The 'North Atlantic' defines a cultural sphere as much as it defines a geographical zone. The image of the dark, cold, silvery sea with its heavy sky has to be taken literally as the 'mytheme' that forms this mental space of desire, nostalgia, history and culture. It is the place where Adolf Hitler created his Atlanticwall (closure), as it is the place where countless European migrants left the shore to search their luck elsewhere (opennes).
The North Atlantic has featured as a persona in numerous novels, movies and even in an opera (coincidentally in both the movie Russian Ark and the opera Atlantica the ocean swallows an entire culture, gently, nobody resists). It evokes strong emotions of loss and longing (a bit what the Portuguese express in their fados). It is both a place that conveys nostalgia and a kind of strange futurism.
The appeal of the dark Atlantic probably lies in the fact that the ocean is is a screen on which anyone can project his deepest emotions - the ocean takes them in, and does not answer back, it does not question you, it listens or is totally indifferent (which in itself is a very rare relation, not easily found amongst people). The ocean is totally indifferent and totally empathic at the same time. It is an a-moral being that we cannot 'anthropomorphize'. The ocean also evokes ideas of eternity, and of our own smallness. As such, it is a kind of psychoanalytical projection screen - all these feelings can come together when you face that dark sea.
Now all these elements combined - the colors of the ocean, its dense history, its functionality and its unfathomable depth and beauty - can be captured and enhanced in a landscape 'monument'.
It is in fact an extremely simple but powerful piece: a very large silver color metal platform, placed simply on the ground and touching the water.
Mind you, it will be quite large, say 300 metres wide (parallel to the ocean) and 200 metres long. The color is hard slightly dark metal, reflecting the sky. Put differently, you erase the beach and the dunes and the grasses from sight.
A straight road leads to the straight steel floor. As you near the plaform, you will see only Sky, Ocean and Sky - a gently and gradually shifting palet of silver, dark grey, pierced with gold sunrays.
Nothing more, nothing less. This emo-technology would function as a monument to this 'atlantic feeling', and it enhances the function of the ocean as an a-moral, living screen on which to project emotions.
Crucially, the device plays with the public and the private sphere, as it allows people to gently walk over it, expressing their emotions silently, but they know they all share the same palet of feelings. In short, the most intimate emotions are shared collectively. The screen and platform allow the most excessive emotions to be interwoven with the most intimate and humbling. Both megalomaniacs as well as poets will find something to dwell on, on this spot that is so empty and so filled with memory and emotion.
What do you think? I put a nice picture of the dark North Atlantic below. That's a really dark one though, but it shows the palet of colors.-- django, Aug 12 2006 Atlantic desire http://i59.photobuc...atlanticdesire1.jpgThe North Atlantic as a place of nostalgia and futurism [django, Aug 12 2006] Going swimming in the cove tomorrow!-- normzone, Aug 19 2006 random, halfbakery