[syndicate] Bretz

[Alan Sondheim]

Bretz


Today I would have given you the Bretz materials, the result of scanning the 
coke-ovens down the hill to the right across from the post office down the hill 
to the left. But failure lured, ruled; it waited until the tripod was set us, 
the yoke was mounted on the tripod, the laser housing was secured to the yoke, 
the cables were connected to the laser, the laser was connected to the power 
supply and data control, the data output was cabled to the laptop, the laptop 
was powered by a battery, the battery was dead. The battery was charged at 
10:30 in the morning, the laptop wouldn't power up, there was no data output or 
input or control to or from the laptop, Nick and George and Don and Azure and I 
paced, George worked the laptop, the laptop was quiet, quiescent, peaceful, 
there were no birds flying, there was a snake discovered in one of the few 
images taken while we wai- ted, the video turned out for four minutes, there 
was no scanning, there would be no downloading, no processing, no stitching, no 
post-processing, no warping and merging, no scaling and coloring, there would 
be no Bretz directories, no Bretz digital images of scans, no Bretz videos of 
rotating scans, no post-processing of scans in Blender, no transforming of 
selected points, no fly-through and no digital video or still image output. 
There would be no discussion of Bretz coke-oven beehive architecture, no 
consid- erations of the histories and generations of local brick-work, no 
evidence and no history, no written or spoken speculations on historiographies 
merging digital and analogic worlds, techniques, equipment, organisms, 
processes, languages, cultural and financial economies. There would be 
discussions of budgets, of equipment wear and tear, of obsolete software, 
obsolete laptops, obsolete batteries powering a laser otherwise capable of 
scanning an entire statehouse in West Virginia, an entire Buddhist temple in 
Japan, an entire archaeological dig, but not this local archaeology, not here, 
not now, not these deteriorating coke-ovens whispering in the mountain-topped 
heat, in this humidity problematic for the scanning unit itself, flat or 
matte-black in coloration, gathering sun against the hills and flowers, what 
flowers, what amazement of flowers, in the distance, or the mine number 
thirteen or number twelve sealed above the SUV and the tripod, and Don, George, 
Azure, Nick, and i somewhat below the ridge which may or may not have been 
constructed by other than God, within which still remain the maws of 
one-hundred and forty coke-ovens, the last working site of beehive 
construction, only stopping in the 1970s or 1980s and then abandoned against 
this peculiar meadow, the result of surface mining, depredation, of the mining 
company, resulting in an exhausted land, an unproductive land, a land of 
poisons, but for this glorious meadow and its neighbors writing ATVs useless 
around in circles or into and out of the surrounding woods, guns and ammunition 
hanging off the back. We looked at each other, Azure standing with her 
sun-umbrella, uncomfortable in the heat, and Azure, Nick, Don, and George 
proceeded to begin to pack up the tripod and yoke and laser housing and power 
supply and cables, placing them carefully back in their large metal cases, 
filling the back of the SUV while I videotaped in NTSC a slight, a very light 
segment of failure, with a graceful camera capturing a moment simultaneously 
lost and recor- ded, present and impresent, all of us gaining a ride back in 
the now- crowded SUV back across the dirt road, up the hill to the post office 
somewhat across from the exit, where Nick, Azure, and I changed vehicles and 
drove back, following the SUV, through Masontown, Manon somewhere in the 
vicinity, through Sabreton or Saberton, or Manan and Monon left behind us, on 
Route 7, up through and past the Mile Ground, still wondering what mile and 
what ground, down and back into the Evansdale campus and the Virtual 
Environments Laboratory, the VEL, where we unloaded the laser cases, the 
tripod, the laptop, our video and still cameras, went into the cool of the 
room, comforted by the hum so nearly like our own. Here was the edge of success 
and failure, of the many things which could go wrong but needed a password or 
keyword for the witnessing; here we were, there we were, tired, used, with 
little to show for our efforts, no residue beyond three or four minutes of 
videos, some stills of the outside of the ovens - and how beautiful! - some 
images of coming and leaving, some sky.