End of Boom, 2006

 

End of Boom is a single-camera piece that is part of the 600 Fairbanks project. This work refers to the source camera mounted at the end of the horizontal boom on the tower crane, which is constantly rotating over the construction site resulting in a work of disorientating intimacy. 600 North Fairbanks is designed by architect Helmut Jahn.

Helmut Jahn’s, 600 North Fairbanks joins the Chicago skyline, altering its character with its presence. In Chicago, skyline and landscape are synonymous. Man-made structures establish some of the highest heights in the otherwise unyielding flatness of the Midwest. Each new building augments the city through scale, function, location and material. This construction will have a significant impact on the Chicago landscape and this video studies that transformation. Altitude and scale play a large part in the disorienting mixture of video that can appear on screen. Because of this, scale, space and time compress together.

Because there are no milestones for progress or completion and the distance dissolves any sense of the construction’s stage, the work endlessly recreates the construction site. In an unassuming box of mild steel on the floor is a fascinating world where this compression works to create new relationships between these materials and forms. Presenting an aerial view at your feet where growth occurs fluidly, both forwards and backwards.