Spiral Jetty: water as a physical and spiritual force

Spiral Jetty is an earthwork sculpture constructed in April 1970 by American sculptor Robert Smithson, who documented its construction in a 32 minute color film by the same title. It was built on the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake in Utah entirely of mud, salt crystals, and basalt rocks, forming a 1,500-foot-long, 15-foot-wide helical coil protruding from the shore of the lake. It resonates strongly with the notion of 'eco-complex' and human representations of water, water symbolism. The work resonates with an eco-complex viewpoint seeking to investigate how these specific ideas interact with the huge range of associations and power dynamics humanity brings to its engagements with water. The spiral shape of the man-made getty defies the statement that : “Given the specificity of their borders, rivers are inherently knowable places of connections, and spiritual symbols for fluidity, change, and a perpetual flow of time in one steady direction.”, creating a kind of ripple in time through the use of a spiral.

Smithson’s design enhances the spiritual and physical aspects of bodies of water. Smithson reportedly chose the Rozen Point site based on the blood-red colour of the water and its connection with the primordial sea. The red hue of the water is derived from salt-tolerant bacteria and algae dwelling in the extreme 27 per cent salinity of the lake's north arm, which was isolated from freshwater sources by the building of a causeway by the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1959.

6,650 tons of rock and earth were hauled into the lake.

Phillips said. “I don’t think he had done any geology work or anything on it. He just had in his mind what it should look like.… He just had the eye for it. I assume it was the artist in him.”

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Jetty)

Since initial construction, those interested in its fate have dealt with questions of proposed changes in land use in the area surrounding the sculpture. It encapsulates the notions of deep time that are also present in the crystal cave picture located in the Marginal Worlds photo essay, as well as the notion of bodies of water 'cultivating life' in the watery worlds photo essay.

Marina Abramovic’s daring performance works envision the human body as a ‘bridge’, breaking down the sacrosanct binaries and distinctions between artworks and audiences, the human body and natural formations, natural processes and human processes- resonating with the idea of the ‘subterranean’ and forging a channel through the earth. The year of Marina and her partner Ulay’s big China project "The Lovers – The Great Wall Walk" saw a hike along the Chinese Wall as their last joint work.

“After six years of calling at the Chinese authorities they were finally able to carry out their ninety-day walk from opposite ends at the east and west of the Wall whose mythological analogy is the dragon, until they would meet in the middle.”

“The Performance, including reflections on the country and intended to mirror an intense encounter of two lovers, turned into a farewell walk – a second cleansing for Marina, walking as a "State of Being", a search for identity for Ulay as he was thrown back on himself – and marked the end of twelve intense years of working and living together as well as the way into a new beginning.”

This conceptualisation of the process of walking relates to Thereaux’s idea of walking and finding oneself, the envisioning of the process of walking as a kind of reading and getting to the core/marrow of life, an essential experience, walking as a transcendental, existential process of unravelling, getting to a kind of zero point.

“To Abramovic, the walk along the Wall was an emptying boat/an entering stream, a departure ("Boat Emptying/Stream Entering", "Departure", titles of her subsequent exhibitions), a putting to see, her exhibition about the China project, while in his photographs, Ulay was dealing with the filled or empty vase as an object of meditation and as an equivalent to the human body.”

This mystic perception of objects relates to Stacy Alaimo's concept of "intra-activity", in which humanity's experience of nature is never singular but inextricably bound to the experiences of other living creatures - both animate and inanimate - who inhabit this planet.

“Her search for a state of emptiness combined with insights from Chinese mythology remains a central experience for Abramovic which she wishes to convey to the visitor of the exhibition in her subsequent objects made of quartz, copper and energy-conducting materials.”

Forging a “bridge” between the human psyche and the mystic power of objects.

“In "Departure" (1991), she designed – in analogy to the position of various dragons – wall-mounted quartz cushions for man's main energy centres positioned in the location of the head, heart and sex for the audience to lean against so they could leave their everyday life behind in a meditative ‘marginal world’ that exists outside of the busy mainstream world. Whether one lies down on a copper couch, sits down on "Transitory Objects" (1992), seats set with pieces of quartz, puts on crystal Druse helmets or stays in a "Mineral Room" (1994), Abramovic's installations are intended to impart a sense of connectedness with the earth and to induce a passive perception, a decrease of tension in the receptive viewer.”

Abramovic creates works that create a link between the human body and natural landscapes- a kind of ‘intra-active’ process. “A passivity balanced with high risks is evident once more in her performance where she has five snakes creep over her relaxed body, allowing them to model it as if she herself were the earth.”

“Abramovic forges an analogous connection between stones and body parts – quartz and crystals as the eyes of the earth, iron as human blood, copper as the nerves, amethyst as the wisdom tooth – drawn by Abramovic when she stayed in Brazil for several months.”

This occult-like vision of the body resonates with notions of breaking down the binaries between humanity and nature.

"Beuys saw himself as a shaman,

Malevich as a step,

and I see myself as a bridge.

On one side, I receive, on the other, I pass on.

To be a true bridge,

one has to be very pure inside,

otherwise one is but an obstacle." (1991)

Approximating the colour of the universe

The notion of attempting to approximate the colour of the universe relates strongly to notions of anthropocentric human perception and situatedness in relation to Earth, something that problematizes attempts to ‘get a picture of the earth’ that are present in the atmospheres/bird worlds chapter. Below are anthropocentric methods for measuring the world’s colour.

Cyanometer noun. From Greek kyanos, “azure; lapis lazuli,” + metra, “lot, portion.” An instrument for measuring blueness. “The invention of the 18th-century Swiss natural philosopher Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, the cyanometer consisted of 53 small squares of paper arranged into a ring. Each square was dyed with a different concentration of Prussian Blue solution (iron-hexacyanoferrate), then arranged in order of intensity; a square of pure white and one of pure black were added on either end.”

“De Saussure was a mountaineer as well as a scientist, and wanted to create a tool to measure the sky’s hue at different heights. The cyanometer never took off among his peers or successors, but de Saussure put it to work himself at the tops and bottoms of peaks like Col du Géant and Mont Blanc. In doing so, he recorded a phenomenon that would not be fully explained until the discovery (made after his own death) that atmospheric particles scatter light in such a way as to change its color and intensity. The blueness of the sky, de Saussure’s instrument confirmed, increased—perceptibly, consistently—with altitude and decreased with latitude.” (http://366inscience.tumblr.com/post/18419206493/cyanometer)

Cosmic latte:

“Cosmic latte is a name assigned to the average color of the universe, found by a team of astronomers from Johns Hopkins University. In 2001, Karl Glazebrook and Ivan Baldry determined that the average color of the universe was a greenish white, but they soon corrected their analysis in a 2002 paper, in which they reported that their survey of the light from over 200,000 galaxies averaged to a slightly beigeish white.[2] The hex triplet value for cosmic latte is #FFF8E7.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_latte

The ancient Nazca lines, which require topographic, viewing to see completely, demonstrate the power of bird perspective, or a ‘birds-eye-view’, a notion that also links to the notion of geologic time and extinctions.

“The Nazca Lines are a series of large ancient geoglyphs in the Nazca Desert, in southern Peru. The largest figures are up to 370 m (1,200 ft) long. They were designated as a UNESCOWorld Heritage Site in 1994. Scholars believe the Nazca Lines were created by the Nazca culture between 500 BCE and 500 CE.” (Wikipedia)

Hundreds are simple lines and geometric shapes; more than 70 are zoomorphic designs of animals, such as birds, fish, llamas, jaguars, and monkeys, or human figures. Other designs include trees and flowers. (Wikipedia)

The designs are shallow lines made in the ground by removing naturally occurring reddish pebbles and uncovering the whitish/grayish ground beneath. Scholars differ in interpreting the purpose of the designs, but in general, they ascribe religious significance to them. (Wikipedia)

The Nazca lines also resonate with ideas of geological time and man made structures that highlight the experience of geological time through unreal, sublime perspectives, such as the Hoover dam with its celestial star map or Terrel's crater which provides audiences with a direct viewing of geologic and celestial time.

Because of its isolation and the dry, windless, stable climate of the plateau, the lines have mostly been preserved naturally. This notion of isolation and preservation relates to the idea of the subterranean; for example the growth of crystals in caves with extreme heat conditions that prevent human exploration.

The ancient Nazca lines, which require topographic, viewing to see completely, demonstrate the power of bird perspective, or a ‘birds-eye-view’, a notion that also links to the notion of geologic time and extinctions.

“The Nazca Lines are a series of large ancient geoglyphs in the Nazca Desert, in southern Peru. The largest figures are up to 370 m (1,200 ft) long. They were designated as a UNESCOWorld Heritage Site in 1994. Scholars believe the Nazca Lines were created by the Nazca culture between 500 BCE and 500 CE.” (Wikipedia)

Hundreds are simple lines and geometric shapes; more than 70 are zoomorphic designs of animals, such as birds, fish, llamas, jaguars, and monkeys, or human figures. Other designs include trees and flowers. (Wikipedia)

The designs are shallow lines made in the ground by removing naturally occurring reddish pebbles and uncovering the whitish/grayish ground beneath. Scholars differ in interpreting the purpose of the designs, but in general, they ascribe religious significance to them. (Wikipedia)

The Nazca lines also resonate with ideas of geological time and man made structures that highlight the experience of geological time through unreal, sublime perspectives, such as the Hoover dam with its celestial star map or Terrel's crater which provides audiences with a direct viewing of geologic and celestial time.

Because of its isolation and the dry, windless, stable climate of the plateau, the lines have mostly been preserved naturally. This notion of isolation and preservation relates to the idea of the subterranean; for example the growth of crystals in caves with extreme heat conditions that prevent human exploration. ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazca_Lines#/media/File:Nazca_monkey.jpg