How to Build a Viewing Platform





























24 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

chopping wood = visceral, gratifying experience. try it.

9:22 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

love the concept, but come on, youre dealing with suburbia. if you want to make a point with these folks, you have to make it look like a watchtower. nobody will understand what they are.

9:16 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You could also leave those folks alone. If they chose not to mingle with the rest of us, that's their choice, not yours.

12:53 PM  
Anonymous Tim "the toolman" Taylor said...

next project:

How to build a better bong.

1:12 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

umm interesting concept but way way way too much work

how about a stack of milk crates painted orange?

also I don't see anyone using it in your pictures

nobody walks in LA anyway so who'd see it on the street?

I'm guessing most of your impact from this stunt is online

this being the case how about webcam pointing into the community?

a screenshot would do actually since nothing ever happens in these places anyway

1:37 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I personally think the post at 9:16 AM is very true, you guys are going to have pull something way bigger out of your asses to make a serious impact on the burbs.

but at least your doing something just not big enough.

2:58 PM  
Blogger fueltank said...

Ah, Los Angeles... where you can drive from your gated community onto the freeway and take your exit right into your parking garage, if you work in the "right" place.

LA is the place that really made me realise that living in our society requires a willful blindness that becomes second nature, subsumed into the natural.

Posessing a vertical disintegration that exits in few other cities, LA embodies the notion that there is no 'there', there.

4:17 AM  
Anonymous Chief Boabab said...

Wow,

suburban snipers nest, peeping tom booths, and homeless shelters!

It would also be cool if the design included a silhouette of a person looking into the gated communities. That way the sense of separation from the rest of society that these communities generate would be compromised. Imagine looking out past your SUV and seeing a furtive figure peering at you 24 hours a day.

Taking this to a rather silly extreme, by articulating the cut out figure's arm and adding a small wind powered mechanism the figure could wave at the upper middle class inmates. That way the figure's 'emotions' would range from 'happy recognition of commonality' on nice breezy days to 'Kafka-esque frenzied desperation' on blustery LA days.

Of course, a motion targetting tennis ball 'flinger' loaded with rotten fruit also makes a strong political statement;

'don't wear white'

7:16 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'd recommend running barbed wire around the top of the outer wall, to really give it the fortrss feeling.

Not sure if that's legal, though.

7:37 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Since these communities only have one or two ways in and/or out, I would actually recommend U-locking the "actual gates" at night—definitely illegal, but it will communicate the message that walls can keep in as well as out. Convert the gated communities into prison communities. (If not a U-lock then a portable wall or blockade—several communities in one night=unified front to prevent mingling of the undesirables.)

8:58 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It needs to be higher with a fixed camera tripod

8:59 AM  
Blogger americanfrog said...

I don't get it. Everyone knows that the all mighty dollar is what makes the world go round...everything has a price in America...the buck stops with a gated community homeowner near you!

9:05 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The whole concept is retarded. Take the money it took to build the platform and consider some form of help for yourself. What a waste of time and effort. people don't even understand what the thing was erected for.

9:14 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree with anonymous.

9:26 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm willing to bet those last two "Anonymous" spend their evenings watching wrestling, listning to top 40 music, and eating McDonalds.

But then again, consumers like them make our economy run.. I guess.

10:26 AM  
Anonymous Klaire said...

It’s been a while in the art world that there has seriously been a movement that has attacked the middleclass and their asinine “holier than thou” attitudes. (They hate drug dealers and prostitutes in the public eye, yet they are the clients!) I don’t live in an area with gated communities, but your point is universal! It’s great to see a group causing the upper classes of society to have to defend what they’re doing. The problem is I fear that most of America is too ignorant and self-absorbed to even notice this attack upon themselves. Keep up the good work!

10:50 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

P O I N T L E S S...
These people don't give a rats ass about YOU. They never even think about YOU. Even when you erect a caltrans orange (stupid choice of color by the way) viewing platform with two inch tall black letters that have your web address on it they still don't care about YOU or know who YOU are. YOU only care about YOU. Realize this...It's NOT about YOU. One more thing. Why do YOU care about THEM?

10:53 AM  
Anonymous Get Real said...

If you worked for a living, instead of wasting your time on stuff like this, you might achieve the lifestyle that you're mocking out of jealousy.

11:25 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

So are you saying that you are better than people who watch wrestling or eat McDonalds? What is wrong with that? Sounds to me like you are having issues with the same class system you are fighting....

2:29 PM  
Anonymous spice said...

Awesome! Next step - guided tours? :) "And on your left, a poorly maintained city park. Now if you'll step up to the viewing platform, you'll see a gated community. Folks, did you know that most serial killers and mass murderers were middle class white men? Yes. Okay, one at a time please. Sir, please limit yourself to six pictures, and don't feed the teenagers."

I find it ironic that Mr. Anonymous took time out of his day to ask you why you care about "them". Shouldn't he have been saving his time, upping his productivity, earning an extra three dollars so he can supersize his lattes all next week?

1:55 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think that just the fact that this action has stimulated so much conversation speaks to its success. Well done.

1:59 PM  
Blogger gringo said...

Gated communities = liberalism (Locke). I don't mean the liberalism we know today, the liberalism found at anti-war rallies.

"Life, liberty and the pursuit of property."

Change property to happiness and you've got the American dream.

It's a retarded dream.

You people are great artists.

10:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ah, sawing a plank of wood. Makes me feel like my dad.

6:16 AM  
Anonymous Charles - South Africa said...

In our country this is no joke, the divide is vast. People in gated communities live their white picket fence, TVland -dream, while people outside of the fancy ironwork have a problem getting basic services like water & electricity & South African developers put down these Gated communities right in the faces of the "have not's". Then these idiots who buy into this lifestyle turn around and ask why there's such a big crime problem in South Africa...Why, why, why?

4:28 AM  

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