BRIDGE DRAWING WATER
Site and time-responsive action
Port Adelaide River, South Australia Port Adelaide 2007
There Forever Ephemeral Public Art Project Commission
Curated by Dr Linda Marie Walker
High Tide. Draw bridge, rowboat, aqua microphones, radio microphones, radio transmitter, outdoor speakers, lighthouse, depth-sounder.

Bridge Drawing Water is a site-responsive action using a small rowboat to causes a large industrial drawbridge to open, that only opens for large ships.

Aqua microphones are connected to the oars to amplify the sound of the rowing throughout the port via radio transmitters and large speakers. As the rowboat approaches the drawbridge the sound of the circular movement of the oars are over-laid by a loud resonate horn that signals the bridge to open, the traffic to stop, the entire town to pause. The bridge becomes a collaborative instrument with the rowboat. The horn is followed by a long siren that synchronises with the rowing sound, signaling to the mechanisms that draw the bridge open. Once fully opened the sound of bells frame the durational pause of the now upright bascules, opening for longer period to allowing the disproportionately small rowboat to pass through.

There Forever is a temporary public art project that focuses upon the centre of Port Adelaide as a place with an intensely layered and complex past. The Port is presently in the midst of an unprecedented, highly planned future that will dramatically change both its external appearance and its internal condition. The opening of the bridge was achieved with the collaboration of the bridge controller in tandem with Transport SA. A depth-sounder drawing device recorded the movement of the row-boat through the river, the sound waves pulsed off the river floor, rendering the drawing on carbon paper.