Saturday, July 30, 2011

Day 4: Liftoff

You will probably never read the following on any other blog in the city-we have just buzzed our way home after an amazing experience at Docklands!

After a busy day of bagging and hanging out the Yarra's dirty laundry, we opened up the site to the public at 5pm as the masses started drawing for the winter friday night fireworks display. After observing the movements around the site over the past two days (which generally consisted of people taking pictures of themselves, cutting through the site en route to another destination or just confused milling) we were ecstatic that our insertion created a new pattern, still a bit of milling but of a more inquisitive nature with many people touching the moveable/interactive wall or at the very least double takes from passing cyclists.

As the sun set, the last rays cut through the northern buffer wall, exposing the tier profile of the Yarra - the top 500mm of the water in the top box layer and grading down to 2m from the surface at the base of the wall. As the image illustrates, the suspected water infection is indeed skin deep, with a bacteria laden level at the surface and almost clear as it passes the two meter mark.
Once it became dark, the Dirtybuoy took on a life of its own with its watery volumes reflecting the harsh lights of the large TV screens and its regulated grid replicating the lights of the office towers in the backdrop. These two interactions were unexpected and of great joy, as was what was to follow.

As the crowds rolled in, we were inundated with curious punters, particularly children who squeezed, scrutinised and squealed with delight in examining the pockets of water on the moveable/interactive wall. Best of all, the previous occupation of the site- people taking pictures of themselves in front of the Melbourne CBD- shifted and now everyone was fighting each other to get pictures in front of the Dirtybuoy!

We were over the moon with these unexpected reactions and were all excitedly awaiting the arrival of the fireworks to test our observation window and see how the skin reflected the dynamic light display. Although this was one planned aspect, we were like kids in a candy store when this occurred....



It was during this display that we truly experienced that unique and overwhelmingly thrilling adrenalin that is only possible when a large group of people is gathered to watch something truly spectacular resulting in uncontrollable exclamation and excitement. Although many of us had seen fireworks before, the setting with the amplification of both the explosions across the hard surfaces of the dock apron and the light flickering across Dirtybuoy that was something that just can't be explained. It was one of those moments that can't be recreated on the screen, you just had to be there, which is what public space can and should be all about.

As you might have noticed, the blog has almost run like Memento, we have shown snippets of the final product and will now gradually reveal the plot or the developments that have lead to this point. As our small band of 6 has undertaken something that has required a constant hands on testing in order to be ready to experience this unique Docklands occurrence, we will now attempt to retell the story in reverse over the coming posts- stay tuned!



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