Michael Kuku

What if? Metropolis

OGR 1

Alexander Calder

Born 22 August 1898 Alexander Calder creator of the hanging MOBILE had a lengthy career working in various areas of the art world, pushing his abilities and expressing his ideals in Jewelry, Creative Architecture, Toys, Murals, Sculptures, Oil paintings and list goes on. Experimenting with brass from the age of 7, and growing up in the “Arts and Crafts” movement of Lawton, Pennsylvania in 1906 must have sparked his creativity. He adopted the ashcan aesthetic producing paintings whilst studying at the Students Art League in New York. His popularity grew from the age 20 and he was already receiving work from The National Police Gazette and The Bronx and Central Park Zoos. Moving to Paris brought him more attention introducing audiences to his Wire Sculptures and his famous Cirque Calder in 1926-1930. He shifted to “Abstraction” in 1930- 1936 the time where he became impressed the environment and the actuation of space, this led him to create his first MOBILE (moving Sculpture) made of a system of cranks and gears. He soon abandoned those conceptions for movement and developed MOBILEs that responded to air currents, light, humidity and human interaction. His first outdoor pieces were made in this period. He was famous for his Mercury Fountain in Spain and Public Commissions during the war 1937-1945. In 1946-1952 He was eager to Exhibit in Europe again and introduced himself in Brazil Unveiling his “Internation Mobile” in Philadelphia with in this time period. He made his Large Scale developments and accepted international commissions from 1953-1962 one of which was “Teodelapio” a STABILE ( still sculpture) that stands over 58 feet tall for the Spoleto Festival in 1962. His Monumental work began in 1963 and he continued accept public commissions back home In New York right up until his death in 1976 at the age of 78.

Artist Influence

Travelogue Long ago, when the great city Babylon was still an infant, the Almighty favored a piece a land and chose it as one of his gardens. A tranquil sanctuary, filled with; exotic foliage, nutritious elegantly tall and intrinsic in various design; crystal clear waters, rivers, streams lakes and waterfalls that shower enormous mountain like boulders; tress that stand so proud you can feel their authority in the shadows that shelter you although the tops can not be seen and trunks so thick can hear their hearts beat; animals that are clever and kind, noble creatures with beautiful coats and feathers with colors never before seen before the naked eye.

He saw this land was the most fruitful of all the earth and cut the paradise from the former foundations that he had set for It, raised it high above the firmament of the globe, and compressed this crumbling mass and everything in it combining it properties and changing the metaphysical laws that govern it. This land with Is new characteristics radiated with life energy in every molecule and reacted to human consciousness and spirit. Blessed is this new Matah capable of sustaining life and freeing mankind from the bonds of decay. He then amassed the first of his chosen for they still recognized their father and the relationship they held. He then presented this new civilization this material he had created spread out a flat plane hovering over land. He gave them dominion over the land in his authority and taught them how mold, manifest, rejuvenate and grow strong from the Matah but warned the people to never forsake the land for it is blessed with the life like that of an organism.

The Chosen were now home and began to form the land into great city who’s walls could be the sky itself or the air you breath and the ground it sits on is unceasingly resting on air currents, embodying the life that it carries. Welcome to Kalqeah the hanging city who’s air encompasses the very essence of energy. You may have been woken up here by the singing of musical birds or the soothing vocal chords of young ladies growing strange fruits or sunbathing by the hot springs in one of the gardens. You may have reached this place seemingly falling upward gravitating toward the sky or pacing endlessly along a path engulfed by black. The last thing you remember may have been running or hiding or kneeling above a pedestal only high enough for you to bend and place your head. No man can recall his whole journey here but one thing is certain on arrival, the land you currently inhabit is similar to no other on an earthly plane. From the very moment you noticed your breathing pattern, New life in your being has been awakened. Your body feels light and heavy at the same time, you smell honey and a familiar incense, tulips, Oranges and freshly pressed nectar from vinery grapes. The charging echoes of water crashing to the ground is heard from a distance, along with welcoming dialog and the pitter patter of soles running near and far. Although your senses are gradually intensifying one of the first things you notice in Kalqeah is that the ground you stand on is moving, not only moving but pulsing or resonating and reacting to your presence.

All types of buildings scrape past the clouds as you look up, following seemingly linear or orbital paths, forward and backward, up and down, left and right, twisting and turning slotting and sliding and sliding between beside above and beneath each other. In fact everything is “moving” or “hovering” or “gliding” yet nothing is weightless rather hanging or sitting in its own gravitational field. Related items may obit each other but nothing ever interrupts you as you travel the city. As you stroll the ground is paved before your foot steps and predicts the destination you may desire to venture.

Paths are set through the infinite ally ways but not just ally ways, busy market places, suggestive bathhouses, titanic towers and torsion tunnels, over angular archways and under decorative water features, amid orchids, galleries and congregation halls. This city forces you to explore it everyday as location architecture can every time you encounter it.

Around the more energetic platforms of Kalqeah sold athletic people can be seen everywhere, sprinting, or pacing, jumping or gliding, pouncing, or climbing, diving, swinging, dropping rolling and sliding but never falling or stumbling. Like professionally trained acrobats the citizens scale and traverse buildings apparently tempting death darting between platforms and springing of walls to grab ledges above them. Their agility know no bounds, you can witness the young men and women of the city going about their daily lives traveling in this fashion. All though free-running through the city is one the more thrilling ways to travel the thing that you see everywhere in the city are Large platforms and smaller “slates” as Kalqeans call them weather with slacken movements or whizzing and winding between the gate ways created by building gaps. They can big and small long or short some wide enough to carry a gathering of friends and some only fit for one child to ride. The Citizens of Kalqeah are tireless creative, you may even see a slate rider with slates only big enough for each foot… this is not for the faint hearted.

Self expression is Prevalent in the city, the people create everything from pottery and glass to buildings trees and plants that grow in the gardens. They can mold and pull new planes from the Matah as they see fit commanding it to separate the water that spring forth from it to from and re-arrange waterfalls and to shower bathing coves. All the gardens in the city float on platforms some with multiple floors for different types of greenery. There are many ways to enjoy yourself in Kalqeah you ae bound to encounter alluring women and dancing and singing performing different tribal dances if you float past the open mouth of a congregation hall or temple.

The cities economy does not run money which is forgotten concept but on ones ability to “pull” from the Matah a technique called Sonaa and seems to improve with age (which these people don’t seem to do) or practice. The center of the city features the vast temple building with Kush incense smoke streaming down the sides and creating a mist around its entrance. Literally being the heart of the city they say Gods presence is inside and Kalqeans considers it the most sacred and important place in the city. It was here the city was born also connecting all things in the city. The Elders of the city tend form their homes close to this place, one of the reasons the Temples surround area is brimmed with knowledge, new discovery and tradition. Libraries and smaller shrines gravitate in its obit. The center of the cities mammoth buildings and robust unchanging structures can be seen from everywhere in the city. The souls that amass at this grand temple come to learn or train, compete and worship... Hoping to improve their strength in one area or the other.