Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Pay Phone Revival Project

This is a piece that was done as part of the Pay Phone Revival Project, in which six installations were done by various artists on abandoned pay phone booths on the east-side of Austin.
This is one in a series of pieces which I have made using processes or skills that have been utilized by humans over thousands of years and which are in the process of being lost. Examples of this are growing our own food, building our homes, starting a fire, or raising animals, all of which we, for the most part in the western world, would have to begin learning all over again if our technological society were to fail us.

I have been doing this using trash which has become one of our most abundant resources. For these pieces I envision a world in which we as humans have had to return to an agrarian society, and must do so amongst the ruins of our current world. And what we have created, concrete and buildings and refuse, has become our new natural landscape. These future humans would be left to return to the old ways set amongst a new landscape.
This particular piece is approaching the pay phone booth as the center of a bean teepee. The wood and chicken wire will eventually become engulfed in bean vines and sprouts that can be picked and eaten by passers-by. The chicken wire has been made to form mountain and peaks and valleys, which acts to restore part of the landscape that has been lost here in the heart of the city.
I was also thinking a bit about the pay phone booth as a ruin. That inspired me to think of other empires that have fallen.

Updates to come as the beans grow.

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