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"If this shelter is rockin'....
May. 13th, 2009 09:21 amYesterday's lunchtime adventure with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
commanderteddog took us back in time to the Cold War, as ironically imagined by urban hipsters! Glee!
The pillar to the right contained a video feed from four cameras, ostensibly of the occupants of the shelter, bopping to disco.
Dance music could be heard faintly drifting from behind the door.
From the Sculpture Garden webpage:
This Disco Fallout Shelter (DFS) overtly extends the theme of exclusivity. It is a glitzed-up and powder coated re-articulation of the prolific and often makeshift mid-twentieth century fallout shelters. In the overgrown grass, a brightly coloured pathway leads to the shelter’s sparkling entrance where a low bass beat can be heard from the dance music being played inside. At the end of the path is a small viewing kiosk containing a video feed of Instant Coffee members playing records, eating spaghetti, dancing, reading, sleeping and just hanging out in the tight confines and under the protective barrier of the shelter. At play here is the tenuous relationship between this exclusive lifesaving hideaway, the nature of the collective as being selective, and the viewing kiosk where those outside can only observe and imagine what is really happening inside.
While Instant Coffee might “wish you were here,” fallout shelters by their nature are places limited to a small group of people. In the case of the DFS, it is only open to all the members of Instant Coffee. The fallout shelter, an icon of the cold war and the threat of nuclear war, was designed to save people by reducing exposure to radiation and radioactive debris. Governments, from first world USA to poverty stricken Albania, built them for elite groups of high-ranking officials. Ironically, since fallout shelters were very expensive to build, most people would have been left out in the nuclear dust.
I like this sculpture, or installation, or whatever. It's sort of clever. The description bothers me. I get annoyed when deep thought is combined with shallow scholarship. I'm also too literally minded.
From an interview with one of the artists:
"My hat is from an Edmonton Value Village. My glasses came from Las Vegas. The shoes are Redwing boots from an outlet store in Redwing, Minnesota. A friend gave me the hoodie. I purchased my wool striped pants at the Halifax Salvation Army. My socks cost about $25 from Holt Renfrew."
That's just precious, really.
Total walk was 3.1 km.
commanderteddog took us back in time to the Cold War, as ironically imagined by urban hipsters! Glee!The pillar to the right contained a video feed from four cameras, ostensibly of the occupants of the shelter, bopping to disco.
Dance music could be heard faintly drifting from behind the door.
From the Sculpture Garden webpage:
This Disco Fallout Shelter (DFS) overtly extends the theme of exclusivity. It is a glitzed-up and powder coated re-articulation of the prolific and often makeshift mid-twentieth century fallout shelters. In the overgrown grass, a brightly coloured pathway leads to the shelter’s sparkling entrance where a low bass beat can be heard from the dance music being played inside. At the end of the path is a small viewing kiosk containing a video feed of Instant Coffee members playing records, eating spaghetti, dancing, reading, sleeping and just hanging out in the tight confines and under the protective barrier of the shelter. At play here is the tenuous relationship between this exclusive lifesaving hideaway, the nature of the collective as being selective, and the viewing kiosk where those outside can only observe and imagine what is really happening inside.
While Instant Coffee might “wish you were here,” fallout shelters by their nature are places limited to a small group of people. In the case of the DFS, it is only open to all the members of Instant Coffee. The fallout shelter, an icon of the cold war and the threat of nuclear war, was designed to save people by reducing exposure to radiation and radioactive debris. Governments, from first world USA to poverty stricken Albania, built them for elite groups of high-ranking officials. Ironically, since fallout shelters were very expensive to build, most people would have been left out in the nuclear dust.
I like this sculpture, or installation, or whatever. It's sort of clever. The description bothers me. I get annoyed when deep thought is combined with shallow scholarship. I'm also too literally minded.
From an interview with one of the artists:
"My hat is from an Edmonton Value Village. My glasses came from Las Vegas. The shoes are Redwing boots from an outlet store in Redwing, Minnesota. A friend gave me the hoodie. I purchased my wool striped pants at the Halifax Salvation Army. My socks cost about $25 from Holt Renfrew."
That's just precious, really.
Total walk was 3.1 km.
