Megan and Murray McMillan

The first boulder is positioned and suspended from its winch above.

This is the platform above the coal bin where the Boulder Operators are positioned. Each Operator controls one boulder using one of these custom built boulder winch stands.

Each boulder has to be craned into the Mass MoCA coal bin ceiling.

The receiving team in the belly of the coal bin.

This is the old power plant at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art‘s campus, and the filming location for the Coal Bin (working title) Project.

We’ve enjoyed building this project at WaterFire’s new Warehouse in Providence, RI, and were excited to invite our local Providence community to a one night performance on August 16, 2013 to see the boulders before they head to MASS MoCA in North Adams to be filmed. During the evening we invited all the people who had helped fabricate the project to help us to pick up a boulder and pack it into two trucks.

Danny Dibattista, Naushon Hale and Ed Osborn created the sound live.

Photographs by Mike Formanski.

How do you get a camera to move vertically 50 feet? You have two options: 1) rent the $20,000 a day Hollywood solution that they use to film diving at the olympics or 2) custom design it with Will Reeves (on right) and have him lead the fabrication. Special thanks to Jon Stone for electrical assistance on the trolley motor.

Will’s assistants Tim and Naushon

I spent some serious time on Will’s mill. I got to get one of these…

Finished section (one of seven)

Four accurate digital scales on each line allowed us to give the proper data to our rigging company, ZFX, as PA Dylan DeWitt assists.