RED EYED SKY WALKERS, 2007
Installation view at Theater Platz, Basel, Switzerland

Site specific installation commissioned by Shift Festival and Plug In Gallery launched on October 25 to 29,2007 , Basel Switzerland . The installation is set up in the Theater Platz and Kunsthalle Basel and consists of 100 large red latex helium balloons 5 ft diameter each which float 15 feet above the ground and were fabricated by a local manufacturer in Basel.. Under 9 of the balloons are attached wi fi small video cameras specially designed to watch and to hear. These RED EYED SKY WALKERS capture continuously aerial images and sounds which stream them live on seven flat screens located in the festival exhibition space located at Dreispitz the industrial area of the city 15 miles away of the city.

From a from a distance all together the balloons form a canopy which appear to loom over the Theater Platz like a hovering red cloud. The placement of the balloons seems both calculated and random they mark a rhythmic sequence which moves like a kinetic sculpture with the wind . The urbanscape seems to expand with their presence as the sky becomes more noticeable and the audience mingles and interact with the red cloud.

The aim of the installation is to create an evolving overt time and space experience and to inverse the usual surveillance set up and access to information : The audience on TheaterPlatz has access to direct balloons with cameras and to engage themselves in a series of DIY interventionist missions in the city while they are watched at the exhibition space at Dreispitz where the analysis and viewing of the streaming data is on view simultaneously at times.

During the festival the visitors were able to check out a balloon with a camera attached and to engage themselves in a series of DYI interventions which were assigned by the artist. Also as a grand finale event the artist 100 guests at the Theater Platz who let one by one the balloons to go free up the sky.