In a scene right out of the early 1990's computer game “Myst” a time capsule-like object has suddenly appeared behind the art building on the UC Davis campus. As of yet there has been no report of mysteriously dressed intruders but I'm sure we'll hear something soon. They have quite conspicuously parked their time machine under the redwoods in the Arboretum just behind the Art building next to the Davis loop.
I was surprised to discover what appears to be someone's incredibly cool art project while on my way back to my car after my Design 137 B class today. As I made my way along the path between the Art and Music buildings toward the parking lot on the back of the Davis loop I turned a corner and was stopped dead in my tracks by a most almost peculiar sculpture. It was so unique and yet familiar that I completely forgot what I was doing and where I was going. I gazed up and down over the object's metal surfaces. It was nine ten feet tall and comprised of a capsule shaped metal chamber with decorative ironwork attached as legs and
a base. The base actually had wheels, although they looked “beached” in the bark ground cover that they rested in. The chamber had an open port hole in the front just begging you to climb inside. The iron had an aged and warn looked suggesting it had traveled near and far possibly over not just time but space and had somehow ended up here. I knew it looked somehow familiar. It reminded me a little of a movie I had watched with my dad when I was a kid. The movie was called the “Time Machine” with an actor named Rod Serling (most famous for hostting the “Twilight Zone” TV series) that had been adapted from the H.G. Wells novel of the same name. But I knew that wasn't why it seemed so familiar.
Then it hit me – Myst! It was just like the contraptions created in the computer game “Myst” which was incredibly popular in the early 90's. In the game there were similar capsules in which characters teleported to and around a mysterious island in an unnamed sea. You had to travel from one place to another, unlocking the secrets of the island one by one in succesion until you solved the overall mystery of the inhabitants and were allowed to leave. It occurred to me that there were probably geeks all over the world like myself who would instantly get the “Myst” connetion whether the artist intended it or not. Of course you don't have to have played the game Myst to enjoy the sculpture.
I brought my cohorts in design, Kelly Stewart and Beth “Tater” Totten to see the sculpture later and they were instantly taken by the design. Beth, a trouble maker from birth, had to be held back from climbing into the inviting open chamber and getting us all arrested.
As of that day there was no plack out yet to name the creator but hats off to the artist for a truly successful design!
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