Holy hollowness

Now it is driving every day.
On a narrow road from the south of the peninsula called Baja California, to the north.
About 2.000 kilometres (1300 miles).

There are large trucks and trailers using this narrow road.
Buses as well.
Therefore, each time one comes into view, concentration must go up.
Because the own car must be driven as close as possible to the right side of the road.
While the hope is that the other driver will do the same.

If both come to a consensus, the passage is wild and furious, but without a collision.
The many wrecks of cars and trucks along the road illustrate that not always the agreement has been working.
Usually the small road has a very steep bank and trucks may get off moving too close to the right.
They go off and turn over.
Or the two drivers hit each other in the centre of the road, at about 90 kilometres per hour (55 mph), causing an even bigger crash.

This time it was realized that each car, truck and bus that was approaching on the narrow road, was also a meeting with a person.
Seeing a truck coming it was realized in the mind that the Fuso Szulc should be manoeuvred close to the right side of the road.
At the same time, a mind connection was made with the other driver expecting him or her to drive as close as he or she could to the opposite side of the road.
And very likely the same thinking was taking place in the mind of the other driver.

Hence, two minds connect when passing by in cars on a road.
A short instance of human contact.
Abstract, but existing nevertheless.

Therefore, one could say, that driving on a road like here in Baja California, makes one meet hundreds of people.

The day this thought developed in the mind, in Guerrero Negro a Mexican pick-up truck was spotted in front of a restaurant.
A remarkable pick-up truck because behind the windshield two cameras were mounted.
And a third camera was attached on the front bumper.
Was this some kind of police car checking stolen vehicles?
A Mexican guy was dozing in the passenger’s seat.
A knock on the window woke him up and he was asked what this was all about.
It turned out to be an art-project of a Belgium photographer.
Who soon came out of the restaurant.
His name: Wilfried.
He explained he was driving all over Mexico and had programmed the cameras to make pictures every 100 metres (330 feet).
By now he had thousands and thousands of pictures.
Naturally, the question arose what sense that was making.
Google Earth is doing the same thing in cities.
A car with cameras on the roof documenting streets to see on the Internet.
So that if one looks up a particular address, one can see an image of the house.
But to drive all over Mexico making thousands of images of just the road, isn’t that empty and absurd?
Because what is there to see?
Just roads and roads and roads and roads.
What is so interesting about that?
The idea of the photo-artist is to make an exhibition of large prints of these images in Belgium.
In some museum in Gent and the spectator is not exactly going to see a spectacle.
They will see nothing.
Great!
What a fantastic idea!
However, in a circus people would afterwards ask their money back.
But in a museum even hollowness is holy.

Now we come to the painful part of today’s posting.
This photographer Wilfried turned out to be a former student of yours truly.
About a decade ago a photographic workshop on conceptual photography was given at the Saint Lukas Institute in Brussels, Belgium.
He had been one of the students.
Wilfried remembered that and both we were surprised to meet again somewhere in Mexico.

Wilfried was invited to team up later.
For a chat and a tea.
OK, he said.
But he never showed up.
Creating more hollowness.





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