Randy Kennedy visits Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty with conservators from the Dia Art Foundation, who have devised a low-tech way to document the structure’s changing condition year to year.
…the institute, which often works in countries where conservation projects are carried out on shoestring budgets, came up with a remarkably simple solution: a $50 disposable latex weather balloon, easily bought online.
Along with a little helium, some fishing line, a slightly hacked Canon PowerShot G9 point-and-shoot digital camera, an improvised plywood and metal cradle for the camera and some plastic zip ties (to keep the cradle attached and the neck of the balloon cinched), a floating land-art documentation machine was improvised, MacGyver-like.
Submerged by the rising waters of Great Salt Lake in the 1970s, the piece is now exposed to the air, covered with a layer of salt, and subject to alteration by human visitors.