Ann E. Resnick

Now that we’re really thinking how we might utilize the actual ShiftSpace floorplan, I’ve rethought what I’d like to do–or, actually, gone back to the piece I’ve wanted to do for more than two years. This time though, I think it would be very cool to collaborate and create something more intense. I think this piece is called “Garden”–my part in it is to fill a wall with plastic flowers from top to bottom and side to side–this will be a false wall–using 2″ insulating foam cut to the exact dimensions of the real wall–(I think this part would take me three weeks to do) enabling us to put all the hardware behind it. The hardware would be motion sensors linked to sound chips, setting off all kinds of nature sounds (I’m thinking of bird song of course but also less innocuous sounds–fluttering wings that seem to brush past your ear, mosquitos, etc.– as people pass in front of it. So, now I see Keith’s fountain idea in a different way–what if, instead of making a pedestal piece, Keith used plastic planters (the ones that mimic old plantation planters and fountains) to house the fountain(s) and the water feature was on a relay that created the pattern that he wanted to use but skipped from planter to planter and was triggered by someone coming into the space. I should have said that the space I’m thinking of is niche-like (there are two spaces like this at shift space) and a little protected from what else will be going on in the gallery. Depending on who else collaborated, we could create quite a magnificent environment that might also be a fairly potent commentary on nature and man’s control of it (especially since everything in the space would be fake nature, get it??!)