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Tunnels are the Bonneville Salt Flats, one of the few areas in the world where you can actually see the curvature of the earth. Being part of that kind of landscape, and walking on earth that has surely never been walked on before, evokes a sense of being on this planet, rotating in space, in universal time.
By marking the yearly extreme positions of the sun, Sun Tunnels indicated the "cyclical time" of the solar year. The center of the work becomes the center of the world. The changing pattern of light from our "sun-star" marks the days and hours as it passes through the tunnel's "star-holes." The positioning of the work is also based on star-study: the surveyor and I were only able to find True North by taking our bearings on the North Star - Polaris - as it ovals around the North Pole because of the earth's movement

I wanted to bring the last space of the desert back to human scale. I had no desire to make a megalithic monument. The panoramic view of the landscape is too overwhelming to take in without visual reference points. The view blurs out rather than sharpens. Through the tunnels, parts of the landscape are framed and come into focus. I chose the diameter, length, and distance between the tunnels based on the proportions of what could be seen of the sky and land, and how long the sun could be seen rising and setting on the solstices.
In the desert, scale is hard to discern from a distance. Mountains that are 5 to 10 miles away look deceptively close. When Sun Tunnels is seen from 4 miles away, it seems very large. Closer in, a mile or so away, the relational balance changes and is hard to read. The work is seen from several angles on the road in; at times two of the tunnels line up exactly head on and seem to disappear. Seen from a side angle the two tunnels in front can totally overall and cancel out the ones in the back.
From the center of the work, the tunnels extend the viewer visually into the landscape, opening up the perceived space. But once inside the tunnels, the work encloses - surrounds - and there is a framing of the landscape through the ends of the tunnels and through the holes.

The color and substance of the tunnels is the same as the land that they are a part of, and the inner matter of the concrete - the solidified sand and stone - can be seen on the insides of the holes, where the "core-drill" cut through and exposed it. In that kind of space the work had to have a substantial thickness and weight, which was only possible with concrete. the rims are wide enough to frame the space from long distances, and the weight (22 tons per tunnel) gives the work a feeling of permanence.

Only the sunlight holds things together. Noon is the crucial hour; the desert reveals itself nakedly and cruelly, with no meaning but its own existence.
Edward Abbey
Desert Solitaire

In the glare of the desert sunlight, I want to turn away from the sun, rather than contemplate it. When the sunlight is all around me like that, I only become conscious of it when it is edged by shadow. The sunlight pours in wherever there are holes in the

[[Image: tunnels in the desert with a person standing in the middle]]
[[Image: tunnels in the desert with a view straight through two of them]]
[[Image: tunnels in the desert at a side angle]]