Nine years ago I started thinking about the furious haste that propels people through our increasingly blurring world. Jolted by a passer-by in an empty airport I yelled "Rushing to your death?"...He looked at me quizzically and stepped onto an escalator - his stillness as the staircase carried him up was hilarious.

Soon thereafter I started putting "rushingtoyourdeath" into my email id...NOBODY noticed...Until the week following September 11, 2001.
From that day on, I was inundated with angry - indignant people asking me how I could be so heartless. I politely replied to them and pointed out they had been receiving that id for over a year.

What tragedy it takes to slow us down.

While rude boors flood city streets it is on roads and highways that relative speed has the most impact on individuals. Driving at rates that reflect their individual uneasiness with the limits surrounding them, people rant and physically put themselves into danger because the traffic is not flowing according to their preferred pace.

Are these the same people who look forward to navigating the bridges and tunnels into manhattan to visit art galleries?
Maybe.
More likely they'd rather go to the multiplex or stay in and enjoy real art on tv. (Boston Legal, Big Love, Law & Order)

If art can provide a moment of reflection and thereby an alternative to the busy commercialism of the everyday, then why not prompt that moment in the midst of the fray? Instead of asking people to worship at art parishes headed by bishops and deacons far more nutty than those under fire in other religions, why not meet the people where they are?

And so, there it is. An idea that I continue to explore in film and conceptual work is writ large for everybody hurtling towards New York to consider.

After two weeks, the most response has been from European artists who have seen it online and regular folk who drive that stretch of highway daily.
crow on billboard: an omen?
It will be up until October...I'll write as interesting things unfold. -ef