I tend to see the alignment as a kind of city-commerce-sync. A weird little trace of to completely random systems overlaying and interfering with each other.
But why does this little film become interesting now more than a year after it was shot?
Visiting the blog I am not a gun I became aware of a pretty interesting theme. In the blogpost 'New york' the writer elaborate a little on how the city becomes more and more predictable as you get to know it and how to find your way around. Referring to Speed Levitch he tends to see the grid as the ultimate example of the 'death of magic'.
Well for me the interesting thing in this case was not the situationist learning by drifting approach, nor the death of magic, but the fact that he refers to a phenomenon; 'Manhattan-henge' as the only good thing about the grid plan.
2 days a year (May 28 and July 12 or July 13) the sunset aligns with the east-west streets on Manhattan and you will see the setting sun exactly at the end of the street, being a 'romantic' epiphenomenon to the ultimate example of death of magic, creating a cross measuring of time. This is the SYNC. The sync between two UNIREALMS - the man made Manhattan grid and the and the almost unexplainable universe that surrounds us.Strangely enough Manhattan-henge is completely predictable and is at the same time a bonus for those who are aware of the phenomena. The ultimate example of 'chance of drifting'.
Staying a little in the present before heading back some hundred years, one could suggest that these phenomenons are note rare, but will occur at a infinite speed and in a infinite number - always and all the time. Since there is no exact definition of UNIREALM:sync its hard to exclude anything.
What definitely makes Manhattan Henge count as a UNIREALM:sync, is the fact that it is heavily mapped through the web. Go for a Flickr search: manhattan+"may 28" - (another bunch of kool photos can be seen here) and you will realize that the sync infiltrates the virtual world as well.
Though the phenomena has been around since the mid 1800, it wasn't coined until Neil deGrasse Tyson in 2002 named it Manhattan-henge, referring to the British Stonehenge (3500 bc) at which there at different periods has been various adjustments in the alignments to northern and southern solstice.
The precision in some ancient architecture and its relative strong relation to astronomy can be recognized in the Giza pyramid, that is said to be facing north-south-east-west with a divergence of less than a fraction of a degree. This is a sync is hard to capture since it doesn't throw off any tangible effect.
Another even more interesting example is the smaller Mayan temple Chichen Itza. Here they managed to introduce a pretty developed symbolism into the pyramid-sun-sunc.
At spring and fall equinox (sunrise), the 9 steps of the pyramid casts a shadow that creates a serpent (Kukulkan) on the side of the 365 step stairs. At this biannual event, the shadow fits perfectly with the serpents head which is constantly waiting for the serpent to arrive from heaven. (To go into Mayan culture is far to complicated, but as a little sip of it I found this quite elaborate site Beyond 2012 - that also contains a countdown for the last day. As a cheer up after this reading check NASA FAQ about the 2012 issue.)
Thanks a lot to www.world-mysteries.com for creating this (424KB) animated gif! We really appreciate this medium.
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I think this is getting so(outh/me)where, however I would like to adress if it is necessary to distinguish between planned syncs (as the mayan temple) and coincidal syncs (as the manhattan henge). Is there here a parallel to the difference between a 'crafted' artwork and a readymade? Can we talk about Manhattan Henge as a UNIREALM:sync readymade?
ReplyDeleteNot quite sure if we have to distinguish... I tend to find the readymade sync the most important/interesting.
ReplyDeleteMainly because its not obvious when and where it is, but also because it takes an effort from you to realize its existence. At the moment I am studying a street called Vognmagergade in CPH (http://map.krak.dk/m/pSo0m) Its interesting because the shadow from the roof at some point will split the clock. What time does that happen then. I'll try to calculate it and check it out.
Can the UNIREALM:syncs become a new type of virtual Pieces? Tags finally getting its independence from spray cans?
I find your investigations at Vognermagergade very interesting since it will probably be possible to establish a cross-measuring of time! Maybe it can work as a portal to ancient Greece?
ReplyDeletea cross-cross measuring of time - lets call DIMITRI!!!!!
ReplyDeletecheck out this interscandinavian sunsync cross: http://www.alesstenar.com/
ReplyDeletei was once told: you can never complete the school of architecture without at one point in time touch upon architecture and relationship with the cosmos.
ReplyDeletei do find your film of matching patters extremely facinating.
so, im re-reading invisible cities by marco polo, thought i might share this excerpt which i found somewhat fitting:
ReplyDeleteZora, a city that noone, having seen it, can forget. But not because like other memorable cities, it leaves an unusual image in your recollections. Zora has the quality of remaining in your memory point by point, in its succession of streets, of houses along the streets, and of doors and windows in the houses, though nothing in them posesses a special beauty or rarity. Zoras secret lies in the way your gaze runs over patterns following one another as in a musical score where not a note can be altered or displaced. (...) Imagine he is walking along the streets and he remembers the order by which the copper clock follows the barber's striped awning, then the fountain with the nine jets, the astronomer's glass tower, the melon vendor's kiosk, the statue of the hermit and the lion, the Turkish bath, the café at the corner, the alley that leads to the harbor. (...)The city is like an armature, a honeycomb in whose cells each of us can place the things he wants to remember: names of famous men, virtues, numbers, vegetable and mineral classifications, dates of battles, constellations, parts of speech. Between each idea and each point of the itinerary an affinity or a constrast can be established, serving as an immediate aid to memory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_Tunnel
ReplyDelete"There is a story which states that Brunel deliberately aligned the tunnel such that the rising sun is visible through it on 9 April each year, his birthday"
http://web.mit.edu/planning/www/mithenge.html
ReplyDelete