Shadow of the Car Factory - Train Visual 1

Author: Zhao Nina
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-09-01
Features: The Silent Power of Industrial Sculpture
Before many times, when my gaze swept over the pipelines, I believed there must be the numbness of wipers hitting water droplets. Many people would feel the same way—it’s not the fault of our eyes, but the fault of time. For people who work at car factories or frequently visit them, the pipelines have become scenery that not only numbs our eyes but also numbs our senses due to their excessive familiarity and inevitable presence. Over a long period, we have grown accustomed to passing by the pipelines while doing all the necessary things, without lingering our gaze on them. Pipelines are just pipelines, nothing more. We think so, and the pipelines remain habitually silent.
Actually, if you want to enter the body of the car factory, just follow the pipelines forward. Pipelines are the veins of the car factory—the moment the factory was born, the pipelines were already there. As time passes, decades or even centuries slide by the silent bodies of the pipelines, and the pipelines become imbued with the essence of history. When you look back, emotions intertwine seamlessly.
If there’s still a little of your own time in the car factory, take a look at those pipelines, those pipelines that have grown old. They will move your heart in their own way. The psychological impact produced by the pipelines may differ greatly for people inside and outside the factory. For those outside, it might be just an immediate effect on the retina; for those inside, it requires time, coupled with memories, and then, from the heart, it gradually and slowly makes the senses moisten. The power produced by the pipelines should be awe for those outside the factory, and shock for those inside.
Many years after leaving the factory, I returned to a car factory in the suburbs of Beijing, holding a camera and wandering through the pathways within. Everything seemed dull because it was all in memory, and emotions were numb. When the pipelines entered my lens not as a background but as independent entities, an unprecedented visual effect made the awe and shock within me coexist. I saw the pipelines quietly there, dignified and weathered, with something that penetrates the heart.
In all car factories, with just a slight bit of intention, the pipelines rush into your sight. They are almost the elevated horizon of the factory—you just need to raise your chin 15 degrees to see them at about 3 meters in height. My friend who paints, after staring at them for a while, called them soft industrial sculptures.
Many times, after returning from the factory, I would look at the photos I took at night on the computer. The room was quiet and dark, with only the light from the screen. The colors of the pipelines radiated from the screen, like neon lights quietly flickering on an empty street at night. I would often feel moved within, and then, inevitably, have those scattered yet clear epiphanies about time and life.
The main pipelines of old industrial facilities include cooling water pipelines, hot water pipelines, compressed air (high-pressure air) pipelines, oxygen pipelines, acetylene pipelines, carbon dioxide pipelines, and exhaust pipelines. By convention, different pipelines have different colors—for example, oxygen pipelines are light blue, the color of liquid oxygen. Some pipelines have outer coatings, like hot water pipes. In the north, cooling water pipes are also often covered.