• When the Red Ball Drops in Greenwich, View 1

  images/art/rb1.jpg?v=13

  2004

  

• When the Red Ball Drops in Greenwich, View 2

  images/art/rb2.jpg?v=13

  2004

  

• When the Red Ball Drops in Greenwich, View 3

  images/art/rb3.jpg?v=13

  2004

  

• When the Red Ball Drops in Greenwich, View 4

  images/art/rb4.jpg?v=13

  2004

  

As recently as the mid 1700's, the Prime Meridian was not yet established and the solution to accurately tracking longitude was not yet solved. Locating oneself in time and space was an exercise in approximation. Experiments were undertaken, methods for measuring distance and location were concocted and prizes for exactly determining ones location east to west were announced. Today we are at the opposite extreme. We have Global Positioning Systems in our cars and atomic clocks in our homes. Visually manifesting this particular longitude (250 meters in length north to south and 8 degrees and 40 minutes east of Greenwich) on the forest floor is not only a reminder of the issue of orientation in any journey but also that longitude and latitude exist as a humanly contructed conceptual grid imposed on the entire earth for finding our way.

This piece was part of Expeditions (Internationaler Waldkunstpfad 2004), the 2004 2nd International Forest Art Path in the state of Hessen, Germany.