Dunhill & O’Brien

Ireland & USA

The important thing about Track (which 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 shuffle of the oldest and most infirm pet dog. It is slower than the plaster original of GF Watt’s sculpture Physical Energy as it is winched out of the shed once a year on the anniversary of his birth. It is so slow that it is almost unbearable to watch.

The photograph does give some idea of the physicality of the form on the rails. You may notice that it is somewhat like a model of a mountain or a land mass. In 17th-century Japan, stones were collected for their likeness to mountains and scenes from the natural world. Favourite suiseki stones would accompany collectors on trips in specially constructed travelling cases. These stones were highly treasured and sometimes had their own attendant and separate transportation. The mountain-like form in Track was not a special found object like the suiseki; it was instead the product of a day’s hole-digging.

Unlike the unclaimed luggage currently circumnavigating rubber conveyors at airports around the world, there is no hope that this object will ever arrive or reveal its purpose.

(Text: heroes + holies catalogue, 2002)