PULL FOR FIRE
An Hommage to Jim Dine, 2011-2012
This interactive installation employs a wall mounted vintage Gamewell Pull Fire Alarm, which is connected to a Macintosh computer via a USB cable. When the handle of the wall mounted Fire Alarm is in the up position, the digital video shows a suit coat on a hanger. When the alarm is pulled the suit coat begins burning. The fire is then put out with a fire extinguisher.
This is a work of media archaeology. The subtitle “Hommage to Jim Dine” references the work of the sixties and seventies American pop artist who fetishizes articles of male clothing in his paintings. In 1962 curator Walter Hopps included the work of Jim Dine in the exhibition entitled “New Painting of Common Objects” at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California. This exhibition heralded the beginnings of “Pop Art.” At the same time this work is a reminder of the ever present danger of fire, the fragility of life while fetishizing the spectacle of flame, fire, smoke as an aesthetic time based entity of fascination and beauty.
This interactive work declares that static painting is not enough. The history of pop art is remediated into a far more dynamic experience for the viewer to discover and view for whatever length of time the spectacle of burning clothing (a production of the throw-away synthetic material culture of consumerism).
