Being Close is a sculpture with several opportunities for public engagement that, as a piece of art, invites careful consideration. A book moves through the trees above three planar forms. The book is open and face down, as if temporarily set aside, on a very long track. It runs above three forms that profile the city. A wheel, turned by hand, moves the book from the clearing to the woods and back again. There are places to sit between pairs of jagged red and gray lines, stemming from New York City’s open data. This mechanism, too, is over our heads. On pause from contemporary life, a hand on the wheel turns the mechanism. Movements are incremental. There might be progress.
BEING CLOSE sculpture: site-specific installation, collaboration with Tom Butter. The viewer enters where two materials touch process: turning the wheel in either direction moves the book past stone forms of NYC complaint data material: steel, viroc, sheet metal, chain, wood, pipe, paint, hardware and tree dimensions: the beam is a 9" inch 60° triangulated truss, 55 feet in length. The leg, a 60° triangle, lifts the beam 8 feet. A tree provides lateral stability. From smallest to largest the 311’s are 84” x 48” x 33”, 72” x 96” x 72”, and 120” x 72” x 90”. The book, 36” x 40” x 9”, is connected to 100 feet of chain. The wheel, 27” across, is made of viroc and steel. 3d modeling: Lucy Pullen fabrication: Tom Butter and Lucy Pullen, Fremont Center NY graphic design: remake design printing: linco exhibition: Aidron Duckworth Museum, Meriden NH completed: 2019