I Believe Because It’s Absurd
PHP: How did you enlist the taxi cab for Tubisms?
KH: I rode around in taxis with my informational postcards, gave them to cabbies and asked if they knew of anyone who would participate. One of them said, “I have a friend who owns his own medallion and I think he’d be into it.” And so that’s how that worked out for the Times Square taxi.
I don’t always like to admit that though. People always ask, “Did you really just accost people on the street?” I feel like I should just say “Yes!” You know, no car is safe. But I did definitely set it up so that it was there the night before and at an appointed time we would walk up and start pulling out this giant, unwieldy slinky. Sometimes people would ask if we needed help (laughing) getting whatever it is in or out of the car.
PHP: Did any of the cops in Times Square ever come along and say “What the hell is this? You can’t do this here”?
KH: You know, it’s funny. What I learned about the NYPD with that project is that they’re very busy, and as long as you’re not hurting anyone they don’t care. A couple of times someone called the cops to report a suspicious vehicle that they thought was a car bomb—the most absurd car bomb ever made. And so the cops would come by and say “We got this call. We have to investigate.” You know, totally bored. When they would find out that it was an art project the response was “Oh great. Do whatever you want”. That was fine.
PHP: And how did you collect the feedback?
KH: We took notes. I always have a handout, and so for Tubisms it was a postcard that had a picture of the car with tubes from a previous piece. On the back it said “What does this make you think of?” with a space for reply and my website. You could return it with comments or go to the website and write something there.
Sometimes I’d just stand across the street and pretend that no one was associated with it. But if you leave it alone too long then kids start to climb and everyone sticks their heads in the tubes. Eventually I started putting sound inside.
More current installations now emit sounds evocative of marching armies or crashing waves, something that sounds really far away, like a conversation in another language happening in a café—like a wormhole to another place.
