition at the library. None of my prints chosen this year. We then went on to an exhibition of professional photos at a museum near the Cathedral. The landscape pictures were A2 size and £395 was the common asking price. Nora kept telling me to stop swearing. The 'artist' had taken little (no?) care over the quality of her prints, they were 'c**p'. It was a triumph of size over quality.
It took me a while to realise that a Zig is not something that you buy from Warehouse Express! Surely a zig!