Considering Point Douglas

Our next studio project is the creation of an autopoietic device (based on our previous work) to be located in the Point Douglas neighborhood of Winnipeg. Point Douglas is a somewhat down-trodden (but interesting) section of Winnipeg located in a bend of the Red River just north-east of Downtown. Point Douglas is bisected by the national Canadian Pacific Railway line and bypassed by the Disraeli Freeway. The neighborhood contains a mix of residential, commercial and industrial properties.

I explored the area a couple of times looking for possible places to locate my future device(s). There were a few areas that caught my interest.

I spent some time under the Disraeli freeway, listening to the traffic zoom and thump overhead.

I also spent quite a bit of time next to the train tracks near the rail bridge over Higgins. There is a stand of trees right next to Higgins with a tiny clearing inside.



This site slopes up rapidly to meet the elevated rail line and has a view of Higgins, the nearby industrial buildings, the Louise bridge, the River Parkway and out across the Red River.


I was lucky enough to experience two trains rolling through while I was taking pictures there. I was engaged by the shifting slivers of sunlight cast between the rail cars, sweeping across the snow as the trains rumble past. Photocells could be used to observe passing trains by sensing these fleeting curtains of light. I was also interested in the varied rhythms of produced by the two trains rolling past one another at different speeds.



I'm not sure exactly what my device(s) will do yet. I've been thinking about continuing with the "deep listening device" theme by making a collection of bellows of different shapes, sizes and materials. Each bellows would contain a different reed, so that each would sound with a different note when activated. This collective might watch or listen to passing trains and cars. It might sporadically and spontaneously "remember" a passing train and attempt to play it back through the motion of the bellows and sounds of the reeds, with certain bellows pumping away to describe the rhythm of the train, and others reacting to the train's length or the direction it was traveling. I have serious doubts about the feasibility of building such an installation: Could it survive in the snow and cold? Would parts of it be stolen? Would it be quickly destroyed by mischievous neighborhood kids?