Untitled
Nicole Page-Smith
1991-1992
Flying into Hong Kong
by Julie Ewington
It is extraordinary, not the way one expects to see a city. Either one stands
on the ground craning up, squinting uncomfortably at the magnificence
disappearing into the bright sky, feeling one's inconsequence, or one flies
in a plane above the city, a miniature observer of the geographer's contour
map, smugly and neatly irrelevant. Above or below, one knows one's place.
This is different. As the aircraft lowers its improbable bulk into the steamy city,
the great glass towers glide by so close one might touch them. The plane bisects
the skyscrapers, a longitudinal challenge in living geometry. Seen neither from
below nor from above, but the centre of their gravity, the sparkling towers in their
profusion are thrown into a new perspective. No longer invulnerable monoliths,
nor the mere playthings of postmodern gods tended by an impudent race of ants,
the great agglomeration of towers is strangely domestic, improbably lovely.
Irresponsible romanticism? No more than the twinned ideas of urban perfection
and arcadian simplicity which fired the modern imagination and which now,
inexorably, breaking down together. New cities rise in their stead, vertical cities
of the future of glass, light complex compounds, original synthetics pioneered
by new technologies, with recently invented transport systems. New solutions to
remarkable propositions- this is the vision seen from the air, the recapitulation
of Malevich's impossibly early dream, in Asia rather than in Europe.
Of one element of the city there is no sign: the people of the impeccable towers
are invisible, possibly unimaginable. The elegant configurations of the architects
are set in place for our admiration and awe. Yet despite the apparently transparent
lightness of the clustered towers, they are densely tenanted. Looking from the
outside in, from our passing trajectory, we cannot see the inhabitants, cannot
comprehend their lives nor enter into the texture of their dreams.
Glass: the entire city is built on this substance, physically and metaphorically.
The blessed transparency of glass guarantees communication through its
miraculous membrane; its strength enables the great soaring spans of the
towers. But the fragility of glass, its brittle crystal song, is a constant
testament to impermanence.
From the catalogue of a group exhibition including:
Maria Cruz, Michele Elliot, Nicole Page-Smith and Lucia Tancredi
Curated by the Visual Arts Director: Vivonne Thwaites
The Artspace Adelaide Festival Centre
Adelaide, Australia
10 April- 23 May 1992
Photograph by Terence Bogue
