3. From the Pavilion Bridge to the Volunteers Footbridge
Another acclaimed artist especially invited to participate was Fernando Sinaga, one of the most important Aragonese sculptors, but his work, in spite of the high expectation raised by his participation, has passed unnoticed for the public. Faithful to his curriculum as conceptual artist, his first idea was to put several boards nearby the Ebro´s river bed, to be destroyed by floods. But, instead, he was invited to make something permanent. Therefore, he matched flat colours with those he used years before to decorate the facade of Zaragoza´s Auditorium. The only difference was that, this time, he experimented with dichroic glass, with high technology applied to glass instead of using flat murals, since he was focusing on three spectral screens able to reflect river water and plants, and, among all, providing sculpture-architectural character since the screens are not aligned by putting around a kind of square lifted over two pairs of steel legs working as porticoes rounded off by coloured lintels. Therefore, the structure that Expo visitors saw as spectacular fences put around the Iceberg, are now perceived from this trail as gates that symbolize the threshold of the visual link between city and river, framing/reflecting also river views or architectural icons such as the Bridge Pavilion or the Spanish Pavilion.
From here, we can also see the winding Eco-geographic Bench along the opposite river bank. The designer, Isidro Ferrer, has drawn maps made of one million and a half ceramic tiles put on a bench planned by the architect-landscape artists Enric Batlle and Joan Roig, inspired by one of the most known creations of Gaudí at Güell Park. This work also belongs to the so-called by Expoagua a "very effective work for being integrated into natural or scarcely developed environments, and their interactive public use; in resting, leisure and play areas, etc". This zone was extensively used by the visitors of the Expo to have a rest, lunch or see the Iceberg show, look at the river or at the Expo site.
Behind the bench, we can see the Sonic Forest made by Christopher Janney, an interactive work composed of a base of aluminium columns, nearly two metres and half high, with technological devices inserted by the American artist Christopher Janney, able to produce changing colour lights and water sounds, depending on movements and manipulation of people. From its plan in 1991, Janney has presented this work in different places of the world for visitors to walk on it. It is hoped that Zaragoza´s replica would be ready for other uses, after the reopening of the Expo. The same happens with the glass sculpture named Rococo Mannerism, placed few metres to the east, also near the river. After some of its crystals being vandalized it was restaured and moved to the Hall of the Seminario Building, in January 2011. This work made by Dan Graham takes it full meaning when citizens walk over this labyrinth of curved glass. But, even from the opposite bank of the Ebro, both works of art have an unquestionable visual and aesthetic lure. On the contrary, Appearing Rooms, work of the Dane artist Jeppe Hein, is difficult to be seen since it is placed downstream. This labyrinth of "rooms" has an immaterial aspect, since the walls are formed by water jets that emerge randomly, surprising the unsuspecting visitor that plays with the fountain and nearly always gets soaked. Zaragoza´s replica of this artistic fountain placed first in Basilea (Art Basel 2004) and then in other cities, will work when the Expo site will be opened again to the public. The three interactive pieces of art will fully work, not only for citizens´ amusement, but also for those who look at it from a distance.