Out of Service

Nearly 3 miles from where I live there was a factory, owned and operated by Signal Hill Petroleum, which had once converted natural gas into its liquid state. A security guard told me that the factory had been closed down because its equipment had become outdated, and the operation relocated. However, the factory and most of the machinery and apparatus used to run the operation were simply abandoned. Filtering through what unbroken glass remained diffused sunlight gracefully wrapped itself around the wreckage of the discarded workings of the factory. Items that had outlived their use were now subject to entropy and in their initial stages of decay. Copious amounts of energy had been consumed to compose these tools, so left alone it will take hundreds of thousands of years before they decay back to earth. Perhaps they will be given a second chance in their current form, yet more likely they will be scraped, melted, and their elements incarnated into some other function. For over a year I trespassed into the factory to make photographs of what remained. It was dirty, greasy, toxic, and because there is graveyard just over the hill a bit spooky. Rather than seek images that gave evidence to how the factory operated I focused on the contours, textures, and composition of the abandoned tools and machines. For many the energy required to arrange these items into a working state had dissipated. They, by the forces of nature, had already transformed into a more random (relaxed) state. I found a quiet spiritual like beauty to this limbo, almost human. There were other unwelcome visitors to this factory: unfortunately most came to vandalize. So it came as no surprise when I returned one day to find the factory had been raised and all its elements vanished.