Sonic Possible Worlds by Voegelin Salome;

Author:Voegelin, Salome;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1688464
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2014-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Sonic crossing: Intertwining without fissure

Bridges are constructions that connect places and objects. They are the material infrastructure of connecting, the mapped site of crossing, determining distance, and being together. Maps reveal their position, directing us where to cross and mapping a visual geography of measured objects and separate places.

Bridges rely on the notion of distance, a separation that needs to be bridged, metaphorical or actual. In this sense bridges are entirely visual concepts; they cross the distance to connect and at the same time they evidence and maintain the distance that exists in the first place. The visual moves through distance and differentiation, to build connections that do not merge the places and things thus connected, but stabilize and confirm their distance and differentiation even.

The Millennium Bridge, for example, outlines the distance between Tate Modern and St Paul’s even if the Thames were to disappear. It is an arch that solidifies what otherwise might remain in flux, changeable and moveable. This arch relies on the notion of the bridged as inert materiality, as fixed points on a map or fixed identities on a social spectrum, whose own existence is defined in that separation, rather than as autonomous, free moving agency.

This is the paradox of the bridge, of bridging, as it starts with a separation, which it takes for its a priori and henceforth seeks to overcome, and attempting to do so it can only reinforce the separation of what it seeks to bridge—reinforcing also the immobility of things and subjects, places, and beings.

One story that illustrates the force of emotion and paradox attached to bridging is the fable of the devil’s bridge at the Gotthard Pass in Switzerland.

To reach south across the Gotthard mountain into Italy the inhabitants of Uri tried several times to build a bridge across the river Reuss, to no avail. The terrain of the ravine at Schöllenen was too steep and difficult, and each attempt at erecting a crossing failed. The only way forward was to make a pact with the devil to build a bridge for them in exchange for the first soul that would cross it. However, when the bridge was finished it was a goat rather than a human that crossed it first, this made the devil so angry that he immediately sought to destroy what he had built. To this end he went down to Wassnerwald to pick up a huge bolder. On the way up the devil set down the heavy rock to take a brief rest at Göschenen. There sat an old pious woman, who quickly drew a cross on the heavy rock, making it impossible for the devil to lift the bolder from the ground and get it all the way up the mountain to destroy the bridge. And thus the bolder now rests at Göschenen and the bridge remains intact. The devil himself was never seen in Schöllenen again.9

The relevance of this myth remains, as it was used as recently as 2000 to protest against European Union (EU)

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