Luke Blackstone Vehicle for the Yet to Come 3 ft. X 8 ft. X 18 ft. 2009 Located at Northgate Village Mall, Burnaby, BC
Transportation methods, (the theme requested by the project developer) in the Northgate area have changed significantly over the past century, but a common element has been, and still is, the wheel. Whether the vehicle of transport be a horse-drawn wagon, an automobile, a bicycle, skytrain, roller skates, a scooter, a penny-farthing, a unicycle, a skateboard, a tricycle, a wheelchair, or a bus, at least one wheel is employed. Thus, a visual history of transportation can be created using the imagery of the various types of wheels, and thereby linking the past, present and future of the Northgate community. To accomplish this, I photographed historical and present versions of wheels used for transportation in the Burnaby area. These images were simplified and transferred onto glass discs using the sandblast etching technique. As seen in the model, these discs are mounted on shafts which slowly rotate, and all discs are driven by one electric motor. They are arranged in chronological order, and spaced in a way that suggests exponential growth of the number of vehicles present in the area. Depending on the pulley wheelratios, the speeds of the rotation vary--the more recent style of wheels rotate faster than the older ones. At the top of the structure, however, is one glass disc that does not rotate, and in contrast to all the other ones, it is mounted horizontally. This disc serves metaphorically as an invitational landing platform for those travelers in the future who employ a means of transportation that no longer requires the use of the wheel.