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The Avian Flu Awareness Project was/is (I might not be done playing with it yet) a pair of performances/exhibitions involving a faux office set up in an art gallery. It had two primary elements, a “less-than-helpful bureaucrat at a desk” and a series of large blowups of “informative diagram” style graphics. The purpose of the project was to comment upon the faux-information that is generated and disseminated in the event of a pandemic or other global event. The graphics used in the project were chosen to appear both threatening and absurd.

Several people provided valuable assistance in making this project happen. Michele Hubacek, John Gill, Sophia Pottish and Nicholas Klemek all provided assistance in painting the graphics. Nicholas, John and Sophia also assisted by playing the part of the “Avian Flu Awareness Crew” during the Loft project and Nicholas provided further assistance by playing the part of the “less-than-helpful bureaucrat” for the Walled City project.

Avian Flu Awareness Mission Statement

During the course of the project the following statement was disseminated as a descriptor:

Right now, as you are reading this, medicines are being stockpiled, billions are being spent, the brows of scientists the world over are sweating, somewhere a government employee is detailing policies for quarantines, sick birds are flying in the air across Europe, Africa and Asia… Actions and reactions are occurring, the obscure policies of governments and drug companies about a normally minor illness have boiled to the top of the media cycle. Like Schrodinger’s Kitten, we all now live in the duality of uncertainty that lies at the intersection of events that will lead to pandemic or no pandemic.

What does this all mean? Is this Y2K all over again, or is humanity getting ready to absorb a sucker punch from nature that will divide us into two camps, the living and the dead? The Avian Flu Awareness Project addresses the mystery of potential pandemic and our collective experience of waiting and worrying about the uncertainties of the coming days and months.

Avian Flu Awareness Project at The Loft - November 2005

A .pdf of the above poster is here. Feel free to print it, distribute it, hack it, etc…

The first implementation of the Avian Flu Awareness Project took place in November of 2005 at The Loft in San Pedro. This version of the project featured five graphic images, myself playing the part of the “less-than-helpful bureaucrat”, the office area and a three man Avian Flu Awareness Crew who wandered the streets outside disseminating promotional posters, as seen above. The office hours/reception managed to stimulate a great amount of dialogue about the issue, with nearly every visitor expressing a completely different perspective on the potential crisis.

The one flaw of this project was that I was working the desk and since people know who I am, they had trouble understanding that I was playing a role and it was somewhat confusing to them. The other issue with having me at the desk is that the Awareness Crew were blocked from part of the 1st Thursday street festival that was happening outside by know-nothing security guards. Had I been outside I would have been able to get access to a greater area of the festival and disseminated more posters, and had Nicholas been working the desk, he would have been able to be “less helpful”.

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Avian Flu Awareness Project at Walled City - April, 2006

The second implementation of the Avian Flu Awareness Project took place in April of 2006 at Walled City in San Pedro. This version consisted of three graphic images, Nicholas Klemek playing the part of the bureaucrat and the dissemination of more posters. This event went better than the first as Nicholas was really able to be an anonymous figure, allowing the bureaucrat to be as confusing as I wanted him to be.

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Installation and Process

Both projects were done using the same methods. The graphics were designed in flash (which is great for this kind of thing - much faster than working in a more robust tool like Illustrator) and transferred to the wall using a projector. I like to use a projector that is positioned over the graphic, not the kind with a flap and cover on top, as it’s easier to re-position both the projector and the graphic for large graphics. Getting clean edges and lines was easy with a quality brush, or by using painting sponges. All of the paints used were Behr flats from Home Depot.

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