PROGRESS

Now, this was a complex construction! It took us one entire day in Chicago taking pictures and a lot of hours of Photoshop to come up with the word progress.

To make this long story short: we wanted to make visible the word progress in a way that would oppose a straightforward reading of the word. This was achieved using a backward calligraphy reflected in the sculpture Cloud Gate by Anish Kapoor, placed in the Millenium Park in downtown Chicago.

The writing was done with 3 sheets of colorful wrapping paper fixed to cardboard. Together the 3 boards would fill 2 concrete modules in the plaza floor. These 3 pieces were moved into the various positions to make big letters. Pictures were taken at each position and then composed using digital software.

In a literal sense the letters were never exposed as in the image. It took an artificial device to make them visible. The way we made the word plays not only with the idea of progress but also with the idea of process, meaning, space, direction and time.

We even had to make a plan for it: