Description

The group D.A.ST. is an interdisciplinary collaboration between three artists: Danae Stratou, Sculptor, Alexandra Stratou, Industrial Designer, and Stella Constantinides, Architect. The group was formed in May 1995, based on our common desire to create an installation in the desert. The parameters that we had set for this project described a site specific work of such a scale that it would be experienced through walking. The site that was chosen is a flat expanse of sand that lies between the Red Sea and a body of mountains. The work covers an area of one hundred thousand square meters and involves the displacement of eight thousand cubic meters of sand. One hundred and seventy eight conical volumes form two interlocking logarithmic spirals that move out from a common center with a phase difference of one hundred and eighty degrees in the same direction of rotation. One spiral consists of incised cones, while the other of protruding ones; the incised cones are the result of the displacement of sand to create the protruding cones. The center, a one thousand two hundred cubic meters earthen vessel with a W section is the union of the positive and negative cone. It is filled with water to its rim so that the protruding cone in the center forms a tiny island at the level of the horizon.
 
 

It was nearly a year later that this photo was sent to The Spiral (and how ironic is it that a photo of sand spirals found its way to this particular title?) by Dr Hartmut Endlich, a friend of his father’s. And that is how this legend - that a sand formation had arrived in the Eastern Desert of Egypt - was born.

Having seen photos of this sand spiral many years earlier, I was mildly intrigued as to why this collection of sand cones and hollows was now turning up in the crop circle community. Searching through my archives I found the article that had appeared in the March 1998 edition of the magazine ‘COVER’ (now defunct). Looking at them again, I remembered the feeling I’d had the first time I saw these photos: they had taken my breath away with the beauty and sense of serenity that emanated from sculpted desert [pic.2]. In a flash I had made mental connections to the 1994 Galaxy crop formations in Wiltshire [pic.3] and to the 1996 Windmill Hill Triple Spiral [pic.4]. But the small block of accompanying text told me that it had been created by three young Greek women. Using letters from their first names, they called themselves the ‘D.A.ST. Team’. 

SOURCE: Swirled News

• Artist's Website: Danae Stratou
• Desert Breath
• Miracles in the Sand:Confusion and Conundrums
• The Mysterious Cones of the Egyptian Desert

After three Land Art experiments – namely Asphalt Rundown (Rome, Italy October, 1969) Glue Pour (Vancouver, Canada, December, 1969) and Partially Buried Woodshed (Kent, Ohio, January, 1970) Smithson had developed a deep interest with spiral and centrifugal shapes. This led him to the making of Spiral Jetty, a 1,500-foot coil of black basalt rocks assembled by Smithson in Rozel Point, at the shore of Utah's Great Salt Lake in April, 1970. Spiral Jetty has become Smithson's most familiar work and a symbol to the ambivalent love-hate relationship between culture and nature. Above: Smithson during his work on the project. Top on this story: Air view of Spiral Jetty. Photo sources: njn.net
 

According to Nancy Holt, as quoted in a fascinatingNYTimes article Spiral Jetty is a "vortex that draws in everything in the landscape around it.'' The magnificent "vortex" was covered by the water of the Great Salt Lake for many years but since 1999, according to the NYTimes, drought has lowered the water level and in early 2004 it was completely re-exposed. Photos taken in December 2006 and April 2005 illustrate how, same as in the Amarillo Ramp case, the magnificent battle between Smithson and nature is still in process. Here is a Google Earth kmz file for Spiral Jetty.

It’s early September 2002 at Rozel Point in Gunnison Bay (the north arm) of Great Salt Lake about 16 miles (24 km) from the Golden Spike National Historic Site. A spiral form of salt-encrusted basalt boulders is just emerging from the pinkish water. Seldom-seen Spiral Jetty is visible again!

SOURCE: Utah Geological Survey