SHORT DESCRIPTION
TAKE ME PLACES is an art project, which plays with the notions of territory and dislocation, orientation and the loss of such. TAKE ME PLACES will travel around the world from the beginning of July 2011 until July 2012. There are two versions of TAKE ME PLACES, an analogue and a digital version. At the end of its travels there will be an exhibition of the collected material, the photographs and added artefacts, stories, content on the blog. TAKE ME PLACES plays with public spaces, is participatory, involves a random audience, the public and is dependent upon it.
SHORT INFORMATION
TAKE ME PLACES consists of two suitcases that are abandoned somewhere, randomly. The suitcases are equipped with cameras, location based material and instructions. One of the suitcases has a digital nature the other one consists of analogue material.
After the suitcases are abandoned by its creators, they are hoping for them to be taken by people that will follow the instructions inside the suitcase.
The contact details for TAKE ME PLACES are:
Email: takemeplaces@gmx.net
Address: TAKE ME PLACES
Postlagernd
CH-6410 Goldau
MOTIVATION - INFLUENCES – REFERENCES
An important part of the motivation was to create a “game”, project that had to be playful, physical and tangible. Desirable also was autonomy, an element that could not be controlled entirely and would evolve during the process. We had strong interest in the old bottle post, which would have contained various content like, maps of treasures but also messages that would hopefully, one day find its receiver. So our game would play with the elements of chance (random audience, players), Alea according to Callois. It would also play with ideas of territory and location. Additionally, TAKE ME PLACES also take up the idea of a simulation. The suitcases do not belong to anyone but commonly suitcases contain the personal belongings of someone that is travelling somewhere, from a-b. The contents of the suitcases are hidden, are intimate and usually not shown to anyone else outside of close personal relation, exempt during the process of passing customs at airports where the contents of the suitcase are exposed to X-rays so to see the content, to check for any dangerous items.
Abandoned suitcases, sports bags are also an element of danger and insecurity. The Neo-Nazi David Copeland had in 1999 placed three nail bombs inside sport bags and had abandoned them at designated places, one in Soho, one in Brixton and the last one in Bricklane. They have become a terrorist element. The security checks at airports attempt thoroughness and what an abandoned piece of luggage triggers is outside of our control. Nevertheless, is a piece of luggage, a suitcase also a romantic element, it bears the romantic notion of discovery and encountering the unknown, coupled finding the new self.
The element of danger will unfortunately handicap our undertaking but hopefully the design of the suitcases will communicate artistic rather than terrorist thought. Possibly artistic reflection can oppose terrorist claustrophobia.
An important reference however is also Werner Reiterer’s piece “Stellen Sie michwoanders wieder ab” (Take me and place me somewhere else). He made a suitcase with a piece of paper stuck onto it saying the above. However, as he had explained during the guest lecture last spring the audience was not allowed to take the suitcase outside of the gallery. This may have been because of terrorist threat but we had not been given according information. We believe that hence the piece has been deceived by parts of its meaning, by not giving it full autonomy, letting it out of hand. This is part of the reason why we would also like to test and see how far it can be possible to create such a work of art.
VISION – IDEAL SCENARIO
The ideal scenario would be that the public, random audience would take the suitcases and follow the instructions inside, that at the end of the year the suitcases will be sent back and that we can form an exhibition of their travel, the artistic content collected. We would subsequently be able to reflect upon its content in relation to locus and time.
However, it might be that nothing at all is ever seen and the suitcases disappear.
DESIGN - RESTRICTIONS
The design has to be in such a way that it can easily be carried and is not too expensive. We want to trigger creative processes rather than stealing, so we had to carefully review how we would equip the suitcases so that they would trigger the creative process but would not mislead to other dubious activity.
EXPRIMENTS – PROTOTYPES
The prototypes have been artistically fabricated individually out of second hand, found material and will be abandoned on the street the last week of June 2011 in Linz. We will document the starting point of both suitcases.
FUTURE WORK – FURTHER DEVELOPMENT
Hopefully the suitcases will travel far and collect much artistic content. We aim to have an exhibition at the end of their travel and are looking into developing the project further. However, we first will have to wait and see what the outcome will be. You will be kept up to date.
