ART FREEWAY, 1981 South-Eastern Freeway, Melbourne
Artist statement 1992:
“This large green and white sign was placed soon after an entrance to the South Eastern freeway in Melbourne, bringing traffic into the city centre. A square of the correct reflective tape was placed over the ST of START, and a new “ free way” was born. Suddenly the traffic, no longer mundane, carries travellers into and along art itself. Art is imagined and declared as a “through route”, in a constant state of travelling. Driving at speed on curving kilometres of smooth black ashfalt is a defining experience of industrial consumer culture. Armchair travellers accelerate in a suspended space: the reality bubble of each vehicle transfers its cargo of palpitating beings on four spinning cushions of rubberised air. Music flows through their emptied ears. This Roadsigned action was made at the time of the First Australian Sculpture Triennial in 1981, in which I showed an engraved security safe called SAFE ART, and the SING sign."
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