HAZARD FACTORY

Friday, Lara and I spent most of the day working on two fire features intended to help keep people at the M4 party warm. These were derelict 100 lb propane containers which we cleaned and then perforated. Finally we built manifolds and installed these in the base of each piece. They were capable of producing a 10″ column of fire from eight inches to four feet in height. They produced a lot of heat, ultimately looking like a cross between a japanese paper lantern and a Propane cannister.

Saturday, i spent the day instructing Katja, and Gabe in mig welding. This went very well. I have been getting excellent feedback from my welding instuction and intend to begin setting up large one-day programs for business clients. I will set up one-day intensives where I provide all the gear and material and set up on the customers site and teach welding for five to eight hours.

It would be a great team building excercise, and I expect it to take off.

The Party on friday night was excellent although I was dissapointed in that the Fire DEpt showed up and exerted a lot of authority that I do not believe they actually should have. They were, predictably, opposed to any open flame artwork. The fact that we had insurance, trained and sober professionals and fire suppresion gear on hand apparently meant nothing to them. Ultimately, they were just pissed that we did not procure the special permits they demand. This was solely owing to a time crunch precipitated by my being ill for a week. We normally pay them the 300 or so they demad for doing in effect, very, very little. They don’t really understand what we do, they simply do not understand flammable fuels the way that we do. I know the explosive and combustion thresholds of propane the way a vintner knows his grapes. Simply put, they don’t.

They know how to extinguish large fires. I know how to control open flame precisely. I tire of their complacent and boring sanctimony.

Think about the word safety for a moment.

Over the last decade virtually every undue exertion of power has been justified under the aegis of safety.

We are wiretapping you for the sake of public safety.

We beat and torture prisoners to keep you safe.

We have shredded the constitution to keep you safe.

We have to shut down your anti-war demonstration in order to preserve public safety.

We have to condemn this historic building to make way for a characterless office high rise, and justify it by citing public safety.

We have to charge you for services that your taxes pay for already in order to ensure that you are safe.

Freedom and safety are obviously in a diametricly opposed relationship. Freedom is among other things, the ability to accept the risks of your behavior and pursue a course that has risks. Safety is an attempt to contrain circumstance even at the expense of experiance. I am not opposed to safety, but I recognize that it exists as at least a counterveiling tension and possibly as an enemy of Freedom.

I believe I know what Freedom is. I believe that most people would not know freedom if it jumped up and gave them a lap dance in the Captains chair of a ship in a hurricane. They might recognize it later when they return to the leaden constraints of drab and entropic circumstance. This is a central and recurring theme in my art, the incidence of, and socialization of risk.

My safety is my problem and mine alone. I would rather be entirely free and responsible for my own safety than I would be safe and warm in Socially sanctioned safety-pen.

Was it Jefferson that said “Those who would trade Freedom for Security deserve neither”

The Weaponizers show I shot for the Discovery channel is out on the eleventh. I finally saw the preview and i am really excited. Rob and Simon did a great job editing. Really the crew I worked with was, without exception a fine group of human beings. Really remarkable people and very professional. I hope my contributions prove to be of the same caliber, pun intended. More on this later.