(Best of the Capital Fringe)
If you were to walk up to what looks like a hot dog vendor with a surgical mask on, you might ask: “What’s the mask for?” You might then look down and realize that the vendor is pushing his card on a red wagon. You might also realize there are no hot dogs, and probably never were, and that the guy wearing the mask is in a hazmat suit and and attached to the non hot dog machine. Oh….it’s an Air Conditioner! Dear God, why?
Because, it’s art. It is a commentary on (in my mind) the idea that we are now so entitled to our first world comforts that we deserve to have air conditioning everywhere we go. So we will carry it around with us on a wagon, because experiencing the world as it is, is for suckers. This project seems to say to us that soon corporations, like the fictional Satisfixation that James Greg (the creator of the working products and the artistic approach to them) thought up, will be creating and marketing products like these to us any day now.
Now, if you get tired of living in an air conditioning unit, you can whip out your mobile garden (for those nature lovers who don’t want to actually touch real nature {like so many people I know [yes, I’m talking to you, everyone on OKCupid who says their favorite past time is “hiking”]}), which is another invention of this shadowy corporation. And I expect more to come down the line.
I really appreciate the time, effort, and thought that went into these projects. And the panache with which James talks about them. If you got a chance to see it, I’m sure it made you think, and if you didn’t, look for him next time. He will be out there somewhere “Solving Tomorrow’s Problems, Today!”
Mobile Personal Series ended its run on July 20, 2014.
