5 Short Blasts
This audio art installation proves there's more to the Docklands than broken ferris wheels and problem gamblers.
Overview
Any self-respecting Melbournite knows the Docklands are a wasteland. It's always cold and windy, the bare concrete buildings act as a complex maze to which you can rarely escape, and the only people around tend to be depressed-looking businesspeople or gaudy drunks stumbling out of Crown. The Melbourne Star stands as watchman; a symbol of failure that hangs over the entire godforsaken place.
This is the general impression at least. The City of Melbourne's newest art installation 5 Short Blasts is intent on changing minds. Asking audiences to "experience Melbourne as a waterfront city," 5 Short Blasts is an audio art installation enacted with the help of marine radios in electric floatillas that travel up the Yarra river from Collins Landing and Water Plaza, around the industrial shipping docks, under the Bolte Bridge, and back into the familiar Docklands. With five boats taking off at any one time, audiences embark on an intimate "choreographed listening journey" that incorporates the ethereal sound art of Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey as well as snippets of interviews conducted with people who have connections to the water you float on. From after-school rowing, to dock workers, to parables of seeking asylum; as you traverse this strange new space histories unfold in front of you. There is a calm upon the water that adds an importance to their words, and their stories become intensely relatable as you occupy a part of their world.
For a steadfast land dweller like myself, the experience had a magical quality to it. Traversing this new world has an element of adventure, and in such an intimate setting (there's a maximum of five people per boat) that hour you spend on the boat feels intensely meditative. As for so many, the water becomes a zone of quiet contemplation. The river connects us to people, places and their histories. You finally understand what Tim Winton was getting at in Cloudstreet all those years ago.
However, I could imagine finding the work quite condescending for someone who was already well-acquainted with the water. There's nothing exceptionally grabbing about many of the stories that are told, and if you're familiar with the Yarra itself the experience could come off as quite indulgent. Whenever my boat passed a set of construction or dock workers I became a little self-conscious. How strange we must look, floating by with these faces full of intrigue — a naive fascination with this ordinary aspect of our own city.
Regardless, I enjoyed the adventure. With journeys commencing from 6am, the work does tend to cast a salty glow on the rest of your day. Everything becomes a little rose-tinted as you start to view the city as an assemblage of stories, and the title itself conveys this welcome sense of mystery. As they tell you upon boarding, "in maritime operations, communicating via a signal of five short blasts means 'I am unsure of your intentions — I am concerned we are going to collide.'" An ominous premise perhaps, but one with thought-provoking connotations nonetheless.
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