The Spiral Jetty

The one aspect of the film that really grabbed my attention, as an element seemingly out of place or with indeterminate meaning, was the "mud, salt crystals, rocks, water" refrain. The narration walks the whole compass, cardinal and interposing directions, twenty times in all, associating each direction with the same refrain.

My first impressions of the refrain and its exhausting repetition were that it was prolonged, superfluous and somewhat tedious. Having read Smithson's essay explaining the process by which he envisioned the Spiral Jetty, I've come to suspect that this was an example of him constructing a resonance. The spiral is very carefully constructed and appears virtually flawless, both when viewed in its entirety and and when its paths are traced at personal range. Walking the jetty means tracing a pattern that spirals inwards on a circular path, forming layers of still water and rocky pathway. By the time one reaches the center, one is completely surrounded by the layers -- looking out in any direction means that one's eyes must cross the layers of the spiral.

In many ways, the refrain seems to be an attempt to echo this notion that the jetty is a demonstration of layered repetition. Smithson equates the layered rings of the jetty -- which one spies in 360 degrees from the center point -- with the layers material that suffuse the the jetty and its larger environment. Mud, salt crystals, rocks, water... these can be considered both elementary substances of the jetty and of the lake and its shore. While the jetty is an artificial construct, it still belongs to its environment because it was made from its environment, and Smithson envisioned it from thin boundaries that permeate the vista of the Salt Lake -- sky and earth, lake and shore, mud and water, cracks and solid ground. These boundaries are viewed through the thin boundary that separates one's self from the environment -- perception itself as a permeable boundary. This is perhaps one of the realizations that Smithson was hoping his audience would discover in exploring and contemplating the Spiral Jetty.