Lander, Cardboard and mixed media, 2000
Lander was the next generation of mobile sculptures i produced at SIUC. The Lander was a in military speak a MANP (Man Portable) sculpture. Drawing inspiration from the Apollo Eagle Lunar Lander the piece folded into a compact rectangle that could be carried as a backpack. A standard camera tripod provided legs to raise the Lander off the ground. The sections were intended to resemble solar panels or some kind of sensor array. Once again i painted it a bright yellow for maximum disruption when set up in public.
Apart from creating some kind of absurd intervention, this piece was the first system sculpture. Traveling first from Carbondale via Amtrak to Chicago, then by air from Chicago to Minneapolis (via Kansas City) and back again this piece was an early stab at developing an administrative art work. Lander was a super important work for me as it focused in on a range of themes and practices that would shape my development both at Carbondale and later here in Chicago.
First and foremost it got the work out there. In a real physical sense. Not only was the work shipped around the Midwest but at each location it was installed on the street for 10 – 15 minutes and passed out information to passersby. Each intervention was documented with photographs and later in the gallery these images were combined with maps showing each site. Apart from the simple act of getting visibility this project cemented the DIY ethos that would define pretty much everything i have done since as an artist and arts professional. In a wider sense this piece symbolized the transportation of ideas, creating networks, developing “integrated systems.” All concepts that again would prove key to my thesis show and later to my practice. And oddly enough for me this piece was pre-internet, sure i was using email, and thinking about web sites and so forth but it was still dot com bubble land, ie it wasn’t utterly ubitquitous. For me this piece was about tracking an object of intellectual curiousity through physcial space, as one might track a package via fed ex.
UPDATE 08/29/09
APS Filmstrip showing different installations in MPLS, 2000
Digging thru boxes tidying the studio and found this image, of showing various installations of Lander in and around Uptown in Minneapolis during the Thanksgiving break in the fall of 2000. I love the format of this APS filmstrip, a sort of pre-digital image, or at least a transitional technology that if anything was a signal of the eventual demise of 35mm (135) camera film. Anyhow i love how this image shows all the different states, with a numerical designation in the bottom left corner and so forth. At some point i’ll upload further documentation of the project and possibly build a small sub-website to tell the story completely.
