Old media meets new technology when Joshua Allen Harris transforms used plastic bags into lively creatures on the streets of New York. His inflatable sculptures work by attaching the open bottoms to the vents found above the subway tracks all over the city. As the trains pass beneath, the displaced air is forced out, inflating the pieces. Harris describes the life cycle of his animals, here, as a glimpse at life and death as the creature inflates and exists for a short time before deflating, and sagging to the ground again.
We sometimes think of man's industrialization as lifeless and gray, incapable of delivering life. Harris has found a way to harness the motion and wasted energy of our industrialization, the byproduct of the gears grinding under our feet. And importantly, the creatures he creates draw childlike excitement from those who pass it by.
I really enjoy this piece because it feels very urban to me. I have watched the videos of them erecting as the subways go by and it is quite graceful. It reminded me of the bags that fly in the wind.
ReplyDeletewhat a cool idea. i have stumbled across this before.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.crookedbrains.net/2009/04/umbrella.html
This site is unrelated but thought you might enjoy it. it's a series of umbrella installations.
The concept of using something as simple as the air from a Subway grate is really amazing. I've always had an aversion to them because the air was always so awkward and damp that came shooting up out of them, but something like this could really brighten your day. It would be interesting to experience you think would be abandoned plastic bags from far away come to life as the subway passes underneath you! Great find and I'm sure things like this will be popping up all over the city!
ReplyDelete-Amanda DelConte
I think it is interesting how he sees it as having a life cycle. That would essentially make the subway trains the life force of it.
ReplyDelete-Sara Marino
I actually saw one of his sculpture on a trip to NY. They were lying flat and deflated and from far away they just looked like pieces of trash stuck a grate. My first reaction was disdain for the dirtiness of the city and then they began to move and grow. I think its interesting how once inflated to animals react with the environment around them and take on a life of their own. There is no way for the artist to predict or control how they will move. It was like a bunch of small performances put together as the sculpture rose and fell. A crowd would gather to see the event and then move on when the show was over... I think its a great comment on the imagination as well, after seeing his work I started to make relationships between other mundane pieces of trash or objects in the city. The child in me was prompted to ask what would happen if the nearby trash can or park bench morphed into an animal or monster. Great work! Hope to run across it again...
ReplyDeleteRachael Dacey
New Media