Over the past few years I have been talking with friends in the California Building about creating a live art installation like the ones I did in the 80’s and 90’s. John Kremer, one of the building owners suggested years ago that the phonebooth on the first floor might be an excellent location.
This could be a building-wide collaboration. Jim Gregory, Richard Bonk and I have been making sketches during Friday night dinners with Aribert Munzner. Greg Volker, on the 6th floor has deep expertise with tropical fish. El Stewart, who is now sharing a studio in the building, knows more about plant life and paludariums than anyone I know. Evan Thomas and I have been toying with an idea to make the installation interactive by including an chatbot powered by the new ChatGPT technology. Other artist may be added to this list of collaborators as we discover new avenues to pursue and other expertise in the building.
So why not. This page is our first step.
Second Idea
The Space: The phonebooth is just a recessed space on the first floor of the California Building between the foyer and the mailbox room. It’s where the stairs go up to other floors. It’s 34″ wide, 82.5″ tall and 23″ deep.
After thinking things through for a couple days I realized that we’re coming at this all wrong. The first idea is not art…it’s a hobby project. Last night Jim, Richard and I came up with another idea that feels a lot more like art.
We came up with this. Create a standing figure made of molded bricks of substrate to grow mushroom on. The enclosure is now made of 1.5″ angle iron. There are tons of issues we will have to learn about and work out. The AI component will still be include and maybe some other creatures.
We could use plexiglass on all 6 sides so it could be displayed in the center of a gallery space when not in the phonebooth.
