Citywide installation
An edition of 15 cute, metal rabbits appeared overnight in gardens (with existing yard-art collections) throughout the city of Carbondale: each bunny displaying a difficult, existential question with cheerful, cartoon naivety.
The Conductor Public installation
This artwork creates a temporary fantasy by combining an inflatable publicity figure outside a car showroom with a local orchestra. The ‘fly-guy’ waves its arms as it is filled with air and buffeted about by the wind. On this day, it conducted the orchestra placed in front of it: an extraordinary sight for passers by as well as an experiment in sound sculpture.
The Crowd
Public intervention by SLAVA
(Ruth Pringle, Lidija Slavkovik and Baggs McKelvey)
The Crowd was a collaborative artistic intervention in which artist collective SLAVA attempted to insert themselves into the footage of local television news reports. By infiltrating local news we first had to participate in a variety of community events: artificially accelerating the process of becoming local.
LOST: Gas Station
Public art installation of 25o posters, Illinois
‘I was living in Illinois when I discovered the lost gas station as a photograph in a junk store. I wouldn’t have noticed it if it weren’t for it’s fairly elaborate gold frame, and I wondered why anyone would frame a photograph of a gas station in this way. It was obvious that someone had sentimental interest in this particular gas station, but I would never know why. I liked the idea of taking on the burden of loving it’.
The National Plastic Plant Liberation League (N.P.P.L.L.)
A fictional society including a poster campaign and TV commercial
The Plastic Plant Liberation League was a fictional society that largely existed as a concept within an advertising campaign. In this artwork unwanted or mistreated plastic plants were described as rescued, nurtured back to health and released into the wild: accompanied by the song ‘Born Free.’
Publicity took the form of posters and a TV commercial which was screened on local TV station SPC-TV.
The Great Wave
Chicago-wide public installation
Considering the idea that churning washing machines in a laundrette could be an urban substitute for the ocean. This artwork attempts to place commercial reproductions of ‘The Great Wave’ by Hokusai into all launderettes in Chicago.
Small Gifts
Small Gifts took place in The Thrift Store, Carbondale. It consisted of various embellishments to objects stolen from this store, carefully altered in some way and returned. These small events include a jacket re-lined by a tailor and various simple clothing and toy repairs, objects placed into pockets and handbags and messages of love or loss embroidered onto clothing.
Credit
The painted out graffiti within a old St. Louis jail cell is revealed once again.
Credit is a temporary memorial to time and people passing through the inside of this St. Louis jail cell. This installation reveals once again the painted out graffiti in the cell. Credit merges artistic mark making with anonymous graffiti: asking not only the question who these people were, but also, for the artwork, who should get the credit.
Credit iiFilm DVD 45’16
Credit is a minimalist, conceptual film designed for installation in police stations and prisons. Credit is simply a film of film credits: a long list of names without any apparent explanation. Some are famous, some unknown. In fact the film offers a comprehensive list of every recorded actor / actress who has played a convict in a movie / TV series. It questions our knowledge of prison and the judicial system that will inform how we act if we are ever within this context; but which is almost entirely learnt from fiction.
The Great Escape
Audio playing in an empty jail cell
A soundtrack of people responding to the artist’s request to whistle the theme tune of the film The Great Escape. Most found it difficult to recall and attempted to describe it - to force the memory outwards.
This installation attempted to created something that the audience would take out of the jail cell: despite the locked door. This tune is infectious. It pass through the bars and found freedom over the subsequent days as the audience absently whistled it later.
