Abort Mission, ARTOPIA. Georgetown- Seattle, WA
Installation. Helicopter 14 x 3 x 3 ft.

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ARTOPIA is an art and music festival that is held annually in Georgetown- one of the southernmost neighborhoods in Seattle. I picked a space to work in and for two weeks leading up to the festival I was in there creating a Chinook helicopter from material that I found in and around the site.

The idea for the helicopter was born from a lithograph that I created the month before the festival while I was attending an artist residency at Anchor Graphics Studio at Columbia College in Chicago. The lithograph is of a CH-47 'Chinook' helicopter with a rainbow out of the front of it and bubbles shooting out of the rear. There is a text that says "Abort mission, I repeat abort mission B & R (bubbles & rainbows). Do you copy?" and a text bubble coming from within the helicopter that reads "AWWW Sarge, we just got the bubble machine working."

I installed a bubble machine in the back of the helicopter and had it blowing bubbles during the entire event, which lasted one day. I couldn't figure out how to shoot a rainbow out of the front though. After the event was over I dismanteled it and put it back into the recycling bin. This, as is most of my work, is a criticism.

click picture above to see more of the installation