Under the Rainbow
Malmö, Sweden, 2008
Background
I was invited to Malmö in 2008 as a guest teacher at a government-funded urban art school, to teach a two-week course on my tape-casting process to create human figures. The head of the school, a nationally respected graffiti artist, asked me to do unsanctioned installations that would “get the dust off the city.”
One of these was Under the Rainbow, a body in the water with balloons on his back, as if they were trying to lift him out. The figure was designed to float unnaturally above the waterline. Magical, but not magical enough. That is the poetry of it. Under the Rainbow is the failed attempt to reach Little Annie’s utopia, where dreams that you dream of come true, “and trouble melts like lemon drops,” etc.
Under the Rainbow, Malmö
Installation
The first figure, a body floating face-down with balloons on his back, was placed in the canal below the bridge. The balloons were arranged as if they were trying to keep him at the surface.
The second figure, a woman with a bear head, stood on the bridge. She was cover for the drop and part of the scene that had come from the original image.
Reference: a body in water, not the work
Reaction
An Emergency Rescue Unit arrived approximately 30 minutes later and a diver was deployed. The figure in the water was treated as a body. People watched from the bank.
Press covered the piece. The public response was largely negative. People said I should pay for the rescue. When they learned the cost had come from tax money, that angered them further.
Lens
The virus, a blood cell that appeared to be dead, triggered a rapid immune-system response. The figure was sitting a little too high in the water to look convincingly real. However, once the rescue unit deployed the diver the virus scaled in effect and appeared more real. The decision to proceed by that route rather than use a boat was perhaps to use it as a training scenario.
The nervous system (media) relayed that I had been brought to the city, on its own funds, to release the virus. That was the indigestion that dominated the message boards, along with the demand that I pay the cost of the unit. The government (brain) didn't ask me or the school to do that.
Conclusion
The most interesting fact of the installation is that it did not look real. The body sat too high. The balloons were doing work a drowning does not produce. The woman on the bridge had a bear head. None of that is a corpse in a canal.
What made the scene real was the unit. Their decision to send a diver scaled a visible fiction into a rescue. Why they took that route rather than a boat is not recorded here. Once the diver was in the water the public record changed. The demand that I pay the cost followed that record. It was unrealistic. The school was not contacted. The government did not ask for repayment.
Glossary
Brain. City or national government. The organ that writes law, sells space, and decides what may remain in the vein.
Cell / blood cell. A person in the city, whether or not they are in a car.
Clotting. Rescue units. The body sealing a wound so the vein can keep running.
Immune response. Police, rescue, sanitation. The body extracting what it has decided is a threat or as waste.
Nervous system. Media. It carries an encounter from one site to other cells and to the brain.
Vein. The street. The conduit the cells move through.
Virus. A camouflaged figure introduced into the vein. It is a virus when it is seen: other cells stall and have to decide what they are looking at.