"Crop Circle" in the Sand, page 1

The group D.A.ST. is an interdisciplinary collaboration between three artists: Danae Stratou, Sculptor, Alexandra Stratou, Industrial Designer, and Stella Constantinides, Architect. The group was formed in May 1995, based on our common desire to create an installation in the desert. The parameters that we had set for this project described a site specific work of such a scale that it would be experienced through walking. The site that was chosen is a flat expanse of sand that lies between the Red Sea and a body of mountains. The work covers an area of one hundred thousand square meters and involves the displacement of eight thousand cubic meters of sand. One hundred and seventy eight conical volumes form two interlocking logarithmic spirals that move out from a common center with a phase difference of one hundred and eighty degrees in the same direction of rotation. One spiral consists of incised cones, while the other of protruding ones; the incised cones are the result of the displacement of sand to create the protruding cones. The center, a one thousand two hundred cubic meters earthen vessel with a W section is the union of the positive and negative cone. It is filled with water to its rim so that the protruding cone in the center forms a tiny island at the level of the horizon.

ON MARCH 7 1997, THE CONSTRUCTION OF "DESERT BREATH" WAS COMPLETED. AT SAME MOMENT THE WORK WAS TURNED OVER TO THE FORCES OF NATURE, TO BEGIN THE SLOW PROCESS OF ITS ABSORBITION,
BY THE LANDSCAPE THAT GAVE BIRTH TO IT.

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Miracles in the Sand: Confusion and Conundrums

In May 2001, ‘The Spiral’ magazine (newsletter of the Wiltshire Crop Circle Study Group) published an aerial photo of sand, shaped into cones and wells and spiralling out from a large central well, itself containing a cone. Flying over them in a micro-light one August afternoon in the year 2000, Boris Stobe, the photographer of this particular shot, [pic.1] thought that the beautiful scene set out below him was of such precision “it seemed to be a miracle”.

It was nearly a year later that this photo was sent to The Spiral (and how ironic is it that a photo of sand spirals found its way to this particular title?) by Dr Hartmut Endlich, a friend of his father’s. And that is how this legend - that a sand formation had arrived in the Eastern Desert of Egypt - was born.

Having seen photos of this sand spiral many years earlier, I was mildly intrigued as to why this collection of sand cones and hollows was now turning up in the crop circle community. Searching through my archives I found the article that had appeared in the March 1998 edition of the magazine ‘COVER’ (now defunct). Looking at them again, I remembered the feeling I’d had the first time I saw these photos: they had taken my breath away with the beauty and sense of serenity that emanated from sculpted desert [pic.2]. In a flash I had made mental connections to the 1994 Galaxy crop formations in Wiltshire [pic.3] and to the 1996 Windmill Hill Triple Spiral [pic.4]. But the small block of accompanying text told me that it had been created by three young Greek women. Using letters from their first names, they called themselves the ‘D.A.ST. Team’. [/ex[

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Sorry no Aliens this time