SYSTEMS OF PHYSICAL DEFENSE
2012
Multi-stage performance with audio installation component
During the London Olympics the hired guards were questioned about the URL to acquire tickets to the events via a microphone at a bridge leading into the complex. These exchanges were documented in video form and uploaded. The URL was printed and hung near the site of the exchange. During the exhibition opening, a battering ram was constructed for the period of three hours in front of an Olympic complex bridge entrance. Being assembled just outside of bridge where guards stood, just feet outside a metal fence crowned with barbed wire and standing about a moat, the local police were called to inspect. The inspection was utilized to discuss gentrification, international and national finances of the olympics, parties interested, gang relations, power structures and the police's own involvement in the olympics games--all of which was documented. The final stage of the work followed the relocation of the building materials away from the entrance and just beyond the purview of the guards, where sound recordings of the hammering of the wood were looped and amplified via megaphone.