you have been here sometime

Maybe we could also have
a slow-art movement,
and take an hour.

- James Turrell

The Roden Crater, Arizona

"I feel my work is made for one being, one individual. You could say that's me, but that's not really true. It's for an idealized viewer. Sometimes I'm kind of cranky coming to see something. I saw the Mona Lisa when it was in L.A., saw it for 13 seconds and had to move on. But, you know, there's this slow-food movement right now. Maybe we could also have a slow-art movement, and take an hour."

"The Alpha Tunnel"

The Roden Crater project is best described as a series of underground chambers and tunnels honeycombing an extinct volcano in a particularly remote part of northern Arizona. This complex system of subterranean rooms and culverts includes a number of precisely oriented skylights, designed to focus on certain celestial events. The "Alpha Tunnel,” the current centerpiece of the project, has been termed "the world’s longest naked-eye telescope.”

taken from here...

image taken from here..., luciano z

"At Roden Crater I was interested in taking the cultural artifice of art out into the natural surround. I did not want the work to be a mark upon nature, but I wanted the work to be enfolded in nature in such a way that light from the sun, moon and stars empowered the spaces ... I wanted an area where you had a sense of standing on the planet. I wanted an area of exposed geology like the Grand Canyon or the Painted Desert, where you could feel geologic time. Then in this stage set of geologic time, I wanted to make spaces that engaged celestial events in light so that the spaces performed a "music of the spheres" in light.

The sequence of spaces, leading up to the final large space at the top of the crater, magnifies events. The work I do intensifies the experience of light by isolating it and occluding light from events not looked at. I have selected different portions of the sky and a limited number of events for each of the spaces. This is a reason for the large number of spaces. "













perhaps we can drive to the roden crater in 2011.

written while listening to "streamside"


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