Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Art and serendipity in the city.
After an early-morning doctor's appointment (through which I secured some kick-ass eye drops to ward off future hayfever flare-ups) I headed into town for some errands and to snap a few photos in the lovely daylight -- more on those results another time.
Several people noticed me taking pictures and a few of them stopped to ask about it. I told them how I thought it was rather wonderful that so many people have cameras and recording devices in their pockets that would have cost a month's wage even ten years ago, and that I feel obligated to have some fun with mine.
And then I came across these two people at this bit of public art. It's a stylized clock with four stone benches, all inlaid with a lovely, colorful mosaic.
The man asked if I was using the new Layar function our city recently rolled out, a free add-on for the augmented reality app so you can see shops, noteworthy locations, and special events through your iPhone's camera -- terribly clever stuff.
He was a tour guide who was going to be giving guided tours using that app and we had a bit of a chat about that, but his lady companion was even more interesting.
She asked me if I knew what the artwork was about, casually paving the way for the big reveal: she was, in fact, the artist.
She spent twenty minutes thrilling me with information about the Mayan calendar and astronomy, much of which was encoded into the artwork through color choices an patterns in the mosaic.
The sculpture was called "Time == Art" and it would introduce some feminine energy into the urgent, masculine commercial environment and the clock face featured a photograph of herself dressed as a cave woman.
So riveted was I that I completely neglected to ask a question that nags at me even now: her hands were orange.
What was she doing?
I like to think she was going all Pollock or Maude Lebowski and slapping orange paint on a wall, forgetting to scrub it off before heading out.
Alex.
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