| Abstract/Description |
From Collins Landing, Docklands, we make our way downstream, a flotilla of bright blue vessels, toy-like polyurethane hulls with buzzy electric motors.
On one side we pass a bank of million-dollar condos, only a few years old. On the other, collapsed platforms and rotten pilings, the derelict North Wharf.
Under the Bolte Bridge, then it's the port proper, busiest in the southern hemisphere, handling 2.5 million containers per year. A Wallenius Wilhelmsen Ro/Ro carrier, cadmium red behemoth, looms near to starboard. We throttle down, lingering in its shadow, listening to a special broadcast on the VHF marine radio: an aural patchwork, including interviews with those who work, play and live on the water, music and ocean sounds, strange and long drawn.
On shore, a man is playing the tuba. Across the water, atop the disused port control tower, an answering figure appears, like someone in a painting by de Chirico, playing a trombone.
5 Short Blasts is the work of immersive sound artists Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey, and a unique tour of Melbourne's docks.
The waterfront is a difficult space to design for - it is already its own busy world of sound.
But this is not an attempt to control the environment, only to give it a surreal emphasis, and to lend a sense of exploration to the journey.
And if the weather is mild and clear, perhaps a few clouds spreading like a shipwreck, it's hard to imagine a more intriguing encounter with the watery part of the world. |
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