It wasn't so much a clicking as an endless hollow knocking as 7000 concrete breeze-blocks were set off domino-style in front of Melbourne Town Hall, travelling for two kilometres, with occasional violence, throughout the city.
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Down the aisle at St Paul's Cathedral like a madly chattering bridge, along Swanston Walk and down Flinders Lane, heading upstairs into the City Library where the line broke over a balcony, dropped to the footpath below - and started anew. A similar, even more spectacular climb and fall occurred at the Atrium on Southbank. Perhaps the most surreal moment occurred at Flinders Street Station as the chain travelled along platform 10 as the trains - of the electric, humanly-inhabited variety - pulled in and out.
This was Arts Centre Melbourne's Dominoes arts project, nursed along and protected by 300 volunteers who ensured pedestrians didn't get their toes crushed, and the great clattering wasn't interrupted. Arts Centre Melbourne creative producer, participation, Patrick Cronin said the giant domino project was born in London in 2009, as part of the arts festival attached to the Olympics. Since then, it's been reproduced a dozen times throughout Europe and the UK.
Saturday's event was the first to have occurred outside Europe, as part of the Arts Centre Melbourne's Betty Amsden Participation Program and the work of internationally renowned UK performance company, Station House Opera.
Mr Cronin said the breeze blocks will now be donated to the community arts group Testing Ground.
