In 1971 Alan Shepard became the fifth person to walk on the moon during the
Apollo 14 mission. Shepard pulled out a six-iron golf club that he had converted
into a soil collector especially for the mission. He celebrated his moon
landing by hitting the longest golf shot in human history. Shepard hit two
golf balls each of which could have easily gone over a mile. (estimates based
on gravitional pull on the moon and average distances of golf shot on earth).
He became the first person to play golf anywhere other than Earth.
A video animation of a golfer repeatedly swinging a golf club is playing
on a nexus pad stuck in the sand in commemoration of Alan Shepard's famous swing.
The animation 'man hitting golf ball' was sampled from the movie Falling Down.
|
|
|
|
consumed with a burning fever suddenly the sounds of running water are heard until
Late afternoon. The wind was blowing uninterruptedly. As the sound in an open tunnel.
In the motel that evening the driver of the car decided that the video material
wasn't good enough. He got up the next morning early and left for White Sands
arriving in time for it's opening. There were campers already there who spent the
night at a campsite within the park. They were mostly Europeans. A French woman had
asked a park ranger about overnite camping at the Park Station information desk the
previous day. Gypsum sand is very fine. It will find its way into everything.
Sleeping in and on dust. The sky at night would be spectacular. Several years later
there was a report of a French man who had gotten lost in the dunes of White Sands
and died. It didn't seem that the area of the gypsum sand extended far enough to get
lost, however the heat at midday summer could make someone delirious quickly. If they
passed out. A friend visited the park in mid summer and complained that it was so hot
they did not leave the air conditioned car. In the early morning, walking away from
an empty parking lot, it was completely still. Very, very still, except for the crunching
sound of his own footsteps. Still. The sun rise in the east casts brilliant shadows.
Vibrant. Vibrant. Vivid. Bold.
The white sand at White Sands National Monument is composed of gypsum crystals. Rain water dissolves gypsum
cementing it together and forming a solid layer. The winds break up the solid patches and blow the gypsum
crystals into dunes. Gypsum does not retain heat like quartz based sand crystals so the visitors can walk
on the dunes in barefeet. The Park Gift Shop rents flying saucers to slide down the mounds. Entire families
are sliding down dunes. Individuals are scattered across the white dunes. Large specs clustered together.
There are a series of roads which wind through the mounds ending in cul-de-sacs with individual tables
with integrated roofs looking like bus stops. White Sands National Monument is in southern New Mexico.
The monument is completely surrounded by military installations. White Sands Proving Grounds was established
in 1945 and the first atomic bomb was exploded at Trinity site the same year. The V-2 rocket was assembled and
tested in 1946. Further development of the V-2 continued throughout the 40's and was succeeded with the
development of other rocket programs including Mercury and Nike missiles. These rocket programs were the
beginning of the American space program.
The installation using the golfer from the movie "Falling Down" was documented during the cross country
trip "From Here to There and Back Again" but it was realized after the fact that it also belonged to the
Sandtrap series. It is temporally the original work in the Sandtrap series.