Reality Up in the Air: Machine for drawing on the Prairies

A drawing machine installation at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery. It is a canvas stretched horizontally in the gallery space across the top of the exhibition walls at the height of 7’ 6”. The 250 lbs of material is supported from underneath by a 6ml plastic sealed air pocket with a vacuum in reverse on a pressure switch. This gives the canvas a slight camber just like the curve of the earth. Two curved staircase structures based on the curved CPR trestle bridge that crosses over the Bow river, are placed in the subterranean space underneath. A viewer can climb the stairs which allows their head to protrude through an ox-bow lake shaped slot cut through the canvas. Above the canvas all of the windows are uncovered to open the view across the white snowy prairies. A small tractor like vehicle, based on a bump-and-go car slowly traverses the surface. It drags five pens behind it leaving a history of its travels. A transistor radio is mounted on the tractor, tuned into the local C&W station with music, weather, hog market reports and other relevant farming information. A photocell on board would start the vehicle up at dawn and shut it down at dusk in keeping with the farmers work day cycle. The drawing was accumulated over 8 weeks.

Wood, canvas, paint, plastic sheet, vacuum, electro mechanical vehicle, ink. 29’ x 55’ x 7’ 8” Lethbridge, Alberta. 1989