Yesterday was all about cables! An email arrived in my inbox at 9am (before I had got into Piccadilly Place to start work) - turns out the mass of sticklight cables that were entwined in a pile at the foot of one of my works was all too much for the site's sparky...
He had, in my absence, completely taken apart the whole work, strung up all the cables with cable-ties and put the whole thing back together. At first I was mad! Then I saw what he had done... he had done a rather beautiful job of arranging the work (probably better than my original arrangement actually - although the work was going to be re-made anyway before the show opens). If I had wanted the tightly bound aesthetic then happy days and thank you to the sparky, but alas not! However, it did prove to me that if I was to ever show this piece again elsewhere I could trust someone else to install the work.
I began a debate with the electrician and site safety officer as to what I was allowed to get away with in terms of a pile of cables. It made my chuckle when his answer to the situation was 'you arty types always want to do something different'... well yes sir, we do! The discussion ended by a compromise - I was allowed to untie the trusts and arrange the wires tastefully how I wanted, as long as they weren't in a tangled mass (acting like a huge transistor apparently).
It took me most of the day to re-make the whole work, on the fourth attempt I got it right. On the first attempt I realised it was in the wrong spot on the floor. The second attempt collapsed. On the the third attempt the wires didn't 'look right'. Fourth time lucky! Phew!
In other news, I was able to see how some of the works came into their own when it was getting dark. Above is an example of how the lights in the work bounce around the space and create colour ways and interesting painterly hues on the white walls.
Oh, and just before I left the space, one side of that bloody banner fell down! The bain of my life at the moment. A job for tomorrow?
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