Monday, June 04, 2007

ETC: Three Things I Learned About Excavators This Weekend

1. Excavators are useful.
The Caterpillar 345B Demolition Excavator can "dig with its bucket, break up asphalt or cement with a hydraulic hammer attachment, and lift large blocks of material with a cable attachment. The body of an excavator can swing 360 degrees around, and the tracks can carry it over tough, uneven ground, making this an especially versatile, powerful machine." (From Big Trucks and Diggers in 3D by Mark Blum.)

2. Excavators are beautiful.
This is actually just the scale model created for this stunning installation, entitled "Gothic", both by artist Wim Delvoye. According to the write-up in this book (which I recommend, by the way):
The exaggeratedly decorative structural forms of the diggers, with their quatrefoil perforations, finial-topped arches, and lacy rosettes, confounded their essential ordinariness; with their unmistakeable overtones of church architecture, these emphatically secular apparatuses were somehow made to seem almost sacred.
Funny, that's exactly what I was going to say.

Every time I see an installation like this, it automatically begs the question: Why does all the most amazing public art happen in other cities, while we just get those damned
Spirit Bears? And Vancouver can't get all crybabyish and whine, "Well, of course that's a cool piece of art. It's in New York CITY," because this next piece is from Newfoundland, and it fucking rocks. (Pardon the pun, Newfoundland friends.)

3. Excavators dance better than your prom date.
Two words: In. Credible.

9 comments:

Steph said...

Oh, those dancing excavators made me so happy this morning!

Kimmie said...

We have excavators where I work. I've got to spread the word about this video to my boss.

Frédérique said...

Those dancing excavators really were fantastic.

As a pure coincidence, I had terribly-long-overdue pictures developed today and found one of a strangely appropriate Hire-A-Toy I think you'll enjoy.

frederiqueinnz.blogspot.com

(I know, I have to learn how to put links in)

Anonymous said...

To be fair, we did get Jungen's lawn chair dinosaur skeleton and Nike masks at the VAG. That was pretty cool.

Anonymous said...

Oh my gawd. "I say stop -- they stop. I say go -- they go." Sheer heaven. I can't even image having that kind of a response. Even my frickin remote doesn't do what I want it to. *sigh*

citronyella said...

Gothic is so deliciously steam-punky!!!! Would love to adopt the model to keep as a cubicle pet.

Hey, It's Ansley said...

In a similar vein, check out the videos by Mitchell Rose. He collaborates with BodyVox, a wonderful dance troupe from Portland OR.

Pageturners said...

It would be nice to see her whole film, though - and I couldn't catch her name. Beautiful, the parts you could see.

Pageturners said...

Oh, wait, here it is: http://bravofact.com/shorts/details.asp?projectID=2050