Iglu-Dorf History and Sport (Part 2/3) - snow sculpture

The Igloo hotel in Davos is really quite massive. Manys a time I find myself lost in its corridors. The whiteness of the snow can be quite disorientating until it is carved onto some sort of form or other. Luckily that is what I am there to do. If you had tuned in to my last post (and how dare you not have) you will remember that Martijn and myself had just finished the bar and restaurants and had had a bit... ok, well a lot of celebratory drink before stumbling up the mountain to bed in the ski lift station. The next day there was no time for hangovers and luckily in the freezing cold, they are frozen out of your skull the moment you poke your head outside. At this point, the building team had prepared some more igloos for us to carve so it was straight to work on them.

Cold Sports

They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Well. if that's the case I must be deadly, especially when it comes to winter sports. It is not that I am not interested, it is just that I have so many other things to be less interested in, it hovers in a periphery just outside my vision. I appreciate that they going on but just don't ask me about them. What the game is or any of their rules.

So, with this in mind and with such a short time to create something I decided that I would just rely on my impressions of the sport. Think of me like I am an alien trying to use a trouser press for the first time or better still think of me trying to use a trouser press at any time.

That sport where people ski down a slope and try to hit flags

I abstracted this sport into what I figured was most important, hitting those poley flaggy things as the skier zig-zags to the right and left down a hill. I wonder why they always try to go around them and not straight through like I would. Also, why do they still insist on hitting them as they go by? Just as they seem to escape being crashed into. Seems very unfair to me. Those things are just standing there, minding their own business and bam!.

I do however like the way the markers turn from a square to a truncated triangle at that very moment and then bounce back to a square.

Snow ploughing

I think the aim of this game is to make the beautifully smooth snow slope not so smooth. Like a plough coming down the mountain, the player must zig-zags on their skies to throw up as much fine snow as possible and leave their impression on the mountain like so sort of graffiti artist. I waz ere!

Looking to the mountains around the igloos I see many people doing this practice. They really make a hash of slopes. Creating lines as they fly down like Road Runners in a cloud of white powder. I really think they should stay on the proper roads created by the PistenBullies.

Transformers on ice

I know a bit more about this sport due to having some Canadian friends. There are two teams that hit around a lump of coal on an ice skating rink. They try and get it into a goal that is protected by someone dressed in a transformer costume.

This costume resembles waffles strapped to their arms and legs.

Eddie the eagle

I didn't know much about ski jumping either but Martijn had lots to say on the matter. He told me all about someone called Eddie the Eagle, an English guy who took the leap of faith and represented his country at the Olympics. Besides all the adversity he faced apparently, he did quite well. It all sounds like a cool underdog story and they even made a movie about him.

Martijn was able to tell me that the wind is a very important part of the whole sport and they have a guy who stands there telling the jumper when it is safe to launch. If the wind picked up during the flight the skier could get blown off course and you wouldn't know where he'd land. So it can be a very dangerous sport with the elements very much playing a role.

I figure it is a bit like F1 racing where the main reason that people watch it is for the crashes and those hold your breath moments while the skier flies through the air on a wing and a prayer.

I don't need no education

I have concluded that maybe not knowing about something can have its benefits as an artist. You look at the subject with fresh, naive eyes and this can sometimes help you capture its emotion and essence, maybe even better than someone who knows a lot. But, maybe I am talking through my arse, this seems to be one of those sorts of posts.

Brick in the wall

The little ice pieces in the post are the room numbers. This is something that I usually do each year also. I carve a number and a little icon in negative to represent the room. These slabs of ice are then placed with a small backlight in the wall at the door of each one so the punters can find their way in the Labyrinth of corridors.

I'll be back with one more post from the Iglu-Dorf 2014. The next one will be the Suite of the Hotel.