BC STAFF REPORT
Five years ago, as crews worked day and night to dismantle the massive former Eastern span of the Bay Bridge, artists and designers across California expressed their desire to creatively repurpose pieces of the old bridge steel.
The Oakland Museum of California stepped in and partnered with the Toll Bridge Program Oversight Committee to set up the Bay Bridge Steel Program, assembling a selection committee with expertise in everything from public art to the history of the bridge. Ultimately, 15 artists, architects and design professionals were awarded some of the coveted steel under the condition that they use it to make public art in California.
One of the awardees, San Francisco conceptual artist Tom Loughlin, recently unveiled the largest and most ambitious public art project to result from the Bay Bridge Steel Program, and the first large-scale work from the program to debut in the Bay Area.
Made from three 12-ton girders from the former Eastern span and a rare, original signal light from the top of the bridge, Signal is a massive public sculpture on the western edge of Treasure Island that invites the public to consider our place in the natural landscape and the tools we build to traverse it.
Signal is a steel ring, 25 feet across, made from the former span’s huge box-shaped and riveted top chords, the uppermost horizontal girders of the truss sections of the bridge.
“The sculpture sounds like a foghorn,” Loughlin told Bay Crossings. “Electronic equipment inside the sculpture vibrates the steel at its natural resonant frequency of 35 Hz. As I was building Signal, I was thinking about the natural landscape of the Bay and the way we travel through it, so it made sense to me to add an element which brings fog to mind. And I think fog horns are interesting. They make such a comforting sound but they’re also warning of danger.”
With a panoramic view of the Bay Area and its bridges, visitors can step into the ring and experience soft pulses of light from the signal lamp and the low, cyclical foghorn-like vibration. “The aim of the piece is to call to mind various rhythms that intersect in the San Francisco Bay,” said Loughlin. “The pulsing light and sound of the sculpture point to the navigational aids, bridges, and other structures we’ve put into the Bay to assist our travel. I hope they will also evoke the natural rhythm of tides and sunrises and weather changes, and our own biological rhythms.”
Signal has received significant logistical support from the Oakland Museum of California, the Treasure Island Development Authority, the San Francisco Arts Commission and CalTrans. In addition, the Headlands Center for the Arts’ fiscal sponsorship of the project has made it possible for donors to make tax-deductible contributions to bring Signal to Treasure Island.
Signal will be free and open to the public daily at least through 2022. It is located on the western edge of Treasure Island, only 150 feet from the restaurant Mersea. For more information, the public can visit signalsf.com.
