An Artifact for the Rhein-Main-Dounan Canal

Fig. 1. Francisco Infante, Rhein-Main-Dounan Canal Project, 1990. (Model of the project photographed in the artist's studio.) This curved mirror construction in the form of a spiral ribbon is designed to stretch from one side of the canal to the other, soaring above it like a huge arch or fanciful bridge of mirrors. TheAbstracts section of Leonardo is intended to bea rapidpublicationforum. Texts can beup to 750 words in lengthwith no illustrations , orup to500 words in length with oneblack-and-white illustration.Abstracts areacceptedfor publicationupon recommendation of anyone member of the Leonardo EditorialBoard, whowill then forward themto theMain EditorialOffice with his orherendorsement. AN ARTIFACT FOR THE RHEIN-MAIN-DOUNAN CANAL Francisco Infante, Brodnikiv per., d. 10, Kv. 2, Moscow 109180, Russia. Received 5 April 1991. Translated byJohn E. Bowlt. Between 14 and 28 October 1990, Faber-Castell in Nurenberg, Germany, sponsored an exhibition of competition designs dedicated to the completion of the Rhein-Main-Dounan Canal-a water artery linking many countries in Europe . The exhibition later opened in Munich and Bonn. Thirteen artists [1] took part in the competition-from Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria, \Ugoslavia, France, Czechoslovakiaand Hungary. I also participated-representing Russiawith my artifact design, about which I would like to say a few words. Since 1976 I have been working with an artistic form that I have termed "artifact " [2]. Actually, I have been concerned with this artistic form since 1968, when I made what was essentially my first artifact in the series entitled SuprematistGames. By my definition, an artifact is not only an artificial object but also the frontier of an individual vision of the connections between an artificial object and nature (the connections are established by humans). The artist's task is to demarcate this frontier. Moreover, within the artistic system of the artifact, the artificial object symbolizes the technological aspect of the world, while nature carries within itself the function of infinity. Within this artistic system, the result of the creative endeavor is the photograph ABSTRACTS or transparency. Application of the photographic process is important, for the artifact is momentary and a photograph expresses a condition that, by definition, is ephemeral. My obligation was to preserve this experience of the world in my canal project and to do this "instantly." But the problem was that 1was supposed to present, not a photograph, but a materialized object, which, of course, was not to be a sculpture, painting, depiction , installation or piece of architecture . I felt that this object could be a special technological construction, but one that was distinctive, replete with the characteristics and potentials of the very space in which it found itself-and with the typical transformations that our consciousness associates with the movement of the sun (dawn, daylight, dusk, night), the play oflight and shade and ofvarious natural circulations. As a result of my experience in the fields of geometric, kinetic and cosmic art and artifacts, I was already aware of certain features of the structure of space itself. These included the curvature of real space and consequently the absence of the objective concept of "up and down" or "left and right." In other words, I would create a construction that would introduce cosmic parameters , the resonance of space, into our own earthly space. Mywish was that this construction, erected to honor the completion of the canal, would be aerial and light-literally -and that it would be free of the weight of spontaneous symbols and meanings. Mywish was for it to be "woven " from its own surrounding space. 1 discerned that the closest and most synthetic parallel to this concept could be found in one of myoid series of artifacts called Thresholds of CurvedSpace (1979). Back then I had prepared a curved surface of a mirror that reflected the objective world while corresponding to space and the construction of space. It reflected without duplicating, using a discrete transposition while shifting the various objects vis-a-vis its own standpoint . In this way, the mirror compensated for the distance lying between the object and its reflection. The result of working with these curved mirror elements was a construction in the form of a spiral ribbon stretching from one...