We followed a blue chalk line from where we had been told to meet (SE 16th and Brooklyn) to an empty space in the Ford Building on SE 11th and Division. In the middle of an art installation there, ("Schema") was a table covered in a blue cloth. There were amaranth flowers and cat tails upon it. Two candle sticks, blue plastic cutlery, blue Styrofoam plates, clear plastic cups. To the left of the entrance there was a basketball hoop. To the right was what seemed a shrine. A black light leaned against a corner, a latch hook rug of a robot on the floor - all whites glowing fluorescent - the cords, the yarn, the inside of a flash umbrella, piles of blue yarn, a plastic hanger.
Five monitors placed at five of the six points of a Hexagon played images of blue tarpaulins whipped by the wind. The Hexagon was drawn on the floor with a single yellow extension cord that was plugged into the wall. All audio visual equipment sourced power from this point. At the sixth point of the hexagon was a pile of asphalt. Behind this point standing in the corner was the basketball hoop. Behind the basketball hoop there was a single white pedestal with a basketball balanced on it. An enormous video of more blowing tarps was projected from across the room onto the pole, backboard, hoop, ball and wall beyond.
An orchestra started playing a single note, two young men started to play a game of basketball. The orchestra joined the cacophony of sounds already echoing in the room: of wind and crackling tarps, of fans, the cars, of the six trains that passed, of eating, of cooking, shoes squeaking, ball bouncing...
The players became a living breathing projection screen. Unidentifiable, they were shadow puppets shifting fluidly from giants to gnomes. They created an image of a basketball game within an image of the wind within the image of a few people eating dinner in an empty retail space within an historic building, within SE Portland within greater Portland within Multnomah County within Oregon within the United States, within the northern hemisphere within the Earth - the universe was our backdrop...
They played basketball for twenty minutes at which time the music stopped. Someone pulled a plug. The lights went out. The monitors shut off. Strips of blue paper were passed around. They read, "Please observe silence for the next twenty minutes".
Every one became still. We didn't know what was expected of us. We didn't know what to do. We were well into our meal by this time and had begun to get to know our neighbors (Most of us didn't know each other before hand). We continued eating in silence. We began to notice things about each other that we hadn't before. Little things. We began to communicate by waving our hands, pointing with our fingers, with our eyes. There are so many forms of communication available to us that we take for granted. It was good to be reminded of this.
The meal, we were told, was made exclusively from ingredients indigenous to the Willamette valley and Columbia Basin. The bread was made from acorn flour, the air was thick with the smell of a whole, 15 lb. salmon grilling over an open fire when we arrived; a salad of dandelions and watercress with a berry dressing...It was all served family style. Everyone sharing from the same platters.
Twenty minutes elapsed and the silence was broken. i was sad to see it go. It seemed to take nearly twenty minutes to settle into it; to become comfortable; to try it on. Then it was gone. How often are we offered the luxury of silence in our lives?
Our host rose from where he was seated and asked us to accompany him on a walk. We were led through the twists and turns of Ladds Addition to SE 16th and Hawthorne at which point he told us the performance was concluded. He invited us to meet him at 16th and Hawthorne on Wednesday the 3rd of September at 6 pm to join him for the second dinner of the SIXSIXSIX project. I for one will be there.
E.G.
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