SURVIVE THIS!

Resilient Cities  I Social Engagement I Urban Prototyping I Civic Hackathons I Public Art 

​An ongoing series of participatory urbanism and preparedness public art projects revealing our Catastrophile Complex.  I am an Apocaloptimist (a term I coined in 1992).  I draw from Apocalyptic theory to understand the feeling shared by my generation that we have already lived through some sort of end, emotionally, in large and small ways.  These projects (1995-2008) explore the aesthetics derived from the sub-cultures of preparedness and paranoia, community and rugged individualism.

​EMERGENCY KITS

​Concerned with the lines between preparedness and paranoia, self -sufficiency and community, and one's personal comfort weighted against National Security, This project charts the aesthetics of survivalist gear on a bell curve defined by the opposite extremes of the Do-It-Yourself “woodsy isolationist” and the ultra militaristic sky-mall executive gadgets. The populist R.E.I day Kits make up the top curve. These Emergency Kits were for the rest of us. The kits served as both practical survival kits and as a performance-teach-in platform, called "Survivalist Tupper-ware Parties" to discuss fears, ideas, practical tips, and resources in a climate of Code-Orange Level Alert Status.

SURVIVALIST TUPPERWARE PARTIES

Performances: "Tupperware party" was a performative infomercial-style interactive performance demonstrating over 40 recommended items researched by the "Preparedness Division" of ElkTech, an art and design creative umbrella company the artist founded in 1992 - 2008. 
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Installation: The borrowed form of a trade show booth, complete with products and infographics, designed to prepare local residents in the event of a major disaster.

Exhibitions: The Emergency Kits were exhibited at ​SFMOMA's Shadowshop, the Sonoma County Museum, The National Museum of  Science and Technology in Sweden, SMITH, Southern Exposure, Johansson Projects.

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PIGEON 

Constellation Series, "Home," detail 2004 Black anodized machined aluminum block, laser etched.

Constellation series, "Constellation," detail 2004 Black anodized machined aluminum block, laser etched.

Constellation Series, "Pleaides," detail 2004 Black anodized machined aluminum block, laser etched.

Gold anodized aluminum Pioneer 10 plaque detail. This series is a re-imagining of this absurd summation of humanity. The details of which can be found on the diagram below. 

Gutter to Galaxy

-​I have not yet been lost, so I shall tell my story.
Each pigeon was once a woman.

Myth reveals Zeus turned the 7 daughters of Atlas, and half-sister Hyades, into pigeons. He granter the whole nighttime sky as their asylum. Thus saving them from the pursuit of Orion and creating an arrangement of light known as Pleiades.

Cooing and bobbing thanks, they grabbed onto the tail of Taurus The Bull, clinging to a bright cluster of snorting fur. It was this early exploration into space that granted future-sight, the clarity of vision of those who can fly above it all....and yet, land back in their own shit. Is this not the drama of modernity... the city that builds to get away from itself? Modern mythology unfolds itself in every pigeons' flight.

By my mtho-historic reckoning that makes women the first astronauts. 

See,  I wanted to be a hero. Ride hard across the plains and scoop up the ultimate damsel in distress, the celestial unseen 7th star, rumored to hide in guilt and shame. Well, at least call her a cab, because riding off into the sunset could take a real long time. 
Those 6 visible stars make a physical pattern I can feel around me, defining the elusive 7th as a distant placeholder. I stand in its place, arranging myself against the night sky. 

It isn't true but I remember when I captured as many pigeons as I could with one big net. They do this in Europe. I had a thousand. In the elevator I assumed a heroic stance. I told them I was taking them to the rooftop of the tallest building. It was atop this Babylonian archetype that I was going to personally set them free, rise them up! Show them their true destiny in the heavens. Their very own Greco-Roman heritage was to be rediscovered, today! Oh pigeons! Maligned sacred bird! The gutter is no place for such noble talents.

Entire novels have exhausted the trials of finding your way way back yet for this bird the very notion of home is a force that tightens the flesh of those gray wings and pulls them across oceans, kingdoms, time itself, back to the familiar. We should be honored that they choose to live here amongst us in our cities, cemented ancient streams, gutters emitting soft sounds like warnings. I collect pigeon feathers, tarnished silver leaves, soak them in bleach and sew them onto garments of heavy gray silk. 

My glorious proclamations were met with two thousand hard orange-rimmed eyes. They were not buying my spiel of salvation. Top floor. Out we went exiting the cramped elevator through to lovely terraced garden that all progressive skyscrapers have these days. My posture changed to something expansive befitting the historic moment, lifting the net high overhead. I began to swing them around and around all of them cooin' and cooin'. I was trying to fling them into space, to heaven, to home. A rhythmic whooshing sound emerged from the centrifugal force necessary to break the barriers of time and space.

They'll know the way, they're pigeons.
​And take a thousand messages for me. 
- Sarah R. Filley
​2004

"On March 2nd, 1972, the National Astronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched Pioneer 10 a probe intended for the exploration of the outer reaches of the Solar System. This probe was followed by the Pioneer 11 probe on April 6th 1973. Both probes carried a gold-anodized aluminum plaque with a pictorial message printed onto it (see above). Designed by Carl Sagan and Frank Drake and drawn by Linda Saltzman Sagan a limited number of plaques were manufactured at Precision Engravers in San Carlos, California. Only two of these ever 'flew' on active missions (as detailed above) while the others were kept for display purposes. Measuring 229mm wide by 152mm high the metal sheet was a mere 1.27mm with the engraving 0.381mm deep...The images included the hyperfine transition of neutral hydrogen, the representative figures of a typical western male and female complete with all anatomical details and if the hand being held in that way seems like a greeting this was not the intention - it was to show that our hands have an opposable thumb and reveals how our limbs bend. Curiously the female figures genitals are not detailed because Sagan was concerned that NASA would consider a genital cleft obscene (thankfully we are now more evolved). Additionally, the figures were superimposed on an outline of the probe body and dish for a sense of respective scale. The image on the left shows the position of our sun (Sol) relative to the center of the Milky Way galaxy and fourteen local pulsars (neutron stars). Finally, the series of images at the bottom showed a projection of our planetary system, with the sun on the far left and Pluto (then considered a planet) on the far right." - https://www.deviantart.com/jonathanbluestone/art/Pioneer-10-Pioneer-11-Plaque-1972-1973--746130771

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DRAGONFLY

  14' Forged and welded steel, 1995

Dragonwing

I have wet wings
Dragon wings
Draggin' wings
Prehistoric perfection
or helicopters
in dusk Oakland sky
zooming over us
spotlighting our frustration 
cemented in city sidewalks

a park, the zoo
will not connect you to nature
- I will
Landing on your knee
Waiting for the sun 
to change the weight
of these
​wet wings

- Sarah Filley

Experiencing Yosemite and the Twin Falls: they looked like twin dragonfly wings in perpetual motion. I stared at the falls for a long time and then turned my gaze toward the cliff rock and its patterned cracks. My eyes, accustomed to the movement of rushing water, saw the rocks recede in and breathe out. Perhaps an optical illusion. At the time, however, I believed I had adjusted my visual acceptance to a rate equal to that of the rocks themselves. 

I wanted to project this twin image of power and water onto a screen canvasing my metal wings. I would harness the power of those falls unto my back and drag the burden of power until my awe dried and its power was my own.