in the thick of reenactment season
2003.09.04 18:08
I purposefully walked from the front door of the Philadelphia Museum of Art down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to the far side of Logan Circle and then back to the Art Museum. I did this to get a real sense of the scale of the virtual axis of life within Piranesi's Ichnographia Campi Martii.
In reality I was walking across the forecourt of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, then down the steps that Rocky made famous running up, then across Eakins Oval, where the largest painting in the world once was, then down a tree covered allee along the south side of the Parkway stretching for three long blocks, then around Logan Circle, and then back in the direction I came although this time along the north side of the Parkway.
In virtuality I was walking through the Nympheum Neronis high on the Vatican Hill, through the Porticus Neronis, through the Templum Martis (Temple of Mars), through the Area Martis where the Triumphal Way begins its "march" [this is around where the Rodin Museum is on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, and, as luck would have it, where the route of many of today's Philadelphia parades begin], then I walked around Hadrian's tomb, and then I walked back.
The whole walk took about 40 minutes, and if I had gone all the way to the LOVE sculpture at JFK Plaza across from City Hall, the walk back and forth would have taken just about an hour. Today's walk is only the first of many walks up and down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and the axis of life of Piranesi's virtual Rome planned for the next several weeks (or months?). I will keep a record of each walk, via notes, or letters, or pictures, or cad drawings where the real and virtual will be drawn/built in 2D and 3D. Today, I made mental note of most of the memorials on and along this stretch of the Parkway--Washington Memorial, Civil War Memorial, WWI Memorial, a plaque in the cement on axis at Logan Circle states that the trees along the Parkway were planted on honor of the soldiers of WWI, and a Shakespeare Memorial in front of the Free Library.
When I got back to the top of the famous Art Museum steps, a young Japanese(?) tourist (or new student in town?) asked me (without much English) to take his picture with the Art Museum in the background, and then I told him I'll take another picture of him looking the other way with the Philadelphia skyline in the background.
Last night I remembered that Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass 3 October 1979 right in the center of Logan Circle (on a large platform built over the Swan Fountain especially for the occasion). I was there that day too, and later on I'll tell about how I got in fairly close without a ticket.
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