It’s the evening before. We assemble at the designated plaza. 4 different artist groups have their own version of the bubbles. We must patch all the bubbles to a central bubble that also has the air conditioner hook up.
Blow up, patch with tape, throw sandbags in, done. That’s what we said. But the universe flies with its own currents.
“If you’re going to make a project, it will cost more than you anticipated, and will take longer than you thought.” – A variation of Murphy’s Law.
Now, let’s make up some more Murphy like laws:
- Anything that looks amazing in your head, will look like a trash bag on a scarecrow in reality.
- When you try to patch a hole, the hole will only get bigger.
- The amount of tape you use is directly proportional to the strength of a wind gust that will blow the tape mass away.
- If you’re late to a project thing, your associates will get there even later.
And that pretty much sums it up. At one point, the AC unit stopped working and all the bubbles deflated. Then the Kansas winds blew, and we fought it with tape, and sandbags, and more tape.
When it was all done, it looked beautiful, and we watched it with pride and a sense of triumph, not entirely sure if it would still be standing the next day. But at that moment, the lights shone through it just right, it made us believe. We hung around long after it was dark, admiring the bubbles. This was the evening of the second hottest day of the summer of 2017, the hottest day would be tomorrow.
It’s Bubble Day! And the same rules apply. Makers, enthusiasts, teams, loners, families, woodworkers, robot lords, clay throwers, dragon masters all came with their curious contraptions. We were trapped and liberated in our greenhouse bubble.
I learned that you can only admire art at a comfortable temperature. All of the following things happened one or more times throughout the day. The chronological order does not matter, the heat would melt and mush all the experiences anyway. In no particular order:
- I sat on the floor directly in front of the A/C hose and expressed a heartfelt gratitude to the portable HVAC industry.
- We took turns sitting in front of the A/C unit.
- The black bean bag absorbed so much heat, you couldn’t sit on it anymore.
- The pool of ice meant for water bottles had turned luke-warm by 2:00 pm.
- Someone had to always watch the door flap since losing air meant losing pressure, causing the entire structure to deflate.
- It got hotter and hotter.
- I had a layer of sand on my face and arms.
- People showed up, disappeared or were probably gobbled up by the thick hot air, but Caleb and I stayed put because we had electronics, and kids found the pool of water. Kids splashed water everywhere. Is that part of the installation? It is amazing how your audience is receptive to different things than what you need them to be. The pool of water used to be a pool of ice meant to keep water bottles cold, but to a 3 year old, that became part of the experience, and that became the art, the bubble universe.
- The manager from Exploration Place came by a couple of times to make sure we were still alive.
- Around 4:30, it became unbearable.
- Our skins turned into red angry patches. The holes got bigger, the cracks more pronounced, and tape more useless.
- The Kansas winds picked up. The entire structure wavered, and faltered.
- At 4:45, I gave up.
- By 5:30, the whole thing went to trash.
We ripped it apart because the plastic pieces weren’t worth saving, or perhaps we had no energy to sort through them. The amount of tape also made it impossible to separate anything. An important facet of creativity is letting go. A piece of art on a canvas can last for hundreds of years. Yet, installations can be temporary. Their fleeting existence has to be experienced, and their capriciousness, appreciated.
Caleb: “Part of me couldn’t wait for it to be over. Yet, I would totally do this again. The result was more like a challenge. But the process allowed us to meet the other people involved, and hear their stories.”
Leave a Reply