Rv 13 RYFAST – Hidlehallene in the Ryfylke tunnel.
The traffic pattern in the Stavanger region was changed through the Ryfast project. Most of this project has gone from being busy roads at ground level, to disappearing underground in an efficient traffic system. The biggest change is experienced visually, and for some quite tough mentally.
What do you lose and what do you add when a road system goes from above to below ground?
The visual reference points; the orientation points in a landscape or urban environment, – which you may take for granted because they have always been there, disappear when you travel underground. At the same time, this system can be perceived as simpler precisely because there are fewer details to deal with, with the risk of it becoming so boring that you fall asleep.
You lose the breaks, they have to be made in a different way.
“Behind the breath” – the art concept:
Driving into tunnels is driving into a world that is actually quite alien to us. It is a place we do not choose to live our lives in, and is a place we would rather not stop. Some are afraid of this world. Fear makes you feel like you can’t breathe, either by involuntarily holding back; the trachea contracts, or the opposite, one begins to hyperventilate. You are not in control of the situation, and it is dangerous both for yourself and other road users.
You become more aware of yourself, your space and your limitations when your surroundings are marginal, as they are in a tunnel in a completely different way than out in an urban space or in an open landscape.
Metaphorically, driving into a tunnel can be compared to the dive of a marine mammal.
Like the marine mammal’s dive and need to come up to the surface to breathe, the longitudinal profiles of the tunnels in the project curve down and up; – out into the daylight to get air before diving back into the rock. In order to manage the “tunnel dive”, we have to put in some extra breath stops; metaphorical air bubbles down in the depths, and some extra auxiliary breaths out in the arms.
By grasping the breath as the core of the trick, we also grasp some of the symptom of fear, and as an idea, this trick gets different visual expressions in the tunnels.
The idea refers to something general and eternal, – and extremely necessary for living.
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I have also proposed other art projects for the Ryfast project, such as light lines / light drawings in the Ryfylke tunnel on both sides of the rock room ”Behind the Breath”, as well as light objects in other parts of the tunnel system consisiting of the Eiganes tunnel and the Hundvåg tunnel.
The art project was one of the finalists exhibited at the 10th Arte Laguna Art Price 15.16, Landart-section, Venice, 2016.
http://www.premioartelaguna.it/images/10_Premio_Arte_Laguna_Catalogo.pdf – Page 162
