Track was originally made as a temporary installation for the Saxon Tithe Barn in Bradford-on-Avon in 2000. A white form travelled almost imperceptibly slowly along a 15-metre horizontal track, powered by an electric motor. It took twenty minutes to reach the end, paused briefly, then reversed and began the journey again.
The form itself was derived from a day’s hole-digging and had something of the appearance of a small mountain or land mass. Its slow, repetitive journey gave it a peculiar combination of purpose and futility.
The important thing about Track that a photograph cannot show, is the slowness of the white form’s progress back and forth along the rails.
The slowness is slower than the special halting march made before the cenotaph on Poppy Day. It is slower than Kung Fu walking on a rice paper scroll. It is slower than the shuffling gait of the oldest and most infirm pet dog. It is slower than the plaster original of G.F. Watt’s ‘Physical Energy’ as it is winched out of the shed at the back of the Watts Gallery in Compton once a year.
It is so slow that it is almost unbearable to watch.
Unlike the unclaimed luggage currently circumnavigating rubber conveyors at airports around the world, there is no hope that this object will ever arrive.
From the catalogue essay of EV+A 2002
This project was funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Board and Southern Arts (Arts Council of England)
