This is a weird little task, if I do say so myself. When I conceived of it, I was at the gas pump looking at the "emergency shut off" button and I just had this vision--of turning off gas pumps nationwide, of killing the old way, of release from our rapacious selves. Freedom! Terrible beautiful freedom! I then thought of kill switches for other things. Kill switch for the mundane, kill switch for the dull, kill switch for poverty. And so on. But I also thought, "what would be better is that this be interpreted by SF0 groups." Thus the task, and thus my rendition of the proof.

Emergency Art Void Shut Off
I wanted to make a switch that looked weird and inviting, but also somewhat innocuous. I've really gotten into cardboard lately--used it in Blind Sculpting, which we'll post soon, right Ink Tea?-- and as a result, I wanted to make a cardboard switch and then adhere it to an object. I made it big and chunky and obvious. It was kind of a challenge to cut out and tape together and then figure out how to hold the switch in place and make it work. The whole manufacture took place during lunch or coffee breaks at the office. A total of about 3 hours I suppose over the last several weeks. I decorated the interior of the switch box and left a note in there in case someone disassembles it. I had some magnetic tape was going to use for Object Annotation (went with the zip ties instead) and decided to use that to adhere it to a post or something.

Quelle frustrating! Lots of metal in this city appears to be non-ferrous and unfriendly to magnets! Signs, streetlight poles, guard rails: these things were not holding my kill switch! Either these are not ferrous or my magnetic tape is not very strong! I finally found a metal box that was gripped by my switch appropriately and I stuck it on there. It's in a fairly well-trafficked area so hopefully someone will see it.

There you have it. A switch that, when turned off, transforms the user from an observer to a performing participant, relocating their immediate environment in an art realm and the object the switch is connected to from a mere state of conveniently-ferrous to that of an objet d'art. Kill the void! Enter the art realm!

Mpeg version of movie