Except from press release

"Hello Friend,
 
I hope you are well and able to come and see me at the opening of the Seattle Re-Store’s 6th Annual Recycled Art and Fashion Show April 18th 7-10PM This event takes place at the New York Fashion Acedemy 5201 Ballard Ave NW, Ballard, WA I have constructed a large Human Powered Kinetic Sculpture Installation from salvaged bike wheels, lumber and plastic grocery bags titled: Closed Loop with a Small Footprint...
 
Love and Salvage,
 Bil

The Big Altruism Generator
click the link below to see 1:32 minute Youtube video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiacqHcQ6Vo

Installation at the Evergreen State College
Library Lobby, Olympia, WA, USA 

    The Big Altruism Generator is the title of the interactive kinetic sculpture installation located in the temporary corridor leading to the library and computer center. It is the work of Evergreen alumnus and recycled materials artist Bil Fleming with contributions from Lincoln Elementary School teacher Barbara Weaver, her class of 25 fourth and fifth graders, faculty member Hirsh Diamant, and students from the program Early Childhood Education: A Silk Roads Perspective. 
    Fleming and Evergreen students engaged the kids in multiple workshops where each was given a salvaged bicycle wheel, customized its axle to be mounted onto a piece of salvaged wood and then decorated it with materials from home that would otherwise be thrown away. 
    Wheels came from sources including the garbage of an Olympia program that provides bikes to the homeless and Indian Creek near the new Olympia Woodland Trail. 
    As background for this project the students were shown the video “Story of Stuff”. This video offers a cogent analysis and synthesis of our material economy‘s social economic and environmental problems that is digestible for everyone - including kids. It can be viewed at http://storyofstuff.com. 
    The artist was invited to create the installation by Evergreen’s Diamant after seeing Fleming’s installation called Projectionists’ Gardens at the Capitol Theater. For a video of it search YouTube for Bil Fleming. About that installation Fleming says “I’ve wanted to use less electricity and so I went to human power…it instantly created an opportunity for interactivity and put the “viewer” into a position where if they want to get the whole experience out of the piece they must act rather than just passively view. This brings the sense of touch, a sense that is off limits for much of conventional art.” 
    Fleming’s art has progressed over the years from the drawing and printmaking of his pre-college years to collage, photography, printmaking and assemblage sculpture during college at Evergreen and on to interactive kinetic installations, digital photography and performance art since his graduation in 1991. 
    The title Altruism Generator came from Lincoln Elementary Teacher Barbara Weaver. When asked how the installation might actually create altruism a fifth grader responded “…by getting people to think and talk about altruism.” Weaver’s classroom approach includes emphasis on the idea that our intentions create the future.
    Diamant was particularly interested in inviting viewers to participate by including some way for them to contribute their “altruistic intentions” and for the voices of the children to be included in the installation and added the idea of wheels of fortune and Tibetan Prayer Wheels. 
    The children who had been part of the workshops also wrote the “altruistic fortunes” arrayed around two of the installations’ wheels. One young student wrote the Zen-like “…know there will be something to stand on, or someone will teach you to fly…” Some spaces around the wheels were left blank intentionally so others could contribute their voices. Anonymous contributors scribed the humorously generous “Buy a bum a cookie! or a sandwich… or a hamster.” and the complimentary “Tell someone they’re beautiful!” Clearly, altruistic sentiments were evoked. 
    Another complex of wheels that are part of the installation tells a participant’s I Ching (an ancient Chinese symbol system used to identify order in chance events sometimes regarded as a system of divination.) 
    These wheels are linked by a belt of plastic grocery bags driven by pushing and pulling a lever with the symbols of the I Ching arrayed around them. To use it pull the lever, make note of the symbol each wheel points to and find them on the matrix posted nearby. The number from the matrix can be looked up (at the Library or the online) to receive insight offered by this more than 4,000 year old system. 
    Fleming says his next interactive kinetic sculpture installation will be for the Ballard Re-Store’s 6th Annual Recycled Art and Fashion Show April 18th – May 10th 2008. “I hope to create a kinetic Gordian Knot of recycled materials” said Fleming. 
    He was recently awarded a temporary art commission from the City of Olympia to produce a performance art piece titled “Performance Dishwashing”. Scheduled for August 15th at the Olympia Farmer’s Market it promises “to broadly promote reusable dishes instead of disposable ones while engaging the market goers in some wacky fun entertainment” and his work is part of the City of Seattle Portable Works Collection. 
    Fleming adds “Thanks to Evergreeners for hosting my work and especially Hirsh, Barbara, Shaana, Brandon, JJ, Sierra, and Barbara’s class. Thanks also to Mindy at the Library, Kanako at Dumpster Values; Tracey at Bike and Bike, Shorty at Build a Bike, and Larry at Oly Bikes, for their wheels; and Evergreen Bike Shop’s Heidi for her technical expertise! There couldn’t have been an Altruism Generator without these altruistic people!”

Projectionists' Gardens
 
Click Here for a 1.5 minute YouTube Video of this installation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCcowZ1yl5A

promo flier from the exhibit

Reverse Psychology

    Dear Participants/Viewers, I don’t like to explain the meaning of my work because I like to allow people to decide on meaning by themselves. After many questions and obvious confusion I felt some explanation for this installation might be appreciated. 
    Many people have asked if looking through the peephole would “give them a black eye?” It does not give viewers black eyes! Nor will you receive an electrical shock! While looking carries no important consequence, sometimes the handle-crank does. When the installation is fully on, turning the crank sets off an alarm. When only partially on (lights only) turning the crank does absolutely nothing! There is no way to tell which mode is active, except by cranking! 
    Reactions when the alarm sounds are predictable: mild to moderate embarrassment (after all the sign said “DO NOT TURN”) and some distress. Many people continue to turn the crank-handle in various ways in an attempt to turn the alarm off and some are successful. To them I offer a salute! Many give up in frustration after a short effort. 
    One participant ran away as though she felt she would be in big trouble if caught! When the alarm is not “plugged in” and turning the handle-crank has no result: most participants turn the crank to its full extent back and forth, sometimes several times. Eventually they give up. “Is it broken?”
    “REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY” is partly, a test of how people respond to weakening the customary prohibitions of a gallery, or art viewing experience, especially that of “do not touch”. Peoples’ curiosity to look through the hole with all its voyeuristic implications needs no explanation or invitation. However, touching “art” is usually not allowed and so the title was necessary to cast some doubt on the clear label indicating “DO NOT TURN” the crank.
     On a second level “REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY” seeks to metaphorically represent choices we make in our world when confronted with the unknown. The handle-crank = our actions in the world. The globe = what will be affected. The alarm = unintended negative consequences of our action. 
    We have no choice but to interact with the world. Observing (looking) is one form of this interaction. When we do more than look, we act or “turn the crank”. From our experience we make a guess about what will result from turning the crank. There is always the possibility the result of our action can be disastrous. In some cases we act despite warnings NOT to. 
    “REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY” reminds me of modern dilemmas with similar choices; global climatic destabilization (global warming), genetic research (genetically modified foods and organisms), plastics (hormonal disruption from phthalates). 
    Once the alarm is set off what do we do? Walk away and let it ring? If we keep cranking, will we fix it or make it worse? If the alarm is already on, is the risk from fixing it greater than that of walking away and leaving it alone? Do we think about whether it was a good idea to turn the crank in the first place?
    To paraphrase Nietche, is it true that all we learn from history, is that we learn nothing from history?

Sincerely,
Bil Fleming

Reverse Psychology