Airplanecrashclock

 

Yes, I did run those three words in the title together because that is the name of this piece of conceptual art by Charles Gaines, the artist I spoke about in yesterday's post. This piece was constructed in 1997 and depicts a cityscape that brings together iconic buildings from Los Angeles, New York and Chicago.  Above the fictional city, an airplane begins its flight path.

 Operating at 10 minute intervals, the plane slowly glides over the fictional city until it descends into a simulated free fall complete with the sound of screams from inside the plane.

It descends until this little square in the cityscape flips over and the plane disappears under the space that is now showing a crashed airplane.  This piece was not intended to represent any specific disaster. The artist's original idea was to create an atmosphere of suspense and to explore the emotional build-up of an anticipated catastrophe.  

The description card tells us that this piece is intended to make us think about how we are manipulated when our emotions are heightened. The fictional cityscape suggests how fact and fiction are conflated in movies and in the media impacting how we perceive deadly events.  

Well, that certainly gives us lots to think about.