USA Projects

More and more with each day, we see that pollution is becoming an increasingly pervasive part of our lives. Political leaders, even if they do not dodge the issues, blanket them over with promises, saying that the pollution problem will be addressed decisively at some future time. But what about now?  How should we react at this present moment?

“Kill Me or Change” is an interactive performance that enacts the concern conscientious people feel in the face of the pollution crisis. Instead of avoiding the issue, it dramatizes with satiric detail what might happen if our political leaders continue to believe that significant environmental change might occur with a simple snap of the fingers, like 1-2-3. As a result of this shortsightedness, we might all be buried under heaps of trash, victims of the waste produced by mass consumerism.

“Kill Me or Change” takes thirty-thousand cans and mounts them in a net—the number of cans corresponding to the number of cans the average person discards in a single lifetime. As an interactive performance, the aluminum cans not only signify waste, but create a colorful tapestry when they released from their netting, like a bird’s wing opening with its varied topography. The discarded cans were mostly found in New York City, and most have been signed through an “adopt a can” program, whereby people address their individual culpability in pollution crisis. The satire of the performance branches into a more properly educational aspect, as leaflets are distributed that describe the actual danger confronting the planet, and the risks humanity is taking by continuing the mass production of aluminum cans.   

Anti-utopian, “Kill Me or Change” satirically draws attention to the refuse generated everyday by the seemingly benign act of consuming a beverage. It also points to society’s efforts to protect itself both physically and psychologically from environmental catastrophe. As a performance, “Kill Me or Change” is capable of challenging consumerist symbolism, as well as the socio-economic paradigms that produce destructive cultural hegemonies. Using cans as recognizable symbols of production in waste, the performance more than implies that in order to reduce environmental pollution we must also address the problem of consumerism, which makes pollution so rampant in out time.   

“Kill Me or Change” will ultimately require a venue with a space sufficient to accommodate a crane, as well as the 30,000 cans necessary for the realization of the project. With the actual performance aspect of “Kill Me or Change,” there will be a related educational program and an “Adopt a Can” program, designed to inform people about the ecological dangers posed by our current systems of production. As an interactive performance, “Kill Me or Change” will use cans gathered by a participating and well-informed audience. Right now, FiveMyles Gallery in Brooklyn, TOPAZ arts, as well as Figment are providing venues for the educational aspect of “Kill Me or Change,” as well as providing a space where a kind of test-run of the performance, using about 500 cans or so, can be rehearsed. In July, Towson University will exhibit a large-scale installation related to the theme of “Kill Me or Change.” Each of these venues provides it own audience of interested activists and art-lovers. To be fully-realized according to the design outlined in this proposal, however, a large space like that provided by Queens Museum or Socrates Sculptural Park will be required. At such venues, a large public audience can gather, and partake in both the project’s performance and its educational aspect. 

Necessary budgeting considerations are presently as follows: Professional Personnel:$850 Art production supplies, Rental Equipment, Tools, and related necessities:$6,300 Promotion:$1,550 Space Fee, Insurance: $500 Foods and Lunc:$250.  The total estimated cost for  “Kill me or Change” will be: $9,800