My idea for a random generator was inspired by Huang Yong Ping’s Dust Collection Project, 1987.
One of the first things I noticed in my temporary Airbnb apartment after arriving in Sydney this January was how dirty the window sills were in contrast to the clean apartment. I wasn’t sure where all this, what I assumed was, dirt had come from as there weren’t any potted plants on them that soil could have spilled or blown out of. A couple days later I was at a friend’s apartment and he was expressing his disconcert over the soot, or ash, collecting on their balcony table from the wildfire smoke passing over the city. It then clicked that it was ash on my apartment’s window sills that had built up as well, since the windows were all open when I arrived on a particularly hazy day, presumably for a couple days since I arrived a day into to my reservation.
So, inspired by the premise of Dust Collection, I decided to print an abridged map of Sydney and leave it on the window sill with the window open to collect ash overnight. I went to mymaps.google.com to print a version of Google Maps without most of the labels: just streets, neighborhood names, major road names, and water. I saved an A3-sized pdf of a zoomed-out view of the map, trying to include all the eastern suburbs. After printing, I cut down the map roughly around rivers, keeping all of the eastern suburbs but cutting out areas north, west, and south of downtown that would not be easily accessible by train.
To fit the map on the window sill, I have to punch a hole in the middle so that it could sit around the rod for the window mechanism. To keep the map in place without the breeze blowing it away, I weighed it down with coins and later taped it down as well. Fortunately for our lungs, but unfortunately for my generator, the air quality that evening and night was superb, and very little ash was collected. As you may notice in the above photo, there is plenty of ash that has collected on the window sill in past days. So, I decided to flip the map upside down and evenly rub it onto window sills using a flat cutting board edge. What resulted were several spots of concentrated ash across the map. I then roughly circled these spots, placed a dot in the middle, and linearly connected each.
There are many intersections between two resulting lines, but, as I can find, there is only one perfect intersection of three lines. There are other spots where it looks like three lines come together, but the only perfect intersection occurs on Darling Point, emphasized with the thickest circle:
Reaching the exact point, I found myself at the top of a hill at a bus stop surrounded by beautiful mansions overlooking the harbor and downtown. The second I got to this point, a plane flew overhead.
Planes are always flying over our heads in Sydney. Feeling with my gut, I turned left and looked down a steep street leading down to the water. I had stated earlier: after reaching my point, I would follow the path of least resistance. I walked all the way down to the dead-end of the street, and then a set of stairs going right to the sea wall. Here I was greeted with the following:
That would be three liters of milk, full cream, stoically standing on the dock. I was quite upset.
Accompanying the milk was also an apparent set of diver gloves and a docked blue kayak.
Tired from the walk, I sat on a bench to catch my breath. A few minutes later, a middle-aged couple in wetsuits walked up to the milk and started some sort of operation involving a gas engine and other tools. Uncomfortable, and concerned what they were doing in the harbor with all this gear and lots of milk, I left.
On my walk back towards the train station, I saw lots of architecture and landscaping that reminded me fondly of my grandparent’s condo building and the other buildings around it in Florida. This may be what I was meant to see?
Almost all of the people I saw walking around seemed to be wealthy and retired.
My word may be milk, diving, couple, retirement. Or is there a relationship between all of them?
Thinking about the milk and the interaction with that couple: it was so unnatural and awkward. Unnatural and awkward in that setting, a wealthy neighborhood of beautiful mansions and old people contrasting with these grimy folks in wet suits with all this gear and a gas engine. I stood out in the neighborhood as well: sweaty forehead and a heavy backpack among well-dressed retirees in Hawaiian shirts and bucket hats taking their afternoon stroll. The milk itself was so unnatural, a cow’s product in a plastic jug next to the sea. A jug you would usually find clean in a refrigerator instead of dirty on a dock. It stood out like a sore thumb, the creamy-white color against mainly a composition of blues, greens, and brown earth tones. I also felt like I stood out to them: a college student with a backpack taking photos of their milk and intruding on their space? All of this contrast and stark difference reminds of a word…
My word is: juxtaposition.