Artificial Traffic Jam

2005
participatory performance, single channel video
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The first time we visited and then staked out a 10 Acre piece of land we had bought, site unseen on ebay, we used a fairly accurate GPS device to mark the four corners of our lot. After we had done that we realized that a dirt road went right through the middle of the property. When a neighbor came by, he explained to us that the Bureau of Land Management had re-surveyed the land recently and all properties border lines in the area had shifted a few feet, and that the road, which used to run along the border of our property was now on it.

Our neighbor used the road about once a week, when he left his trailer to drive to the closest town to stock up on supplies. On a practical level him driving through didn’t bother us at all, but on a conceptual level we turned the existence of the road into a mental challenge. How could we get rid of the road? We made many tests, including a two hour “Artifical Traffic Jam,” which proved quite successful in undermining the function of the road.