The work mimics the thought and design of the planner, the professional, and the hard interactivity of the corporate. However, the work is that of the single producer, homemade, the work of the hobbyist. It is made in the manner of the mantra; repetitive but differing from the factory in that the corporate hierarchy exists inside one person, this singular producer. The work encourages a design relationship with what we define as municipal: a state-sanctioned public space for use by the citizenry. The municipal is conditional, it concedes public space for revolutions doomed to fail by design. The human mic doesn’t work if you are being tear gassed. The planners rendering doesn’t include the armored vehicle. The quadranglulated pyramidal form echoes anti-echoic sound proofing but of course it’s hand made. It also echoes anti-sitting nudging devices and anti-skateboarding devices
that decurb the curb and unledge the planter and imagine a public space which can’t be defined or redeifined by the public, reinforcing public space as void of public, the less likely a public be comfortable enough to assemble, organize, or protest there. Our vision of the public disallows the visual interruption of the homeless or other congregational populations never proffered in the planners rendering. The planner hijacks public apathy for the plaza and the square, the public space. It reaffirms the municipal as the non-social and reifies the individual by offering free WiFi in the town green. The entirety of the language of the artist and the planner is versed in the anti whereas the state and the corporate promote a pro public position albeit opaque and conditional. The renewal of public space as a place to use my screen encourages me to participate in the environment of the singular. The municipal as an externality will push me away from myself and into an uncontrollable world. The uncontrollable externality disallows my self-actualization. The denial of self-actualization doesn’t allow for the present tense to occur. The screen allows for a constant renewal of the present tense, to bring the aggregate of everything into the public, the public becomes a hyperactive space of nothing. The planners rendering is an exuberant framing of nothing in many ways aped from film, there’re never enough extras to make Apocalypse Now look like actual War or the dance scene in the Matrix to look like an actual Rave. The rendering doesn’t show the single citizen facing off with the tank. The rendering doesn’t zoom out to show the tens of thousands protesting, it only reinforces the American idea of the individual. Visual comparisons work in a pre-language way because they don’t have to rely on textual comparisons especially when all etymologies for all words in all languages over the course of all histories are now instantly available. The screen is my actual everything and defines how I think
of saturation. The phone itself is only the physical, weighted pocket reminder nothing at all is happening. Sculpture takes a privileged position right now. It doesn’t compete with the screen. It is slower than most everything. Slow in the way my skepticism slows everything down. Skepticism should not be confused with contrarianist philosophy. My offer is not contrarian because the contrarian has no position. My offer is physical density unimpregnated by the digital environment. My offer is not to present the monolith of disengagement proffered by soft interactivity. Soft interactivity thinks itself pro public. It allows for easy participatory acts that will ameliorate the public.
Text redacted by request of the artist. Full text HERE