From nowhere, an idea for GALAXY (part 13)
/[The GALAXY Project is a light-art installation that I’m working on for the next burn. Phase I is essentially a spiral labyrinth consisting of hundreds of glowing rings made of electroluminescent wire.]
It’s been months since there’s been any progress on the GALAXY Project, and there are several reasons why that is perfectly okay:
I shipped all the rings and power thingies to Kevin, head of the Engineering Dept. of the GALAXY Project, and he is working — no lie — with his contacts at Georgia Tech to devise power systems for the piece; and
At the moment, Flashpoint Artists Initiative is still only tentatively penciling in our burn, Alchemy, for October, and certainly there are no plans for the art fundraiser yet.
So all the next steps in the plan — make a presentation at the fundraiser; assemble a production team; recruit an installation/maintenance team; etc. — are in abeyance until some time in June.
However, as Lichtenbergians all know, TASK AVOIDANCE/GESTALT also involves gestation, and thus it has happened here.
One problem that has been nagging at me is how to make the installation of GALAXY at the burn as efficient and effective as possible, and the other day while driving somewhere, a solution popped into my head — the classic aha! moment we all know and love.
The problem was the seeming randomness of the piece. If it’s being installed by a ragtag bunch of hippies, how can we make sure that it goes smoothly and “accurately,” if that’s the word I’m looking for. I had thought of telling the hippies to distribute the rings on the ground to “match” the drawing, then come along with wires to hook them up. After all, insisting on “accuracy” with such a thing in such a setting is a quick way to lose workers, friends, and sanity.
Think central nervous system: spinal cord, nerves, eerily glowing fingertips.
That process seemed a bit haphazard if not downright chaotic, so the new idea is simpler. If the engineering department agrees, then we lay out a single, central wire for the whole piece, and then add wires off that to the plugs that attach to the rings. That “central nervous system” structure is permanent, i.e., the branches are permanently wired in. AND we label each branch wire with the size of the ring: 9, 12, 15 that kind of thing — OR, and this just occurred to me, color-code the branch with a piece of tape.
Now all we have to do is start at the center and lay out the backbone wire in the spiral, then spread out the branches, then gaily drop the wire supports along the way while three teams come along behind and install their size of ring along the backbone.
Turn turn kick turn — yes, IT WILL WORK!
(note: I have conflated the actual construction of GALAXY prior to the burn with its installation at the burn. I trust the reader to untangle that on their own.)
(P.S. It has occurred to me that team members get a GALAXY Project t-shirt. Keep that in mind as you hesitate to volunteer to solder some part of 200 EL wire rings.)
