Guilty Party
2002-2007
dvd projection, custom chromed baseball pitching machine, Colt 45 pistol, Colt 45 malt liqour, myspace photos, interactive electronics
Also feel free to download the MP4 video clip (19mb quicktime)
Guilty Party is an interactive installation designed to coax the art viewer into firing full Colt 45 malt liquor cans at heads of "thugged out" white, hispanic and african american teenage kids. In doing so, the viewer inadvertently points the weapon at their own head instead.
The viewer is presented with projections of photos from myspace of "thugged out" white, latino, asian, and african american teenagers. These photos are superimposed over a large metal target.
Aimed at the target is a custom-chromed pitching machine modified by me to throw unopened 24 oz. Colt 45 beers instead of baseballs. The full Colt 45 beers serve as "bullets" for the pitching machine "pistol."
Tethered to this pitching machine is an actual Colt 45 pistol. This pistol is held by the viewer in order trigger the pitching machine to shoot the full beers. The viewer holds the pistol in their hand and when they squeeze the trigger not just the beer is fired. Here comes the surprise! A full beer is fired at the target but at the same time a hidden video camera switches to a live video feed of the viewer holding the pistol and this video is projected onto the target where the thugged out kids used to be.So the viewer can, in actuality, only shoot themselves.After 3 seconds the video feed switches off and is replaced back to the pictures of thugged-out teens.
The piece is a statement about my growing up as a kid in white suburban Orlando Florida. I was a pretty bad kid and dressed in the punk rock style. Vacationers would pay me to have their picture taken with me while i flipped off the camera. At the time I thought I pretty fully understood what my relationship to the world was. I felt i understood rebellion. Later in life I moved to Chicago, and while going to work in the morning or walking around the city I would walk by these kids with gold teeth, and corn rows, etc. At the time I thought, "Wow man! Those kids are tough! They might shoot me or something! I should cross the street just to avoid them." I realized later what a fool I was. I realized that these kids are feeling and expressing the same things I felt growing up, they are just showing it in a different way, and listen to different music and say different words. I used the words "bastard" and "wanker." They use the words "mothafucka" and "nigga."
The piece is meant to make you consider that these kids, while they may not look like you, have lives worth living. To disregard or misunderstand that is a horrible mistake. It also is a comment about getting older. In an era where symbols of punk rock rebellion are now screen-printed on baby clothes, we need to understand that our idea of rebellion has grown old along with us. Kids with new symbols, clothing styles and slang are taking our place - whether we like it or not. It is our mistake to misunderstand them.
The alternate title, Anti Nigga Machine, is a tribute to the Public Enemy song of the same name.
Guilty Party is the "radio-edit" title for the Anti Nigga Machine.
The piece was alternatively titled, at the request of the curator, Guilty Party when exhibited at "The Dreaded Seven Three Split" gallery in Pilsen, Chicago. I thought Guilty Party was an interesting re-title as it implicated not only the active participants but the passive onlookers as well. Also, sometimes art titles aren't the things to be falling on the sword for.
Exhibited:
"High Impact" exhibition, Deadtech Gallery, Chicago - Sept 2007
"Guilty Party" solo exhibition
The Dreaded Seven Three Split Gallery, Chicago - April/May 2002