A Peeriscope, in theory and practice

While I was drinking coffee with Tongan artists in the Waikato, Paul Janman and the other members of the Fabrication Faction of the Committee for the Reconstruction of Space and Time on Pig Island spent the weekend in the perpetual gloom of the pedestrian underpass of the Mangere Bridge, where they are building a 'peeriscope' that will be offered to the public as part of the Other Waters exhibition.

Over at the Other Waters website, Paul has uploaded a detailed and enigmatic diagram of the peeriscope. He's also sent this me this guilt-inducing report on his labours:

Our Faction has been hard at work on the peeriscope...We are hoping to do the install early next Sunday morning. Our engineer Stefan will be abseiling off the bridge to attach the device and a friend will be recording events from a kayak in the harbour. I'm going to make a little film. A guided walk across the underpass and related events will be held the following weekend. 

If all goes well - if Stefan doesn't fall into the cold waters of the Manukau - then visitors to the underpass will be able to haul a geocache up from empty space between the bridge and the harbour, and examine a collection of artefacts of the epic strike that delayed the construction of Mangere's bridge for two and a half years at the end of the 1970s. 

Paul and I are collecting material for our cache, which will resemble the boxes we left up and down the Great South Road earlier this year. We're keen to hear from folks who were directly or indirectly involved in the great strike. We'll be visiting the small archives room at the Mangere Bridge public library this week to examine newspaper clippings, and hitting the Special Collections of the University of Auckland library to search the literary remains of Bill McAra and other New Zealand socialists who supported the striking construction workers. 

[Posted by Scott Hamilton]