300 Dollars Worth of Candy Bar
The materials I have used in my installations and drawings have been chosen out of their inevitable tie to the underlying concept and process as opposed to any visually aesthetic qualities they may hold. The final executions of these works are based in the asking of simplistic and often literal questions of value and ownership. These questions have led to a considerable amount of travel involving numerous personal interactions, and experiences.
The specific brand Butterfinger was chosen because of its pop-cultural significance and linguistic humor. Through the process with the ‘300 Dollars Worth of Candy Bar’ I am exploring the ability to extract personal significance and value from the otherwise consumable byproducts of our seemingly economic existence. The concept for this process derived from my wanting to make something happen that seemed utterly unrealistic, to prove something to myself and attempt to prove the same thing to others; I can purchase a candy bar at one location and take the same candy bar to as many other locations as I want, to be purchased again. I found a technological loophole in a system that I blindly trusted, and I ran with it.
For '324 Pounds of Wisconsin Highway' I removed scraps of broken road from the state highways around the area and re-placed them here to address the double standard of my belief in property ownership. I developed a formula and was able to claim the percentage of state highway I pay for in one year. I am left with the absurd remains of what I have paid for, but was cast aside as soon as it had become unusable for its original task. The concept came from the literal interpretation of the fact that since I had paid for it, it should be mine, and I should take responsibility for it.
I am attempting to both celebrate and yet mourn the symbols of my subjective personal history through the appropriation of an objects functionality I cannot fully utilize, a map of my hometown. The maps I utilized for '30 Minutes Away' are produced and sold in order for people to find their way around a place they do not know. They are not for me, but about me. We buy maps in order to move through an area that is unknown, because of this; we rarely have maps of our own neighborhoods and cities. I am interested in the fact that this place of mine and the places that are yours can so easily be objectified, reproduced, and commodified. Through this process I want to reclaim what is apparently mine and to illustrate how possible this task really is.
