Day 138: Exposure Up Close

Exposure Open Day!!!  Sometimes I totally show myself up as a massive geek and I think today it was pretty evident as I went around examining all the nuts and bolts and welding and joints and stroking random bits of metal!  I do so love this sculpture though, and getting up close was just brilliant.  He absolutely towers above you and you can get right under him and look up.  In the picture above I am stood under him looking up through the gap between his arms and legs at his head.  I suspect it's pretty hard to make out for people who aren't familiar with him (you might want to look at my previous posts about him: Day 125 and Day 126) but I love it because it is so chaotic and then you pick out his head and it suddenly makes a little more sense.

The bolts are just cool - those two pictures were my favourites and I couldn't pick between them, so I decided that if you couldn't get anything from the top one then maybe the bolts would be more appreciable.  They are huge and there are so many of them!  I liked the perspective on this one, the angles, that some of the bolts are perpendicular to others and the way they fade off into the distance like they might go on forever.  That isn't a macro shot by the way - those bolts are thicker than my fingers!

Up close the engineering is that much more impressive.  The size of the nuts and bolts and how many there are, all the welding and joints.  This picture is a good example of how complex the nodes are and they get much more so!  I actually can't believe it is possible to do that and it just makes it all the more astounding that the sculpture is finished and standing.  One of the guys at the open day said that someone had told them that they might be able to model the sculpture in the software, but that it was impossible to actually build it.  It must be so nice to have finished it and be able to turn around and say "Taadaaaa!"

One of the other cool things I saw was this joint on the left side of his left foot near his ankle.  The sections of steel make an A - my mum spotted it and pointed it out and I think it is brilliant - well I certainly would if I was Antony Gormley - A for Antony - it's like having your signature oh so subtly worked into the structure.  I hope he sees it!

And then there is section 42 - need I say more!  I noticed 39 and 40 and then went on a hunt for 42 to satisfy my inner Hitchhiker!  It's nice to know he has the answer - I wonder if he will be able to come up with the question while he sits and stares out to sea thinking.

One of the highlights though was spotting this nut under his left foot, asking if I could have it and being told yes.  I know it's not on the sculpture and never will have been but it's the same as the others and it was there and I'm geeky enough to think that rules.

After it has been looked over by Antony the sculpture will be taken down again to be transported to Holland.  It will be pretty hard to see him come down again but I think he will be my excuse to go to Holland.  Bye Exposure!  Send me a postcard :-)

Day 126: Exposure At Night

I got lucky - we had a lovely evening tonight and me and my dad were both home so off to see "Exposure" we went! How awesome is this?! I thought it would be cool but the reality is so much better than I expected. It's just so light and bright and shiny and fantastic and it completely draws focus away from the structure around it and makes the pictures look so much better. I actually kinda think he looks like he's penned in at the moment, stuck in a cage, although the ironic thing is that it looks like if he just stood up he could step out of the box to freedom.


I also love this one because it shows his head and face so well and the way his arms are round his knees. He somehow looks very thoughtful. I couldn't resist adding in this next one which is completely over exposed, but it makes him look like a being made of light which is so awesome - very comic book :-)


It is something of a challenge, as you may have noticed from today's and yesterday's photos, to get a picture without beams obstructing the sculpture and kinda ruining it. I, therefore, very much hope this guy who was up in a cherry picker inside the yard with what, one can only assume, were unobstructed views knows just how lucky he is!


PS - I uploaded a photo from yesterday to DeviantArt for the first time in forever! (and no it's not of Antony Gormley's Doofer! ;-)
Breathing Space

Day 125: Exposure

This is "Exposure", a new sculpture by Antony Gormley - the man behind many cool sculptures such as the "Angel of the North" and "Another Place". Affectionately known as Antony Gormley's Doofer (because we kept going to see it and marvelling at it and completely failing to remember what it was called!), we have been watching it grow over the past few months, getting more and more excited about how huge it is and what a fantastic feat of engineering it is. The sculpture is of a crouching man and is being assembled near my Granny's house (giving us the perfect excuse to go and see it every week) by a company called Had Fab who normally build things like pylons - you can see why they would be a good choice for a project like this! I think we're very lucky to have spotted it because this was a test assembly and it will be going to Holland very soon. Apparently it is flood lit at night so I think it would be interesting to go back and see it at about sunset/twilight as another potentially interesting photo.

Meanwhile, there are a few more photos below to show you some detail and scale. I went with the far away shot above because it is so striking and gives you an idea of how enormous he is (25 metres tall) and it gives an overall idea of the pose he is in - you can see his shins, his bum curving out to the side and his arms curving round to hug his knees. It wasn't the best day to photograph him but when I took them I was just so excited he looked complete and we weren't sure how long he would stay complete. I have heard tell of an open day though, so with any luck we'll be able to go along and get up close to him! :-D

When you look at the close ups (you can click on them to see a larger version) you can see all the individual beams and the nodes where they all join together. I read that he is made up of 14,000 bolts, 5,000 pieces and 548 joining nodes which are incredible because in places they are joining together so many pieces - like in his head and his chest, giving the image of a brain and a heart. It's not your average 4 way joint! And I will always be amazed by the detail you can achieve with simple lines. Looking at him side on his head is so simple and yet the use of slight angles mean you can see exactly where his eyes, nose and mouth are. I saw a clip of a TV show that had an interview with Antony and he said that this just wouldn't have been possible even 10 years ago because the design software alone wouldn't have been able to cope. I find it incredible that they managed and that he is standing on just his 2 feet (bolted down, admittedly) with no fear of him toppling or contorting because of wind or the weight of his own body. And from all this excited rambling you can probably tell I am very much enamoured with "Exposure" and I will miss him when he goes to Holland. I very much hope I will get the chance to visit him someday, as well as "Another Place" and the chance to stand at the feet of the "Angel of the North" instead of just seeing her from a distance on the motorway.