Greed is Good.

A collaborative exhibition as part of [ fladry + jones ] dealing with corporate greed, corruption, and the coming collapse of America as we know it.

At the center of the exhibit was the speech from the 1997 film Wall Street. The speech was slowed down to about 50% of what it was originally recorded at. In doing this, it was hoped that the listener would get a sense of fatness from the speaker, commenting in an undefined way on the greediness that exist in corporations. The far wall of the exhibition space was covered in offest prints of $2 bills. These two-dollar bills were absent of text, heavily stylized and the face of President Thomas Jefferson seemingly scratched out; the color of the bill was red instead of green and yellow instead of white. The $2 bill was chosen because of its uncommon existence as common currency. There was also a stack of these posters sitting on the floor when you enter the space, as viewers were allowed to take home a piece of this currency.

Fifty one dollar bills were placed on the walls of the exhibition space and were marked with a corporation name and the dollar amount of a fine or settlement that the company was forced to pay because of unethical business practices. A PowerPoint presentation of companies’ names and fine amounts were also shown in the space. Lastly, a video of Bernie Madoff being escorted to a police car in handcuffs accompanies the Greed is Good speech. Madoff being the poster child for corporate greed, helped to put a face to the exhibition. [September 2009]

Greed is Good. {post-op}

So the show has gone up and down this week.. a quick turnaround is the name of the game. Here are a few photos from the reception.. Barry and I will be doing a performance in Tampa on October 8th and then again on October 23rd in Mobile Alabama at SECAC.. then where will F+J be? I’m not sure.. either are you.

Feel free to visit the site and download all the collateral from the show and remix, redit, and reinvent. I’ll be adding to fladryplusjones.com and this weekend I’ll be sending out posters to those of you who sent your address to us via the Twitter account twitter.com/fladryplusjones.

Special thanks to all who helped get this show in order, without you I would have been sitting around with a box of posters on the ground. Also thanks to Chris Otten for the photos.

Marilyn [redux]

Metropolis Remix

Metropolis Remix: Live is a performance version of Fritz Lang’s 1927 dystopian film, Metropolis, which has become one of the cornerstones in 20th and 21st century art. In the original, Lang portrayed a society deeply divided by class distinctions – the workers vs. the ruling class. The story is not only timeless, but the visuals are breath-taking, and artists, sculptors, film makers, dancers and comic book artist have been quoting – if not outright stealing – from it since its premiere. Sound and artists and musicians, too, return again and again to the film, scoring and rescoring the movie with jazz, heavy metal, techno and ambient soundtracks.

Live performances occurred at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee; Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky; The Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland; Emory and Henry College in Emory, Virgina; and Elon University in Elon, North Carolina.

Installations based upon the performance existed at Western Kentucky University and Elon University. Metropolis Remix was also included in Sight Sound Interaction 2.0 at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Metropolis Remix: Live was a collaborative effort as part of [ fladry + jones ] with music and sound by Kell Black aka DJ Black Noise. [October 2006, March 2007]

The War is Over [2007]

The War Is Over was an evolving net art piece. Each day from December 21st – 25th (2007) a new element was added at 9pm CST. The website serves as documentation and can be viewed at http://thewarisover2007.com/. [December 2007]